Philosophy

Mission Statement

To advance the dual propositions that Jesus Christ is Lord over every area of life and thought and that man’s chief end is to 'glorify God and enjoy Him forever,' Tri-City Christian Academy strives to guide students in academic achievement and in Christian character maturation, as these aspirations are derived and articulated from the Word and Sacrament ministries of the Church Universal.
 

Education and Christianity 

Education is inescapably a religious concept. Regardless of the educational environment (government school, Christian or secular private school, or home school), at root are stated or unstated religious presuppositions about God and man that justifies and advances the educational agenda. Religion, after all, is nothing more than an attempt by man to identify the ultimate source of Law; that is, what, or who, determines in an absolute sense what is morally right and what is wrong. Observes Christian theologian and philosopher Cornelius Van Til, "The question of knowledge is an ethical question at root. It is indeed possible to have a theoretical knowledge about God without loving God. The Devil illustrates this point. Yet what is meant by knowing God in Scripture is knowing and loving God: this is true knowledge of God: the other is false." ¹Christians believe that Christianity is the only "true" way to know God because Christianity alone correctly identifies the source of all Law as the Triune God of the Bible. Christian education, therefore, seeks to understand the facts of the world, not as independent, unrelated, random events existing in a moral vacuum, but in terms of man's relationship to the one and only Creator of all the facts of the universe, the God of the Bible.
 
We say, then, that all education is inescapably religious, because all education points men toward or away from the ultimate source of Law. Humanist-Statist education points men away from God. Chris-tian education points men to God. Humanist-Statist education denies God. Christian education affirms Him. We say as well that there is no neutrality in education, just as there is no neutrality concerning one's religious convictions. What we know of the so-called "facts" of the universe are, at best, interpre-tations, and our interpretations of the facts must and will be based on the fundamental philosophic and religious presuppositions we bring to the investigative process. Having "filtered" and "adjusted" the facts to fit a preconceived idea of the way the world is, our conclusions can't help but be influenced by what we already believe to be true. But the Bible clearly says that there can be no neutrality, that we are not free to "adjust" the facts, that all men are either "with" God or "against" Him, and that all men are regarded by God as covenant-keepers or covenant-breakers. The role of Christian education is to ac-knowledge (presuppose) the existence of God, and allow the "facts" of the universe to follow, to His glory. There is no fact of the universe existing independent of God, just as there can be no true knowl-edge without first presupposing the existence of God. Every atom of the universe exists as the personal handicraft of God. If education is the imparting of facts we believe to be true, Christian education uniquely begins by acknowledging, and honoring, the all-powerful, all-knowing Triune God of the Bible. Because what we think we know we can only truly know by first knowing Him. "A state curriculum," writes theologian R.J. Rushdoony, "to be true to itself must teach statism. A Christian curriculum to be true to itself must in every respect be Christian."²
Conclusion
 
Grammar, composition, mathematics, civics, government, the Constitution, science, music, foreign languages, all have as their starting point the sovereign God of the Bible. Every fact of every discipline of learning begins, and ends, with the Creator of all things. Man, truly, is alienated from God, but through the covenant of grace man has been restored. Christian education, rooted in the sovereignty of God and in the infallibility and trustworthiness of His revealed law-word, rejects as suicidal the futile "babble" of autonomous man. True and lasting liberty is possible only to the degree that we are willing to ascribe to God the ultimacy He deserves, and to the extent we are willing to look beyond ourselves as the measure of all things and, in faith, believe and obey His every word.