One of the oldest philosophical questions (and it has real implications for education) is the question of the many and the one. Simply put, is the universe made up of many different parts with no apparent relationship to each other (the many) or is the universe fundamentally of the same substance, lacking distinction between its parts (the one)?

The writer/poet Peter Saint-Andree explains the how the problem works out in people's lives. After humorously describing how many different names exist for clusters of animals (herd, school, pride, etc.), he ends the poem with a sobering note:

What can we learn from animal terms against which you may rail,
From teams of horses and ducks, from coveys of partridge and quail?
The question, I’m sure, is on the tip of your tongue:
Am I just a part of a swarm or clan,
Mere member of a coterie?
Or perhaps, perhaps, am I a man-
Alone, myself, uniquely me?

If the universe is many and there is no unity among its parts, Saint Andree was right – we are alone, disconnected, and alienated. This is the solution the existentialists and nihilists offer. No wonder there is such a sense of despair today.

But if the universe is one, with no real distinction among its parts, we lose any ability to distinguish things. Is courage any different than cowardice? Is justice different than oppression? Is right different from wrong? Even worse, is a person essentially the same as a horse? Or a rock? As strange as it sounds, this is the natural outworking of the pantheists and new agers.

As it turns out (surprise, surprise) Christianity offers the best description of reality and the solution to this problem. If all reality flows from the person of God, and that God is triune, wouldn’t we expect reality to mirror that triune nature? The solution to the problem of the many and the one is the mystery of the three-in-one God. The divine nature displays a unity in multiplicity (and a multiplicity in unity) that we cannot easily comprehend but that we know is true. If God designed the universe to glorify himself, it is natural that we would see the same dynamic between unity and multiplicity in it as in his own nature. If we affirm only his unity, we Islamicize him. If we affirm only his multiplicity, we Hellenize him. It is dangerous to ignore one or the other aspect of his nature. The same is true of the created world.

How does this idea affect our teaching? I believe it has implications for every grade level and every content area. Consider these examples.

Curriculum design: How exactly do we divide the curriculum? If there is a unity to truth, should there really be a difference between a theology class and a biology class? Or between and art class and a math class? Nearly everyone would recognize these as different spheres but still there is the urge to reintegrate them. How do we go about integrating (uniting) our curriculum while still recognizing its different (multiple) spheres? How do we keep our instruction from becoming a jumble of disjointed and unrelated facts (multiplicity with no unity); or a thinly developed generalization with no distinctions (unity with no multiplicity).

Biology: What is the human relationship to other living organism? Do humans have a place in biological classification or are the completely distinct from the animal kingdom?

Sociology: How are issues of race and ethnicity to be approached? How are different sovereign nations to relate to each other?

Mathematics: How do the whole and the parts fit together? How are addition (composition into one unit) and subtraction (decomposition into many units) related?

Discipline: How do you deal with a student as an individual but also within the context of a larger group?

The point is not to provide illustrations of the trinity. Just like a three leaf clover (or any other such illustration) fails to thoroughly describe the trinity, so do any we can pull from our curriculum. The point is to begin thinking how we can use trinitarian thinking to address important content knowledge issues so that our students begin to understand a biblical solution to an ancient problem.