The Greatest Error of "Democratic" Education: The Assumption that Skepticism is Not Biased

"A major fallacy of...skepticism is the assumption that, while religious believers are fatally biased, skeptics are objective and disinterested." James Hitchcock, History of the Catholic Church, 2013.

You cannot leave Christ and the Christian (especially Catholic) cultural heritage out of the equation and presume objectivity. That is a gross bias! It is the bias of atheism. This error had even creeped into theology by way of the historical critical method. But, as Ratzinger has forcefully shown (e.g. Jesus of Nazereth especially volumes one and two) "...we have learned something new about the methods and limits of historical knowledge..."

Knowledge Always Includes the Knowing Mode of the Knower!
“Werner Heisenberg verified in the area of the natural sciences, with his 'Unsicherheitsrelation', [the relation of uncertainty] that our knowing never reflects only what is objective, but is always determined by the participation of the subject as well, by the perspective in which the questions are posed and by the capacity of perception. All this, naturally, is incomparably most true where man himself enters into play and where the mystery of God is made perceptible. Faith and science, Magisterium and exegesis, therefore, are no longer opposed as worlds closed in on themselves. Faith itself is a way of knowing. Wanting to set it aside does not produce pure objectivity, but comprises a point of view which excludes a particular perspective while not wanting to take into account the accompanying conditions of the chosen point of view. If one takes into account, however, that the Sacred Scriptures come from God through a subject which lives continually--the pilgrim people of God--then it becomes clear rationally as well that this subject has something to say about the understanding of the book.” Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, On the 100th anniversary of the Pontifical Biblical Commission “Relationship between Magisterium and exegetes ”May 10, 2003. http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/pcb_documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20030510_ratzinger-comm-bible_en.html.

Saint Thomas Aquinas said that long ago, this way: modus cognitionis sequitur modum naturae rei cognoscentis: the way of knowing follows the natural way of the knower! In other words, one's knowledge is always influenced by one's specific way of being and of knowing. He uses this as a proof for why human beings cannot see the essence of God in this life. (Summa Theologica, I, q. 12, art. 11, corp.)

The twentieth century advances in the science of relativity repeatedly affirm the ancient medieval Catholic wisdom! Would that our educators were more scientific, they would then be more religious, and hence more honest! Close-mindedness (even to Christ, even to Catholicism) is dishonest! We could say that it is a one-sided skepticism which needs to broaden and indeed critical of it's own presuppositions. The problem with the modern skeptic is that he is not skeptical enough, he needs to be wary of his own prejudice against faith and against the immense wisdom contributions of our Christian heritage which must not be ignored or denied!