The Interior Teacher

All of the early Christian writers stressed the importance of teaching and learning the truth about God—not just through liturgy and preaching, but also through formal training (catechesis) and informal reflection on Scripture and moral life. They firmly believed that this knowledge has the power to change lives for the better. St Augustine of Hippo thoroughly developed a theory of learning, which he expressed in a number of works, including The Teacher. For him, learning happens only if we are taught by the one true Teacher: an inner teacher who knows us better than we know ourselves because this Teacher is also our Creator and Redeemer.

Augustine thought that human teachers can be useful instruments of God—that’s why he worked so hard as a teacher himself. But teachers—even at their best—can offer only an opportunity for learning; they cannot guarantee that learning is achieved. Actually learning something requires engagement of the human learner and the interior voice of the divine Teacher, which allows us to recognize truth for ourselves when we encounter it: “He shows you in your heart that what is said is true” (ep. 266.4). As one of his correspondents admits in a letter to Augustine about his lack of progress in learning, “I begin to realize that, for learning other things that I also desire to know, it is not that the teacher is not there for me but that I am not there for the teacher” (ep. 12*).

Although Augustine was a dedicated teacher, he rejoiced when members of his flock advanced in Christian learning to the point that they did not need to depend so much upon his instruction in their spiritual journeys. As he told them, “It is a singular consolation for our labors and perils when you make such progress that you come to the point where you need no human teacher. . . . Hence you should know that I rejoice . . . the less you need to learn not only from me but from any human being” (ep. 266.3–4).

In fact, he tells human teachers who do not aim at their own obsolescence that they are not true teachers: “For the time being you are superior because you are the teacher and [another] is still learning. If you do not wish him someday to be equal to you, he will always be a learner. If this is your desire, you will be an envious teacher; but how then can you be called a teacher at all?” (ep. Ioan. 8.8). In this respect, human teachers resemble human parents—their authority derives from the temporary needs of a dependent, but they aim to transcend that dependence by helping to impart personal empowerment.

Here is where human parents and teachers differ from our divine Parent and Teacher: While we may grow beyond the need of formation and guidance from other human beings, we never outgrow our need for, and dependence upon, our divine inner Teacher and Parent, the one who promises to comfort us as a mother comforts her child (Isaiah 66.13) and to woo us with the beauty of wisdom. Let those who have ears to hear listen to the interior Teacher.