Hillcrest Students Dive Deep: Dr. Boe Opens Theology Symposium with a Challenge to Think About Thinking

Chapel at Hillcrest felt different this week. The hum of excitement was mixed with the quiet curiosity of students leaning forward, notebooks open, ready to engage. It wasn’t a pep rally or a performance, it was a Theology Symposium, and Dr. Boe had come to do something far more radical than simply lecture: he came to help students think about how they think.

In an age that prizes the new and dismisses the old, Dr. Boe challenged students to recognize what C.S. Lewis once called “chronological snobbery.” Our modern world often looks down on ancient ideas, assuming that anything from centuries ago couldn’t possibly speak to today’s problems. Yet, as Dr. Boe reminded the audience, Hillcrest’s classical Christian model pushes against that trend. “Classic,” he explained, “means something that endures. It has staying power.”

Students were reminded that the thinkers of the past, writers like Lewis, Toffler, and Sire, still shape the way we see the world. Dr. Boe quoted Alvin Toffler’s observation from 1971: “Every person carries in his head a mental model of the world, a subjective representation of external reality.” That model, our “mental map,” guides how we interpret everything we see, hear, and believe.

Through vivid illustrations and questions, Dr. Boe invited students to imagine their minds as a vast filing cabinet, filled with ideas gathered from experience, education, family, and faith. Some ideas are true and close to reality; others are distorted or incomplete. “You don’t think about how you think,” he said, “but the way you think has been shaped by many influences.”

He drew from author E.F. Schumacher’s insight: “When we think, we do not just think. We think with ideas.” Our minds are never blank slates. Every experience, every conversation, every lesson at Hillcrest fills that inner cabinet and shapes the way we reason, believe, and live.

For some students, this imagery made the abstract tangible, a way to see thinking itself. For others, it sparked wonder at how God designed the human mind to grow, connect, and discern truth. And for those who love to reason and question, it offered a framework: our conclusions flow from our presuppositions, what we assume to be true before we even begin an argument.

Dr. Boe then shifted to a foundational theological question: What is ultimate reality? Students explored how people interpret the world differently depending on their worldview. Some, he said, are physicalists, believing that what is real is limited to what can be seen and touched. Others are agnostics, unsure whether anything exists beyond the physical. Still others, polytheists, believe in many gods.

But in the Christian worldview, we affirm a single, supreme, intelligent, and personal Creator; Elohim, Theos, God Almighty, who made the heavens and the earth. Theological study, Dr. Boe reminded students, is not just about collecting ideas about God but about understanding all that pertains to Him: His character, His creation, His revelation, and His relationship with humanity.

The first session of the symposium left students thoughtful. This week’s sessions promise to delve deeper into these timeless truths, guiding students to view the world and themselves through the lens of God’s enduring reality.

“Our worldview,” Dr. Boe concluded, “is the map we live by. The question is: does your map fit what’s really there?”