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At Warner Christian Academy, we have been focusing our instructional training on the key area of teaching for the development of Intellectual Virtues. We’re not just teaching students what to think—we’re helping them learn how to think. We want students to be like the Bereans, who hear what is being taught and then go back, spend some time, and really think deeply into whether or not what they were taught comports with reality, and the Truth of Scriptures.

To do this, requires more than content delivery; it calls for character formation. Our discussions around intellectual virtues—like curiosity, humility, attentiveness, and courage—have revealed a deeper truth: that for every virtue that exists, there’s a VICE on either side that distort the good we’re aiming for.

Take a look at this framework we’ve been using: Note the VIRTUE is listed on the primary bullet point and then the vice of EXCESS listed first underneath with the vice of DEFICIENCY listed second.

• Curiosity
  • Meddling
  • Apathy
• Humility
  • Humblebragging
  • Boastfulness
• Autonomy
  • Arrogance
  • Servility
• Attentiveness
  • Gullibility
  • Dullness
• Carefulness
  • Perfectionism
  • Negligence
• Thoroughness
  • Over-analysis
  • Superficiality
• Open-mindedness
  • Credulousness
  • Cynicism
• Courage
  • Recklessness
  • Cowardice
• Tenacity
  • Stubbornness
  • Indifference

This chart reflects a truth Aristotle recognized centuries ago in his theory of the Golden Mean. In his Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle explained that every virtue lies between two extremes—one of excess, and one of deficiency. Virtue, then, is not found in extremes, but in proper balance and regulation. Courage sits between cowardice and recklessness. Generosity between stinginess and extravagance. Wisdom between naivety and cynicism. The Golden Mean calls us to moderation, discipline, and discernment—to hold fast to what is good without tipping into what is destructive.

We see this with regards to Biblical Worldview. Imagine, if you will, a pole that is sticking STRAIGHT up out of the ground. THAT is the proper worldview to have. Unfortunately, we, as sinful humans, tend to bend that pole one way or the other. After it is finally realized, we get to the opposite side and we push push push with all our might to move the pole in the opposite direction away from the problematic worldview! That’s a good thing! Right until we pass proper and move the pole in the polar opposite direction again creating a skewed worldview. Proper balance and regulation is required.

Now, let’s apply this concept to the biblical account of the Fall in Genesis 3. The historical events of Adam and Eve are often reduced to disobedience, which of course is true, but when viewed through the lens of the Golden Mean, it reveals something deeper. What is revealed is a moment where virtue gave way to vice—not because the desire itself was wrong, but because it became unbalanced—and because Eve attempted to gain this wisdom without God. Rather than receiving Truth from the Source of all Truth, she grasped for it independently. That shift—from trust to self-reliance—is what ultimately broke the harmony, the proper balance and regulation, they were meant to live in.

God had given Adam and Eve tremendous freedom in the garden. Only one boundary existed; the fruit of tree of the knowledge of good and evil. That restriction wasn’t about control; it was an opportunity to practice obedience, trust, and discernment. But when the serpent approached Eve, he didn’t offer her something that looked obviously evil—he offered her something that sounded good…wisdom. “You will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

Eve’s desire for wisdom wasn’t inherently wrong. The problem was in how she pursued it. She pursued Wisdom without God and in violation of God’s command. Wisdom, like every intellectual virtue, demands proper balance and regulation. Think of it this way…we can technically hold true beliefs by believing EVERYTHING we hear. But that opens the floodgates to error and deception. On the flip side, we can avoid all falsehood by believing nothing. But that leaves us with no truth at all. Both are extremes. Neither leads to discernment. True wisdom requires that middle ground. We must be open to truth, but not so open that we abandon discernment. And we must question ideas, but not to the point that we become cynical.

That’s where Eve faltered. Rather than exercising attentiveness and careful discernment, she leaned into gullibility and overreach. Her desire for something good—wisdom—became disordered. She stepped outside the Golden Mean, so to speak. And as a result, she and Adam lost not only their innocence, but the very balance that held Creation together.

Immediately, we see the consequences. Shame replaces trust. Blame replaces unity. Where there was peace, now there is conflict; conflict between humans and God, conflict between one another, conflict within themselves. And the curses that follow reflect this fractured balance; work becomes toil, childbirth becomes pain, the ground itself resists human labor. The entire created order is now operating out of sync.

Even the intellectual virtues we’re working to instill in our students became distorted in that moment. Curiosity becomes meddling. Autonomy becomes arrogance. Tenacity becomes stubbornness. We still long for Truth, for wisdom, for purpose; but our natural compass is off.

But here’s the good news…in Christ, that balance can be restored. Where Adam and Eve failed to trust God, Jesus trusted perfectly. Where they overreached, He submitted. Where they grasped, He surrendered. Jesus modeled what it looks like to live with full virtue—embodying humility without servility, courage without recklessness, openness without gullibility. Through His life, death, and resurrection, we are invited back into the kind of life we were created for: a life of balance, discernment, and flourishing.

At Warner Christian Academy, as we train students and teachers to pursue intellectual virtue, we’re not just shaping good thinkers—we’re helping form wise, grounded, Christlike humans. We’re calling them back to the center, back to the Mean, back to the way of wisdom that reflects the image of God in which we were made.

The Fall teaches us what happens when balance breaks. But the Gospel teaches us that the Mean can be restored—not through our own perfection, but through the perfect example and redeeming work of Christ.

Soli deo Gloria