I chose to give them a lecture on the Battle of Midway, something I had
done many times before while teaching at the U.S. Air Force Academy.
There were, however, a few differences with this lesson for the
6th graders: 1) our Trinity students were generally more engaged and had more questions than my cadets, and 2) I could teach the whole
truth.
The Battle of Midway goes down in the annals of history as one of the most spectacular and decisive naval victories. Fought against incredible odds, the battle turned the tide of the war for the Americans in the Pacific. For those who know anything of the battle, two reasons may come to mind for this overwhelming victory: good intelligence and luck. On the latter point, the timeline of events reveals an amazing combination of events and factors, most of which were unplanned, that conspired for a five-minute window when two squadrons of U.S. dive bombers, having previously been lost, stumbled upon the Japanese carriers at the precise moment when the carriers were temporarily unprotected by their Zeros and had flight decks covered with aircraft, fuel hoses, and munitions.
It took only five minutes for the dive bombers to destroy three Japanese carriers, and change the course of the war.
Here’s what I mean by teaching the whole truth. When I delivered this lecture at the Air Force Academy, I could only hint at something more substantial and more real than luck. I remember discussing the concept of the “fog and friction” of war. And I could, at most, suggest the idea of providence. But, what I could not do was to connect this bit of history with the author of it, the God of the universe who is sovereign over all things. How satisfying it was for me then to be able to tell our sixth graders the whole truth.
After all, history is HIS-story. As the Westminster Confession says, “God from all eternity, did, by the most wise and holy counsel of His own will, freely, and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass.” So, then, how does that great truth help us understand what happened at Midway? How do the miraculous events of Midway help us understand God’s grand design, the master narrative in His story of redemption? These are questions I could not ask at a secular university, where the concept of luck is uncritically accepted.
At Trinity, we have the freedom to pursue that which is true, good, and beautiful. Jonathan Edwards, a prominent figure in the Great Awakening and often regarded as one of American’s greatest minds, had a similar pursuit and looked to the past for answers. He concluded that "history is the realm where God's beauty and love is enlarged and extended."
Stephen Sprague
Headmaster