Wisdom Tradition – See with New Eyes
Part Two
Where Is Wisdom to be Found?
by Charles Strohmer
Wisdom is sweet to your soul; if you find it, there is a future hope for you. Proverbs 24:14
We noted in part one that wisdom is both a divine gift and a human task. In this world, however, where work is, well, work, it is easy to shoulder off on to others responsibilities for tasks we have been given. So in this short part two, I thought it might be good simply to note from the literature some aspects of life in the old-world Middle East where the agency of wisdom was recognized as prominent. Perhaps by seeing where others have applied wisdom we may be inspired to shoulder more of our own responsibilities to seek wisdom in the world and for our own fields.
Truth be told, the task is terribly paradoxical, for, as the literature explains, wisdom is not a “thing” that can be found even by excavating deeply hidden places (Job 28:12-14). Neither can wisdom be bought, even with the finest gold (Job 28:15-19). Nor is it an abstract quality or idea, or an ideology (see part one, Proverbs 8). Wisdom, then, seems unobtainable, at least through the means whereby we ordinarily obtain things. And yet the literature claims that wisdom can be sought, known, and practiced.
The world
Let’s begin with “the seen world” as its own category. Throughout history, philosophers and theologians alike have attempted to explain, each according to their own lights, the agency through which the material world exists. This is not the place to review that complicated field or the contradictory answers that have been posited. What I want to highlight is an answer usually overlooked by religious communities, including Christian ones.
To a question such as “How did the world get here?”, Christians would reply “God created it.” If you pressed them for more information and asked how God did it, they would most likely say “God spoke it into existence by his word,” or “God made it through Jesus Christ.” Or Christian philosophers, employing specialized language from their field, might say “Christ is the Logos of creation.”
And so on. In the Hebrew Bible and Christian Old Testament, however, wisdom itself is seen as an essential agency to the founding the world (Jeremiah 10:12; 51:15; see also Psalm 104:24; Prov. 3:19).
This cardinal point is expanded in numerous places, especially in the wisdom Book of Job (28:12-29), in the entire chapter of Proverbs 8 (see part one), and in the book of Isaiah the prophet (28:23-29). These long passages carry far too many salient ideas to unpack in this review, but three are key: a) that wisdom was present as an agent in what God created, b) that God sustains the created order by wisdom, and c) that human collaboration with wisdom helps sustain the world.the agency of wisdom in the founding of the world has been a neglected conversation among religious communities
Although the agency of wisdom in the founding of the world has been a neglected conversation among religious communities, it is one of the most thoroughly debated topics of wisdom scholarship, and a subject that can get quite complicated. For all of that, I see a really simple thought, profound in its implications, flourishing in the idea of wisdom’s role in nature: God was thinking and acting like any good artist.
To create a masterpiece an artist must first imagine, have a vision of, what it is that he or she wants to produce. I realize that all analogies break down at some point, but it seems to me that the world – a masterpiece of creative genius – must first have originated in the divine imagination. (Anyone looked recently at that iconic photograph of the earth from space, often called The Blue Marble?) Like Michelangelo before he put that first brush stroke on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, or Bach before he played a note of his first Brandenburg Concerto, God, to put it crudely, first worked out in his mind what he wanted to produce and how it would be produced and sustained. This a priori visioning of end results by an artist seems inescapably part of the activity of wisdom when it is described in the literature as being with God before the world was (Prov. 8:22-30).
Wisdom, then, has not been left to gather dust on blueprints in heaven, any more than Michelangelo’s art or Bach’s music was left in their heads. Their art is in the world. As their gift to us, we can see it and hear it. And those who are skilled enough can paint it or play it. Similarly, wisdom is imminent in nature – which “speaks” to all peoples everywhere (Psalm 19) about itself – as part of the gift from the Artist who gave us the world. As John Peck and I wrote in Uncommon Sense, “When you look out on the world and touch it and use it, you are touching God’s own heart and mind. All the way through it you are touching a product of God’s character” (p. 48).
Science
Wisdom, we may say, is essential to the stability and order of the natural world, which doesn’t exist like a cat and dog fighting or a jar of nitroglycerin. Rather, there is a consistency to it, so that the same rules and laws govern this earth as govern the farther reaches of the galaxy. It might surprise some people who work in the natural sciences today to learn that wisdom is essential to the way the physical world, with all its multifarious facets and complex intricacies, works. Nevertheless, one source of wisdom comes from studying the physical world and its phenomena, a field of seeking to understand the created order of things that used to be known as natural philosophy. Of course, when the topic of wisdom in the created world appears in the literature, the science described is rudimentary, as in 1 Kings 4:29-34. But to say it is rudimentary it not to say that it was wrong or even that is has become out-dated. After all, even Einstein had to begin with basic math and Bach with five-finger piano drills.
The passage in First Kings celebrates Solomon’s international reputation for wisdom. Solomon is said to have had more wisdom and insight than the sages of the East and of Egypt. His prodigious output of proverbs and songs are noted, as is his practical wisdom and his keen judicial wisdom for deciding courses of action. The language, however, also emphasizes Solomon’s wide breadth of understanding in natural philosophy. He “described” the plant life of the region, from the largest trees (cedars of Lebanon) to the smallest shrubs (hyssop), and he “taught about” beasts, birds, reptiles, and fish, the four principle classes whereby the Israelites understood the animal kingdom. It may be difficult to appreciate the international, Nobel-like acclaim that Solomon received until we recognize that he lived in a time when the sages of Egypt and of the East were renowned for their wisdom in the areas in which Solomon, evidently, stood head and shoulders above, and even above the sages of his homeland (Eccl. 1:16). His fame for wisdom was indeed celebrated, as the Hebrew language of 1 Kings 4:31 indicates.Wisdom is imminent in the world and may be sought and found there
As an aside, I have often wondered what might be found if we approached Francis Bacon (1561-1626) from this direction. His method of induction, for which he was celebrated, might make a fascinating research project for some enterprising souls in the context of wisdom in the natural sciences. We have a few clues. We know that Bacon, who entered Trinity College at age 12(!), strongly objected to the highly abstract forms of knowledge (Aristotelianism and Scholasticism) that influenced the Medieval period, and that his method of induction was meant to help Europeans produce an alternative to that. He sought a more personal and comprehensive relation to nature via a systematic hands-on approach in which knowledge would be derived and built up from the multitude of people’s practical studied experiences of the natural world. And from these experiences general laws of nature would be developed and employed. “Nature can only be commanded by being obeyed,” was Bacon’s lovely way of putting it.
Evidently this was not, in his mind, meant to be an exercise in selfish ambition or mercenary exploitation. Significantly, when one was discovered, a law of nature was to be employed in a holy manner as we develop our science. This was Bacon’s own language, by which he meant that the natural world must be approached with humility; that is, we begin by not knowing and proceed by studying from the creation what God has actually wrought in it. Further, our science should produce works motivated by charity. Knowledge gained, he said, ought to be used to serve others, to alleviate human suffering, increase human well-being. Such an attitude aptly describes, albeit in rudimentary fashion, the way of investigation and cultivation of the earth that the Book of Genesis (2:15) insists on as the organizing principle of and for human work in the world – good stewardship (management).
I don’t mean to romanticize Francis Bacon. The man wasn’t a saint. But this is the man who, in his essay “Of wisdom for a man’s self,” wrote that wisdom used for selfish interests “is a depraved thing.” And in The New Atlantis, his work of fiction, he named his ideal college “Solomon’s House,” which was “the noblest foundation (as we think) that ever was upon the face of the earth…, dedicated to the study of the works and creatures of God.”
So, Wisdom is imminent in the world and may be sought and found there, reminding us by its discoveries of the responsibilities we have been given to search for wisdom in the world and apply it, as Christians would say, to the glory of God.
