|
What is involved in the pursuit of truth and wisdom?
An ancient fable from Persia tells of the story of a philosopher asking
to be taken across the river by a fisherman. Over the course of the journey
the philosopher boasts of his many qualifications and vast stores of knowledge.
The humble fisherman is thoroughly impressed by his passenger, but when
a sudden storm approaches, is shocked to discover that of all knowledge
that the philosopher has acquired in life he lacks one integral piece — the ability to swim.
The Gospel of St. Matthew offers us an equally interesting paradigm about
the usefulness and purpose of knowledge. A scene is carefully painted
before us of Christ the Teacher, a man of transparent character, standing
in stark contradiction to the dark and cloudy figures of the Pharisees.
Christ exclaims: "I bless you, Father, Lord
of heaven and earth, for hiding these things from the learned and the
clever and revealing them to little children". (Matthew
11: 25-26)
Too often these words have been taken to mean that Christ is promoting
an inverse relationship between faith and education, that in some way
only the naïve or the unlearned are most worthy of the kingdom of
heaven; that in some way, ignorance is indeed bliss. But is this what
is actually being said?
A fourth century Patriarch, St. John Chrysostom
offers us a different perspective on this theme as part of his collection
of homilies on Marriage and Family Life. Chrysostom, like many of the
Church fathers of his age, had been the recipient of an excellent secular
education. This education, in particular in the area of rhetoric and philosophy,
had given the early Church an inspired mouthpiece by which to resound
its message. Chrysostom and other Fathers spoke not only with the language
of the Gospel, but with the knowledge of the ages, the secular and the
sacred both used to educate others about the Truth of the Gospel.
An education should be balanced…
According to Chrysostom an education should be balanced, and give the
individual the skills not only to communicate but to survive within the
world. Yet Chrysostom intimates that there is a distinction between the
quantifiable storing up of knowledge, and the correct means of its use;
a distinction between the mere acquisition of knowledge, for knowledge's
sake, and the pursuit of truth and wisdom. Chrysostom informs us: "bring
our children up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. Don't surround
them with the external safeguards of wealth and fame, for when these fail
— and they will fail — our children will stand naked and defenceless,
having gained no profit from their prosperity, but only injury, since
when those artificial protections that shielded them from the winds are
removed, they will be blown to the ground in a moment."
(Homily 21). Knowledge is good, but love of
the Truth is better, and living the Truth, even better still.
As the great Latin scholar, Saint Thomas Aquinas
tells us in his Summa, the fullness of the Christian life is not only
to know what is right, but to do what is right, and love doing this, it
is in short, the aspiring to, and embracement of — wisdom.
Putting the spirit of the law above the letter of the
law…
Why the first Apostles were commended by Christ in the passage from the
Gospel, was not because they were dull, nor illiterate; we know that Saint
Matthew, being a tax collector, must have had good numeracy, and the fishermen
must have had adequate intellectual powers so as to sell their catch and
operate what was supposedly a profitable enterprise on the shores of the
Sea of Galillee. Christ however honours his Apostles on the basis that
they, being poorly educated, have not succumbed to the classic folly of
pride nor have placed the arbitrary knowledge of the letter of the law
over its spirit, as the Pharisees did. History tells us of countless examples
of very knowledgeable men and women who have written ardently and well
on matters of principle, only to have lived lives disparate to the quality
of their writings — knowledgeable yet unwise, knowing, but unable
to do. Jean Jacques Rosseau, for one,
an amazingly verbose pioneer in the field of educational psychology, confined
his own children to the walls of an asylum. Such were the Pharisees, men
all too willing to use knowledge as tools to gain power and to shroud
the full meaning of the Scriptures; men unwilling to ensure that these
words are enfleshed in life.
The Ancient Greek philosopher Socrates
is quoted as having said that the highest knowledge which any individual
can possess is the awareness of personal ignorance. The presupposition
of ignorance can be seen as the catalyst for wanting to know and understand
more, without such an awareness, according to Socrates, one can easily
become proud, and in time, know less and less by not wishing to broaden
one's horizons or as Jonathan Swift
wrote: "There is none so blind as they that
won't see". Seeking truth for truth's sake is distinct
from seeking knowledge to overpower your neighbour. The pursuit of knowledge
by the Christian is one which is very much a subset of the love of Truth
and one which must be devoted to the service of others, to share and enlighten.
Knowledge without wisdom, loses its value and is ultimately dangerous.
The search for wisdom is a lifelong journey, carried out equally by farmers
reading the seasons as it is by scholars ploughing the library shelves.
One can never say that one is ever wise, for at that particular moment,
ignorance is fully revealed to all. The best that one can say is that
I know little, but strive to know more, and seek to love even more than
this thirst for knowledge.
Perhaps the learned Saint Paul redounds with an even higher wisdom than
Socrates, when he writes: "Though I command
languages both human and angelic — if I speak without love, I am
no more than a gong booming or a cymbal clashing. And though I have the
power of prophecy, to penetrate all mysteries and knowledge, and though
I have all the faith necessary to move mountains — if I am without
love, I am nothing. Though I should give away to the poor all that I possess,
and even give up my body to be burned — if I am without love, it
will do me no good whatever". (1 Corinthians
13: 1-3).
Love is the key to wisdom, for as St. Athanasius
of Alexandria eerily reminds us, even Lucifer himself could
recite the Creed, for there is nothing in the tenets of this great prayer
that he does not know to be true, however he cannot bring himself to love
the Truth. The getting of wisdom is in essence the spiritual journey to
God, the quest not only to read but to search out passionately the Author.
For this reason Solomon teaches: "For wisdom
is better than jewels; And all desirable things cannot compare with her"
(8:10-11).
|
 Andrew
Thomas Kania is a visiting scholar at Oxford University where
he is completing a book on Dag Hammerskold. He has taken 12 months
leave of absence from his position as Director of Spirituality at
Aquinas College, Manning in Western Australia to complete this book.
Prior to this appointment at Aquinas Dr. Kania was a lecturer for
the School of Religious Education at the University of Notre Dame
Australia as well as for the Catholic Institute of Western Australia
at Edith Cowan and Curtin Universities. Dr. Kania belongs to the
Ukrainian Church and is interested in ecumenical issues as well
as contemporary problems facing religious educators.
|
©2007
Dr Andrew Thomas Kania
[Andrew Kania's Archive]
|
Email
this page to a friend
Print
friendly view
Post
your feedback in our forum
