Wednesday, February 18, 2015
Wisdom is Ageless
A Christianity Today article, aptly titled "Why We Need 'Dinosaurs' Like C. S. Lewis" by Art Lindsley says:
Knowledge invented atomic energy. It requires wisdom to know when and when not to use it.
Knowledge progresses, wisdom is ageless. Wisdom serves as a boundary for knowledge. Wisdom tells us somethings are not worth the knowing. When God forbade Adam and Eve to eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, He gave them wisdom. They chose knowledge.
What do you choose?
knowledge progress wisdom
Who could be against "progress" or "development"? Only someone, like Caspian, who has realized that some things progress and develop in the wrong direction. And one of the great gifts of C. S. Lewis was his well-honed suspicion of progress.When I was a young man I studied and studied. I often knew scripture better than by Bible Study leaders. I read Bonhoeffer my freshman year in high school and it cause endless embarrassment to my small group leader who had not. I was not trying to play one-up-manship, I was just sharing what I was learning, but the leader got pretty annoyed. It got ugly. I had progressed in my knowledge, but I had not progressed in my wisdom. It is only with the wisdom of age that I can see my mistake.
"We all want progress," he wrote in Mere Christianity.But progress means getting nearer to the place you want to be and if you have taken a wrong turning, then to go forward does not get you any nearer. If you are on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; and in that case, the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive man. We have all seen this when we do arithmetic. When I have started a sum the wrong way, the sooner I admit this and go back and start over again, the faster I shall get on. There is nothing progressive about being pigheaded and refusing to admit a mistake. And I think if you look at the present state of the world, it is pretty plain that humanity has been making some big mistakes. We are on the wrong road. And if that is so, we must go back. Going back is the quickest way on.Indeed, Lewis was not afraid to be called old-fashioned or outdated.
Knowledge invented atomic energy. It requires wisdom to know when and when not to use it.
Knowledge progresses, wisdom is ageless. Wisdom serves as a boundary for knowledge. Wisdom tells us somethings are not worth the knowing. When God forbade Adam and Eve to eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, He gave them wisdom. They chose knowledge.
What do you choose?
knowledge progress wisdom
