“Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.”
- John 17:3
I’ve been spending a fair amount of time lately, reading and learning about the process of research and the apparatus of scholastic knowledge, and I’ve come to wonder about the value of academic knowledge. One book I read said that gaining knowledge was the highest purpose of mankind. The religious nature of these words gave me pause. Is gaining knowledge really the highest purpose of mankind? I think that might be a true statement if we are discussing the right kind of knowledge.
“He that breaks a thing to find out what it is has left the path of wisdom.”
- J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring
Tolkien’s words here draw a sharp divide between the kind of intellectual, scientific knowledge which is exalted in our day and time and wisdom. There is a kind of knowing that dissects the world, that considers nothing sacred, that treats all mysteries as gaps to be filled, that does away with wonder and disregards beauty. This kind of knowledge is meant to conquer and control, to take control of the world to use it for our purposes.
“The motive that impels modern reason to know must be described as the desire to conquer and dominate. For the Greek philosophers and the Fathers of the church, knowing meant something different: it meant knowing in wonder. By knowing or perceiving one participates in the life of the other. Here knowing does not transform the counterpart into the property of the knower; the knower does not appropriate what he knows. On the contrary, he is transformed through sympathy, becoming a participant in what he perceives.”
- Jurgen Moltmann, The Trinity and the Kingdom
Truthfully, I think scholastic knowledge can walk the path of wisdom, can engage in the knowing that does not conquer but instead participates in that which it receives if scholarly knowledge is guided by a greater purpose. We are meant to know God and to know God is to be known by God. We can never acquire knowledge of God. We are only ever given knowledge about Him from Him. In the same way, we must receive knowledge of His world with humility, not in the effort to exalt ourselves and our wisdom, but to receive greater knowledge of Him and greater participation in His Kingdom. The knowledge of wisdom binds us together in love with creation, each other, and God Almighty, and opens us further to receive in wonder the fathomless love of our Savior.
Blessings,
Michael Kennedy