Living with Tozer's God

Blogpost #24

Chapter 11

WISDOM OF GOD

 

I never met Carl, at least not personally. But, he sure made my life miserable...me and untold millions of others. And, he has managed to continue to do it for several hundred years. If you've ever been forced to take high school botany or zoology, you've met Carl, too. You know him by the single letter moniker "L." (How many folks have that kind of power in their name...even Michael Jordan needs two letters "MJ." But, Carl doesn't. His full name is Carl Linnaeus. Don't recognize him?

In case you've forgotten, he's the guy who decided that Adam's work in the garden naming all the animals didn't quite meet the needs of modern science, so he created a whole new system using "binomial nomenclature." This project must have been funded by a government grant...that's the only reason you need $3 words to say "two names," first and last. But, that's what Carl Linnaeus did when he created the botanical version of the Dewey Decimal System for the world of organic science.

It also resulted in countless sleepless nights for millions of students trying to memorize the kingdom, phyllums, and classes, etc., for a staggering number of plants and animals! Why did Carl do it? Did he just hate kids? To make matters worse, he did it in Latin and Greek! Every high schooler would claim this has all the marks of a demonic conspiracy.

In fairness to Carl, his motives weren't sinister and he likely wasn't trying to ruin our lives. What motivated him was the need to answer the questions "what is it?" and "where does it fit?" He wanted to know the answer to that question for every living thing! His goal was clarity. As amazing as Adam's task was to name the things God had created, it was too much for Carl to handle. He needed organization and structure and some way to understand how all these things fit together, especially living things. Most of those who work in the related scientific fields feel he did a pretty good job. That is, once they recovered from all the sleepless nights.

WHAT DOES THIS HAVE TO DO WITH THE WISDOM OF GOD?

Whenever we think of wisdom, we have to think of knowledge. We've already seen what it means to have all-knowledge (omniscience). But, while knowledge is good, if you don't use that knowledge wisely, that is, apply it properly, it can be useless (at best), and possibly even destructive.

Order and clarity are essential to accurate understanding and, ultimately, wisdom. Without them, we can't "put all the pieces together," at least not in the right perspective. Our conclusions may sound right, but they won't work in the real world. Linnaeus saw this need; that's why he created a comprehensive system to name and categorize every living thing he could.

One of the most interesting aspects of Carl's system was how he classified man. At first, he chose the term diurnus (meaning man of the day). The distinguishing trait seemed to be that man did his work during the day, but much of the animal world rested during the day and came out at night.

Carl sensed this was inadequate as he wrestled with the questions: Who is man? Where does he fit in? What is it that really distinguishes man? What makes him different from the other animals? The final answer was based on two things: first, he saw that man is the only being that is both "self-aware" (of himself and others) and second, he is able to exercise discerning and discriminating judgment regarding the value and impact of the decisions he would make. In other words, he could reason through many variables in coming to his conclusions and determining his actions. No other living thing could fit into this "category." Man was unique in so many ways.

I don't know how much his strong Lutheran education and upbringing played in this, but whether he realized it or not, Linnaeus was simply saying that the distinguishing trait that makes man so different from all the other beasts is that he is made in the image of God. Linnaeus acknowledged this and renamed man homo sapiens (man of judgment or rational man). God created us in His Image, that is why we can choose to act wisely.

KNOWLEDGE, REASON, AND WISDOM 

There are all kinds of wisdom. There's conventional wisdom, practical wisdom, worldly wisdom, spiritual wisdom, etc. But, the idea in all of these is that we take the best information we have, try to reason through its value, impact, and relevance, and apply it accurately to come up with the best decision or plan of action. As the process is repeated, this knowledge can become wisdom.

That's a long way around saying that 

wisdom is knowing the right thing to do at the right time, 

doing it...and knowing why you did it!

In I Cor. 1, the apostle Paul says that the ancient Greeks "searched for wisdom". What does that mean? What were they searching for? Why did they search for it? Why did they think they were missing something?

The Greek language is a very meticulous language, clearly this is why God chose to use it to write the New Testament. It often has different words to describe the various nuances of similar ideas. A familiar example is love. It has one word philos to describe the brotherly or friendship type of love, the word eros to describe sexual love, then the word agape to describe the sacrificial love of Christ.

In the same way, it has different words to distinguish the varieties and function of knowledge which becomes wisdom. In effect, the Greeks saw wisdom as a triangle. It is built on two pillars. The first word (phronesis) describes practical wisdom; it involves the gathering and understanding of basic real world information. The second word (sunesis) describes what we would think of as discernment, the ability to see how the information fits together with other information, and organizes it so it can be properly understood. This is the basis of our decision-making abilities. You might hear someone use the word "prudent" to describe this, as in a prudent decision.

The ultimate word to describe wisdom in the Greek language was sophia. Augustine called sophia the "knowledge of eternal things." You could call it perfect knowledge and, when acted upon, it would produce wise counsel and decisions. The Scottish N.T. scholar Wm. Barclay summed it up best when he described sophia as "that ultimate knowledge which is nothing else than the knowledge of God."

Interestingly, the Greeks always viewed sophia (wisdom) as essentially bound up with goodness and nobility (= virtuous character).

So, let's put all this together. The Greeks were searching for the wisdom which would contain the perfect knowledge of ultimate, eternal and divine things, where order and structure are perfect and permanent, and where goodness and noble character and virtue are seen in all their perfection. Where is that "wisdom" to be found?

They are found in only one place. 

Jesus Christ.

"And He is the radiance of His glory and the exact representation of His nature, 

and upholds all things by the word of His power." Heb. 1:3a

"For it was the Father's good pleasure for all the fulness to dwell in Him..." Col. 1:19