Beginning of Wisdom ...

Monday, March 4, 2019. What is it that makes humans wise? Today, we all know that we have gained a lot of understanding of natural processes by science. Sciences means the search and research of humans by thinking, testing, experimenting with nature. So we know that without this search and the experiments we cannot gain a proper understanding of natural processes.

Does science make us wise? Mankind has learned by many experiences that sciences helps to understand particular points of nature. Perhaps more, we gain a quite broad image of how parts of nature work. We do not yet understand many things, but we have a concept for understanding which worked in many cases in the past - and we expect it to help us to gain further insight.

Wisdom and Instruction …

But knowledge alone is not wisdom, and understanding particular elements of nature does not necessarily lead us to wisdom. Here, the biblical texts take up our questions and give us the following input:

1 The proverbs of Solomon, son of David, king of Israel: 2 To know wisdom and instruction, to understand words of insight, 3 to receive instruction in wise dealing, in righteousness, justice, and equity; 4 to give prudence to the simple, knowledge and discretion to the youth— 5 Let the wise hear and increase in learning, and the one who understands obtain guidance, 6 to understand a proverb and a saying, the words of the wise and their riddles. 7 The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and instruction. (from Proverbs 1)

Righteousness and Equity …

(Roland Potthast) ... further texts