What Some People Say About
Wisdom
I have collected here a
wide spectrum of definitions oft wisdom. I agree with many of these statements.
Some, however, I’ve included because they illustrate what I consider to be
misconceptions. You will find contradictions. Read carefully and understand
“the dark sayings of the wise.”
Wisdom is a way of looking at life, a way based upon
observation.
The genius of wisdom is that it announces conclusions
reached not arbitrarily or by special revelation, but at the end of experience.
“This is the way life works” is its stock and trade. Thus, wisdom moves from
examination of partial data to declaration of general conclusions.
(Johnson, L.D., Israel’s Wisdom:
Learn & Live)
Wisdom is nothing more nor less
than a set of ideas, an attitude toward life. It enables one to live a life of
meaning and of happiness.
(Bergant, What are They Saying about Wisdom Literature)
Wisdom is pure, peaceable; it loves; it is gentle, easy to
be entreated. A life of piety is wisdom.
(Robertson, Studies in
the Epistle of James)
Wisdom is the right use of knowledge. To know is not to be
wise. Many men know a great deal, and are all the greater fools for it. There
is no fool so great a fool as the knowing fool. But to know how to use
knowledge is to have wisdom.
(C. H. Spurgeon)
God’s wisdom is knowing what to do
and when to do it.
Often, the most effective teachers in our schools are those
with the least training or education. They are the ones who most humbly see
that they lack, and that they need for God to give them wisdom.
(David Gibbs, Adding
Wisdom to Your
Wisdom is not intellect.
Wisdom is the ability to apply knowledge correctly.
Wisdom involves the use of heuristic strategies.
There is godly wisdom and there is ungodly wisdom.
(Dr. Sidney Cates,
Developing Wisdom in Your
All truth is God’s truth
(Dr. Gunter Salter, “Philosophy of Education,” class at
The Bible is our only source of truth
(Paul Jantz, Comments to Calvary
Baptist Church, December 29, 1991)
Wisdom is being able to distinguish between means and ends.
(Jim Berg, Personal Conversation)
To be mighty in spirit means that we build walls that guard
our mind from certain content. This is contrary to the philosophy of those who
try to be mighty in intellect. To them all knowledge is God’s knowledge. But to
the one mighty in spirit, knowledge in the mouth of fools is as destructive as
poison in the mouth of a man.
(Bill Gothard, “A New Approach to
Learning” in Character Sketches)
The Bible also tells us that there are two kinds of wisdom:
divine and human. Note
Wisdom is the fear of the Lord.
All Christians should be lovers of knowledge—true knowledge,
that is. However, there is a wisdom or knowledge that is false. You will note
that Paul here [
(Frank Hamrick, Proverbs . . .the fountain of life, Positive Action for Christ Bible Curriculum)
Let it be assumed that the states by virtue of which the soul possesses truth by way of affirmation or denial are five in number, i.e. art, scientific knowledge, practical wisdom, philosophic wisdom, intuitive reason; we do not include judgement and opinion because in these we may be mistaken.
Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics,
Book VI, 3
Now it is thought to be the mark of a man of practical wisdom to be able to deliberate well about what is good and expedient for himself, not in some particular respect, e.g. about what sorts of thing conduce to health or to strength, but about what sorts of thing conduce to the good life in general. This is shown by the fact that we credit men with practical wisdom in some particular respect when they have calculated well with a view to some good end which is one of those that are not the object of any art. It follows that in the general sense also the man who is capable of deliberating has practical wisdom.
Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics,
Book VI, 5
Wisdom must plainly be the most finished of the forms of knowledge. It follows that the wise man must not only know what follows from the first principles, but must also possess truth about the first principles. Therefore wisdom must be intuitive reason combined with scientific knowledge-scientific knowledge of the highest objects which has received as it were its proper completion.
Of the highest objects, we say; for it would be strange to think that the art of politics, or practical wisdom, is the best knowledge, since man is not the best thing in the world. Now if what is healthy or good is different for men and for fishes, but what is white or straight is always the same, any one would say that what is wise is the same but what is practically wise is different; for it is to that which observes well the various matters concerning itself that one ascribes practical wisdom, and it is to this that one will entrust such matters. This is why we say that some even of the lower animals have practical wisdom, viz. those which are found to have a power of foresight with regard to their own life. It is evident also that philosophic wisdom and the art of politics cannot be the same; for if the state of mind concerned with a man's own interests is to be called philosophic wisdom, there will be many philosophic wisdoms; there will not be one concerned with the good of all animals (any more than there is one art of medicine for all existing things), but a different philosophic wisdom about the good of each species.
Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, Book VI, 7
[According to Plato] The gods do not approve of man's trying to seek out what they did not wish to reveal, the things in heaven and beneath the earth. A pious man will therefore not investigate the divine things but only the human things, the things left to man's investigation. It is the greatest proof of Socrates' piety that he limited himself to the study of the human things. His wisdom is knowledge of ignorance because it is pious and it is pious because it is knowledge of ignorance. . . . It also remains true that human wisdom is knowledge of ignorance: there is no knowledge of the whole but only knowledge of parts, hence only partial knowledge of parts, hence no unqualified transcending, even by the wisest man as such, of the sphere of opinion. This Socratic or Platonic conclusion differs radically from a typically modem conclusion according to which the unavailability of knowledge of the whole demands that the question regarding the whole be abandoned and replaced by questions of another kind, for instance by the questions characteristic of modern natural and social science. [emphasis added]
Strauss, Leo. The City and Man. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1964. pp. 20-21. See Xenophon, Mem. I 1.11-16; IV 3.16, 6.1-4 and 7.6. Plato, Apol. Soc. 19b4-c8, 20d7-e3, 23a5-b4; Phaedo 99d4ff.; Phaedrus 249e4-5.
What is becoming to a
city is manpower, to a body beauty, to a soul wisdom,
to an action virtue, to a speech truth.
Gorgias, Encomium of Helen
The wise is known by his wisdom,
The great by his good actions;
His heart matches his tongue,
His
lips are straight when he speaks.
The Instruction of Ptahhotep
But when a predestined order is recognized in so many quasi-permanent features of society, when actuality, in so far as it is traditional, receives a moral sanction, all rules of conduct become practical rules. There can be no contrast between savoir-faire—worldly wisdom—and ethical behavior. Conceptions which we distinguish as contrasts thus turn out to be identical for the Egyptian; statements of his, which have for us a pragmatic ring, appear to be transfused with religious reverence [emphasis added].
“A distinction between religious and secular is not applicable to Old Testament wisdom teaching . . . One cannot deny that the Israelite distinguished between the two but they are not separated as independent areas.”
Murphy, “Wisdom—Thesis and Hypothesis,” 40.
“There is no room for a distinction between theology and philosophy, between revelation and reason, or dogma and ethics.”
Murphy, “Assumptions,” 140.
Scott also points out that “the line between wisdom and knowledge was not so sharply drawn in Ancient Israel as with the Greek philosophers and with us.”
R.B.Y. Scott, 3.
Burkert finds the same things in all the ancient Near East saying that high literature such as sacred texts and “practical incantations come together on the same level, at any rate in the East.”
Burkert 125.
“At its most basic level, ‘wisdom’ meant recognizing
horizontal and vertical relationships and dealing constructively with them.”
(Barre, 1981)
“The basic premise on which wisdom operates is that the
world is an orderly universe. Humanity finds itself in a world in which the
structures of meaning and meaningfulness have already been laid down. Therefore
we must accept the order and live accordingly and master the art of integration
into the order. Those who do are wise; those who don’t are foolish.”
(Barre, 1981)
“The notion of a fixed, eternal righteous order does compare
favorably with the biblical meaning of ‘wisdom’.” It is not just “’the
practical application of knowledge’”, but a “broad theological concept denoting
a fixed righteous order to which the wise man submits his life.”
(Waltke, 1979)
“Man in the world is given life by God and called to live
this life in accordance with his nature as God’s creature, with the nature of
the world as God’s creation, and with the nature of his experience as God’s gift.”
(Goldingay, 1979)
“Observation, the collection and synthesizing of data, are
procedures that lie at the heart of the wisdom tradition.” They are
technological in that they were “aimed at the practical task of control of
life, mastery of environment, the successful undertaking of a job.”
(Johnstone, 1967)
“Thus wisdom in
(Scott, p. 22.)
“Truth becomes unified in with a fear of God. The stark
contrasts of life point man to God, nothing will be resolved without Him.”
(Kaiser, 1978)
“Paul has tipped the balance away from wisdom as a body of
revealed truth in the direction of wisdom as divinely imparted attitude of
mind.”
(Caird, 1981)
“The wisdom of the OT however, is quite distinct from other
ancient world views although the format of wisdom literature is similar to that
of other cultures. Reflected in OT wisdom is the teaching of a personal God who
is holy and just and who expects those who know Him to exhibit His character in
the many practical affairs of life. This perfect blend of the revealed will of
a holy God with the practical experiences of life is also distinct from the
speculative wisdom of the Greeks. The ethical dynamic of Greek philosophy lay
in the intellect; if a person had perfect knowledge ho could live the good life
(Plato). Knowledge was virtue. The emphasis of OT wisdom was that the human
will, in the realm of practical matters, was to be subject to divine causes. Therefore,
Hebrew wisdom was not theoretical and speculative. It was practical, based on
revealed principles of right and wrong, to be lived out in daily life.”
(Theological Wordbook of
the Old Testament)
“Now, before discussing poetic wisdom, it is necessary for
us to see what wisdom in general is. Wisdom is the faculty which commands all
the disciplines by which we acquire all the sciences and arts that make up
humanity. Plato [in his Alcibiades I, l24Eff?]
defined wisdom as the ‘perfecter of man.’ Man, in his
proper being as man, consists of mind and spirit,
or, if we prefer, of intellect and will. It is the function of wisdom to
fulfill both these parts in man, the second by way of the first, to the end
that by a mind illuminated by knowledge of the highest institutions, the spirit
may be led to choose the best. The highest institutions in this universe are
those turned toward and conversant with God; the best are those which look to
the good of all mankind. The former are called divine institutions, the latter
human. True wisdom, then, should teach the knowledge of divine institutions in
order to conduct human institutions to the highest good. “
(Giambattista Vico,
The New Science, p. 110)
“In fact, wisdom itself is nothing but the skillful care of
what is fitting, which enables the wise man to speak and act in every new
situation in such a way that nothing equally apt for the purpose could derived
and adapted from elsewhere. Consequently, the wise man has a mind disciplined
by such long and frequent practice upon right a useful things that he receives
the impressions of new situations exactly as they are, and just as he is always
ready to speak and act in dignity in all situations, so also he is brave and
has a mind equally ready for all unexpected terrors.”
(Giambattista Vico,
On the Most Ancient Wisdom of the
Italians, p. 61)
“Qohelet never says “from God’s
point of view” there is a higher order, or a way of seeing things as less
tragic, or some possible meaning. Our author leaves us with a lack of meaning.
God must not be used, lest we make him into the missing piece of the
philosophical puzzle, or into the idealist’s guarantee of consolation in the
face of vanity. Qohelet’s God is never “usable.” But
he is constantly present as contradiction. He even adds to the gravity of our
situation, since, although inaccessible, he remains present! But he is not at
our disposition. “God is in the heavens and you are on the earth” (5:2). This
situation lies at the bottom of the incompatibility, and keeps us from accusing
Qohelet of producing a deus
ex machina or a solution.”
(Ellul, Reason for Being, p. 211)
“Wisdom implies ‘the art of steering.’”
(Johnstone, 1976)
“All wisdom boils down to recognizing vanity.”
(Ellul, Reason for Being, p. 159)
Wisdom is not a way of knowing; it is a state of being.
Wisdom is not having the answers; it’s
knowing how to go on when there are no answers.
Wisdom is doing what you can where you can and letting God
take care of the rest.
Wisdom = work without worry.