The wisdom in truth
J. Hathaway
- 7 minutes read - 1392 wordsJames E. Faust shared a devotional at BYU in 1993 titled, The Voice of the Spirit. Mormon messages used this talk to create the following message.
Elder Faust shares an impactful quote about light (or truth) being part of our very essence. Signaling that truth is much more than facts.
You will not be able to travel through life on borrowed light. The light of life must be part of your very being.
Elder Faust also quotes T.S. Eliot’s famous lines1 to help us understand the connection between truth, wisdom, knowledge, and information.
Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?
Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?
I hear Elder Faust and T.S. Eliot begging us to understand that knowledge is so much more than knowing. It is the wisdom that comes from the light of truth, changing our very beingness. In my Oh say, What is truth? post I introduced the faith-based pragmatic view of truth. I wanted us to ponder an aspect of truth in our leaders and ourselves that focused on our motivations, potential, and beingness. Now I want to push deeper into the connection between the knower and the known.
On wisdom based knowledge
In this post, I want to take a moment to describe the history lesson embedded in T.S. Eliot’s two lines. How wisdom has been separated from knowledge primarily as a result of academicians desire to share truth separated from having to live the truth to which they purport to be experts. I will quote heavily from ‘Walking in Truth: On Knowing God’ by Ellen T. Charry from the book titled But is it all true? The Bible and the question of truth.
Ellen introduced a new word to my vocabulary when she defined ‘sapiential theology’ as a scholarly way of saying ‘walking in truth.’ I had to look the word up, and its definition enlighted me.
Sapiential or Sapient: Showing, containing, exhibiting, or affording great wisdom
She then introduces the concept of sapiential theology. Here is the driving idea.
The idea that knowing good things makes us good implies continuity between the knower and what she knows. It is not simply to be cognizant of the truth but to be assimilated into it. -Pg. 145-
I have been slowly recognizing this concept that she builds in the above quote. There needs to be ‘continuity between the knower and what she knows’ for truth to exist. I think our everyday language calls those without this continuity hypocrites. However, there are are many cases where there is a lack of continuity that we would not typically label as hypocrisy. Ellen took some time to explain how western cultures shift to academic learning and philosophy began this separation of knowing from the knower. This shift disconnected the learner of theology from trying to find out how s/he should act to facts disconnected from being. I hope you can see this concept in her next two quotes.
Gradually, knowing something to be true took on overtones of acknowledgment and assent to what one judges to be the case rather than being an investment in understanding for the sake of becoming happy, wise, and good. -Pg. 145-
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Theology turned from an interest in the good life, and the wisdom that forms person in it, toward a narrower positivist vision of truth as either correspondence to events and facts or the logic of ideas without remainder. … These powerful forces effectively separated knowledge from the knower and knowledge from goodness. -Pg. 146-
It is not only theology that has had this separation of knowledge from being. Most studies in academia have separated knowledge from being. Some of this separation has been for the good. For example, separating our learning from our being has allowed lot’s of Smiths, Tanners, and Dymonds to be something different than metal workers, leather workers, or dairymen2. However, much of this separation has led to courses and degrees that divest facts without divesting beingness. High schools and Colleges that test standardized knowledge but loose concern about the truth that is carried beyond test day.
I think this concept is important in the impact of extreme catastrophic violence3 in our schools. At some level, it could be violent video games imposing beingness on the child. However, it is the schools that tested knowledge over beingness that have fooled children into thinking that things done are separate from things become. We have created a false belief that actions, knowledge, and wisdom are not intimately intertwined. Ellen has two impactful explanations about information, knowledge, and wisdom.
If knowing well, sometimes gently and sometimes harshly, (trans)forms us through - and even at times into - itself, it is indeed true that knowledge cannot be directed other than toward wisdom or folly. … The knowledge of which we speak here is … what remains in the soul after observation is complete. … These insights nourish and expand us for good or ill. Not merely self-conscious learning, but even information-gathering may have its way with us.
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It is an inadequate argument that sets forth an understanding of knowledge as one in which either knowledge passes through the knower, leaving no trace, or that knowledge is “out there,” merely revealed or disclosed or located by the knower. Rather, strong knowing is a dynamic and interactive process in which both the known and the knower are constantly shaping each other. … Knowing is a spiritual craft or art by means of which the soul grows by God’s grace.
I think it is this intertwining that defines care, compassion, and love. Allowing knowledge and our relationship with knowledge and the giver of the knowledge to grow can help us become from our learning.
I am suggesting here that good knowing is to be taught by what one seeks to know. This is a moral and communal art that requires well-developed instincts and tendencies. When done well, it shapes the soul for a wise, good, and productive life. Good knowing is sapiential; it is only possible by divine grace. Therefore, a fuller way of talking about knowing will be to speak of it so that the skills and strengths of the soul are recognized. Learning happens in the soul. Locating knowing in the soul enables us not only to reconnect the knower with the known but also to see the connection between truth and goodness. … Knowledge is strong and better - that is, truer - to the degree that one’s soul, and that of others, is enhanced or damaged by it. - Pg. 166 and 167 -
When we understand knowledge this way, we can come to feel the love of God and others with a unique richness. I love Ellen’s description love [and knowledge] changing our smell.
Love is not simply an emotion but is the presence of the beloved in the lover. Love leaves the fragrance of itself in the soul, just as sitting beside a glowing fire leaves its aroma on one’s clothes, or embracing someone wearing perfume leaves a trace on one’s body.
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Something like absorbing the aroma of God is what the tradition means by contemplating divine things. Contrasting it with action is quite impossible, for once grace turns our face toward something, extracting the goodness that we can from it takes hard work, including strenuous preparation. - Pg. 166 and 167 -
Conclusion
God may be unlike anything else that we will ever know, but knowing him is not unlike other things that we know. -Pg. 169-
I have felt this truth over the last five years. God expects us to have Him as the light within us. One way to put His fire at our center is to realize that learning happens in the soul. Thinking of learning as wisdom development will help me understand that learning is demonstrated by beingness, not by a grade on a test. Learning is measured by the light that emanates from the being. Or as Ellen taught, by the smell that we take upon ourselves.
When we see truth as wisdom, we can come to understand the truth in Jesus’ declaration - ‘I am the way and the truth and the life’3. We can follow Him and be wise. We can follow Him and use our wisdom to have eternal life.