The Beginning of Wisdom
My father, who passed away in 1973, would have been fascinated by all the technological achievements of the past fifty years. He would have loved the remote controls on televisions, where he could switch back and forth to various football and baseball games without ever having to leave his rocking chair. Without a doubt, he would have subscribed to every college and NFL football package offered.
Technological innovations are amazing, aren’t they? A friend of mine has a wristwatch that shows how far and fast he has gone on his bicycle. It also tells him how many steps he has walked and how many calories he has burned. Our smartphones can do similar functions and even more—we can play games on them, receive breaking news, take photos, send and receive e-mails and text messages, pay bills, and, of course, place and receive calls.
The modern world offers an array of new electronic gadgets each year, with the most intriguing options. Living in the world today is dramatically different than just thirty or even twenty years ago. Not only do we have electronic devices that make life more convenient, but there are electric vehicles that run without gas, surgical procedures that were unthinkable a generation ago, private companies that rocket satellites and astronauts into space, and telescopes that can capture images of our universe not long after its birth. Even the science fiction writer H. G. Wells never envisioned such scientific marvels.
I appreciate the incredible ingenuity of these modern conveniences, and I am often dazzled by the operations they can perform. Whenever I update one of my devices, be it a phone or a computer, there always seems to be a new function that it can perform.
After a few weeks or months, though, regardless of how sophisticated the electronic tool, I begin to take it for granted. I speak to my car computer and tell it to dial a number without giving it a second thought. I stream a media event and it feels mundane. I catch the latest news on my smartphone or find the score of the big game and think nothing of it. The countless inventions and scientific breakthroughs of the modern world become ordinary over time, unremarkable, and eventually cease to dazzle.
Immanuel Kant
But not everything is destined to become routine. Some things never cease to hold our attention or captivate our spirits. They never lose their beauty or fail to create within us a sense of awe. Immanuel Kant, the 18th century philosopher, wrote, “Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and awe, the more often and the more steadily we reflect on them: the starry heavens above and the moral law within.”
Kant was one of the leading thinkers during the Enlightenment and lived on the front edge of significant scientific discoveries, but he was convinced that there are some things that actually grow more magnificent, more revered, more wondrous, the longer we reflect on them. While man-made objects eventually lose their luster, there are heavenly and earthly wonders that never cease to amaze us.
Years ago my wife and I visited the Grand Canyon. We approached the canyon from the south through a forest of pine trees, certainly impressive but nothing to write home about. I began to doubt the worthwhileness of the trip. When we finally entered the Grand Canyon National Park, I still had my doubts. We slowly drove through the park, following the signs, and finally came to a parking lot. Still, I could see nothing unusual.
My wife, who had visited the canyon before, told me that we only needed to walk a few more yards before the Grand Canyon came into view. I stepped out of the car and walked toward a guard rail, muttering under my breath that we should have gone to Disneyland.
Not until I neared the rim did my eyes open wide and my heart pound as though it were going to jump out of my chest. There were no words or pictures that could adequately describe what was before me. I was overwhelmed by the magnificence and vastness of the Grand Canyon, and it almost took my breath away.
To this day, I have never seen anything like it. I stared in disbelief hour after hour at this wonder of God and nature. A park ranger explained to us that he never tired of looking at the canyon. “Each day,” he said, “the canyon has something new to reveal. The way the colors reflect off the canyon’s walls, the changing sky, the valley floor thousands of feet below can all change from one day to the next.” The ranger had worked there for years but the enchantment of the canyon had never lost its magic. The experience never became routine. “It’s a wonder you never get used to,” he told us.
The handiwork of God never ceases to amaze, and what’s more, the world is filled with these wonders of God’s work. The prophet Isaiah reminds us that “The whole earth is full of [God’s} glory” (Isa. 6:3). The word “glory” refers to evidence of God’s presence. We may not be aware of divine presence, but it is there.
A baby’s first steps, a rainbow after a summer storm, a sky full of twinkling stars on a moonless night, the ever changing ocean, birds in flight, and so many other natural wonders stir within us an untiring sense of awe that never grows ordinary. Even when scientist explain these natural phenomena, they never lose their sense of wonder.
Man-made wonders, conversely, sooner or later lose their mystic. We can stand before the Colosseum in Rome or the Great Pyramid in Egypt or admire the Great Wall of China or a modern skyscraper in any major city or a great work of art and be deeply impressed by what human beings can accomplish. But after a while, we move on to something else. Yes, we admire and respect the work, but the more we analyze and dissect it, the more the enchantment begins to disappear.
We are intrigued by innovation and technological advances but our souls hunger for something more lasting, something timeless, and something that will forever touch our spirits. Saint Augustine was well aware of our spiritual need when he wrote, “Our hearts are restless until they rest in Thee.” Within every human heart, there is a longing, a deep yearning, for the transcendent, for that which is beyond us.
Centuries before Augustine, the Hebrew psalmist recognized that the transcendent God alone could satisfy the hunger within our hearts. His words are as true today as they were then: “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” (Ps. 111:10). The word “fear” has often been misunderstood in Scripture, especially by preachers who want to frighten people into heaven. Jonathan Edwards’ famous sermon, “Sinners in the hands of an angry God,” describes God as a punitive Being, who terrorizes people with warnings of eternal damnation in a place of unabated torment.
While the Hebrew word for fear, yirah, can indeed imply “dread,” “anxiety” or “terror,” the word usually refers to “awe” or “reverence.” The psalmist seems to be saying that we are on the right path to acquire wisdom when we live before God with a sense of awe.
The awe or wonder of God is a prelude to learning how to appreciate and use the technologies and inventions of human progress. The awe of God is not the end of wisdom, the psalmist tells us, but just the beginning. Human technology without reverence for the divine leads not to wisdom but to an empty, hopeless, and futile existence. Without wonder, our lives will lack meaning, and we will find ourselves prisoners of the routine, forever searching in vain for that which our hearts long.
