Ignorance Is Bliss

Accepting what we can know and what we cannot know

02/04/2018

1 Kings 3:4-13 Solomon went to Gibeon to sacrifice there, because that was the most renowned high place. Upon its altar Solomon offered a thousand burnt offerings. In Gibeon the LORD appeared to Solomon in a dream at night. God said, "Ask something of me and I will give it to you." Solomon answered: "You have shown great favor to your servant, my father David, because he behaved faithfully toward you, with justice and an upright heart; and you have continued this great favor toward him, even today, seating a son of his on his throne. O LORD, my God, you have made me, your servant, king to succeed my father David; but I am a mere youth, not knowing at all how to act. I serve you in the midst of the people whom you have chosen, a people so vast that it cannot be numbered or counted. Give your servant, therefore, an understanding heart to judge your people and to distinguish right from wrong. For who is able to govern this vast people of yours?" The LORD was pleased that Solomon made this request.

           Human beings have a strange desire to know some things, but at the same time we believe that ignorance is bliss. Modern science has an inexhaustible capacity to know how the universe works, and to unlock its hidden secrets. Stephen Hawking, the eminent astrophysicist wrote: “I believe we can and should try to understand the universe. We’ve already made remarkable progress in understanding the cosmos, particularly in the last few years (Universe in a Nutshell, 70). This relentless pursuit of scientific knowledge is definitely a good thing, and shows that we human beings were made to know the truth and we rightly rejoice when we find it, especially when we win the Nobel Prize for finding it.

           On the other hand, we also prefer not to know some other things. For instance, I really would rather not know what goes into making a hotdog. Everyone loves sausage until they work in a sausage factory. Some of us are on a diet. Some mornings we want to get on the scales and know our weight, but most mornings we don’t. Ignorance is bliss. After we reach a certain age, we celebrate our birthdays and no one asks how old you are. Not even the NSA (National Security Agency) knows how old my mother is. Sometimes we love the light of truth, sometimes we want to turn the light off.

           But wisdom is different from knowledge. Wisdom is not the impulse to drive down the information superhighway in a Lamborghini and indiscriminately accumulate more and more knowledge. Rather, wisdom weighs carefully what we can know and what we cannot know; it discerns prayerfully what we should know and what we should leave shrouded in mystery; it ponders devoutly what secrets of nature we should unlock and what secrets of life we should stand solemnly before and bow. Wisdom teaches us to slow down and stop when we encounter God. Knowledge answers the questions: who, what, where, how, and when, but wisdom alone can answer the question why.

             In a sense, the whole Bible is about learning how to manage knowledge and to seek wisdom. Genesis tells us that Adam and Eve’s original sin was eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Gn. 2:16-17). They desired to know something that they should not know. The last book of the Bible is called “Revelation,” or in Greek, “Apocalypsis,” which literally means “unveiling” or “revealing,” “revelation.”  In other words, it won’t be until the end of time that we will know all things as we should know them – even the ingredients in hotdogs and a woman’s age.

            1 Kings 3 says that on his coronation day, Solomon asked for wisdom, saying: “Give your servant, therefore, an understanding heart (wisdom) to judge your people and to distinguish right from wrong.” That is, help me not to make the same mistake as Adam and Eve made by reaching out to know good and evil. Instead Solomon asked for wisdom, which is knowledge bestowed as a gift, if God wills and when God wills. Some things we should not know until God reveals it to us, until he gives that knowledge to us as a gift. Knowledge comes from man, but wisdom comes from God.

             One of the hardest times to distinguish between knowledge and wisdom is when some tragedy befalls us. We want to know not only what happened, but also why it happened. When someone gets cancer unexpectedly, when a young person dies in an accident, when a couple separates or gets a divorce. When my nephew Noah died before completing his first year of college, it wasn’t enough to know what happened, but heart hurt to know why such a tragedy happened. Such times and such tragedies remind us the difference between knowledge and wisdom: knowledge comes from man, but wisdom – the answers to the “why” questions – comes only from God. And we must wait till he bestows that wisdom upon us as a gift; and it may not be until the end of time that he reveals it.

              When I was first ordained as a priest, I believed that I should know the answers to all theological and spiritual questions. What was the point, after all, of eight years of seminary studies if you didn’t learn the answers to tough questions? I felt like a failure if I had to admit my ignorance about Church doctrine. But after twenty-one years as a priest, I have learned that the answer, “I don’t know” is perfectly acceptable. That may be the only answer available to the tragedies that befall you; you must say, “I don’t know why.” And that answer is perfectly acceptable. Let us avoid the mistake of Adam and Eve, and pull back our hands from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Instead, let us be like Solomon and open our hands to allow God give us wisdom when he wishes; because knowledge comes from man, but wisdom comes from God.

Praised be Jesus Christ!