THE KEY TO CIVILIZATION

In its Monthly Letter recently the Royal Bank of Canada issued a bit of “horse sense” for our generation. “We live in a changing world about which our knowledge is incomplete,” the bankers admitted, “and we are finding that the key to civilization is not technology but wisdom.”

In an age of riots and campus disorders, heart transplants and moon explorations the Canadian bankers should be listened to as they point to the key to civilization. Our time has been variously described as “the age of change,” “the age of crisis,” or “the age of revolution,” but as much as anything else it is an irrational age. So much of what we do simply makes no sense. Not only do we have an ambiguous war on our hands, but we have developed such an interventionist form of government that such old-fashioned virtue of children caring for their parents in their old age is rare. People are paid for not working, farmers for not raising crops, and wayward girls draw checks for their illegitimate babies. College students pay rather heavy tuition fees (or their parents do) and then stage strikes against the educative process; they compete with each other to get into college, and then burn the place down once they get in. I tell my students that education is the only product that people pay for that they do not insist on receiving.

I have generalized and simplified too much in these opening remarks, for it is true that there must be some governmental concern for the deprived, and it is a fact that only a small minority of students are striking and burning down campuses. Yet there is an irrationality that pervades our time. Psychopathic traits in our culture are clearly discernible. Crime stalks in our streets, with annual increases up to five times that of population; mental disorders continue to increase; drug abuse even among teenagers is a national scandal; people continue to use nicotine in the face of all the scientific findings in reference to its hazards; broken homes and unhappy marriages are now the rule rather than the exception. And all this at a time in history when surgeons are transplanting bodily organs and astronauts produce TV spectacles from the moon.

A provocative cartoon illustrates the point here. At the top of the picture a jet was zooming across the sky, symbolizing our technological progress. At the bottom was a lowly tortoise, slowly inching his way along, and this represents our moral and spiritual progress. The cartoon is saying something like what the bankers meant about wisdom being the key to civilization. Technology, despite its many blessings, does not get to the taproot of our problems. It is not the key. And it remains debatable as to whether the space program is worth all the trouble and expense. Men of God have long since assured us that it is righteousness that exalts a nation, not its technological know-how. And as bankers in Canada observe it is wisdom that is the key to civilization, not science. It is a virtue all too rare in our time.

As one looks back through history for those marks that made men and nations great he finds that wisdom was a crowning trait. And it was a wisdom that began with self-improvement and self-evaluation. There is Socrates who built a philosophy around the idea of know thyself, and this is realized only by a bold acceptance of one’s own ignorance. “That man thinks he knows everything, whereas he knows nothing,” Socrates would say. “I, on the other hand, know nothing but I know I know nothing.” Only on this basis would he agree that he was the wisest man in Athens, that he realized his ignorance while others refused to acknowledge their ignorance.

Then there is the wisdom of Maimonides, the Jewish philosopher: “Teach thy tongue to say I know not, and then thou wilt progress.” And Montaigne says: “God save us from the man who wants to save us. Reform only yourself; for in doing that you can do everything.” It is an important truth that we save others, not so much through preachment, as by the exemplary life, and through testimony of what God has wrought in our lives.

Volumes have been written on “the glory that was Greece;’ and that glory centered in a passion for wisdom. It was neither militarism, economics, or science that made Greece great, for the nations that had such goals soon fell and passed from history, leaving little that could be used by others. It was the desire to be wise that made Greece great. When one makes a list of what our civilization owes to Greece, it is almost unbelievable that a small, isolated nation could have such an impact on the world. We owe even democracy itself to Greece, and only because she had an intense passion to know the best way for men to be ruled.

In the pursuit of wisdom, however, there is no nation more remarkable than ancient Israel. Through the centuries she produced what the scholars call “the Wisdom literature;’ and she always had her wise men who were inspired of God to talk sense to the people. Where in our own culture is there the likes of this? Where is our wisdom literature and our wise men? We are known as people who can get things done, whether subways, elevators, or gadgets; but we are not known for our wisdom. We are pragmatic but not wise.

Israel emerged as a nation amidst people who searched for wisdom. The Egyptians had their wisdom literature, including proverbs, fables, and poems. So did the Assyrians, the Arabians, the Persians, and the Babylonians. Some of these even make their way into our Bible. Proverbs not only has the wisdom of Solomon, but there are proverbs also from Agur (chap. 30) and Lemuel (chap. 31), both Arabian sages. There are also several of the Psalms that are attributed to Heman and Ethan, Canaanite sages.

But there was something distinctly different about the wisdom of Israel. It was touched by the finger of God, and so it has lived on to be a blessing to the world. 1 Kings 5 defines that difference: “The Lord gave Solomon immense wisdom and understanding, and a heart as vast as the sand on the seashore. The wisdom of Solomon surpassed the wisdom of all the sons of the East, and all the wisdom of Egypt. He was wiser than any other, wiser than Ethan the Ezrahite, wiser than Heman and Calcol and Darda, the cantors.” The record goes on to refer to the proverbs he knew, the psalms he knew, and his knowledge of the things of nature, whether animals, birds, reptiles or fish. Then it says: “Men from all nations came to hear Solomon’s wisdom, and he received gifts from all the kings of the world, who had heard of his wisdom.”

What was it that really made Solomon’s wisdom so noteworthy? It is not likely that he knew a great deal more about fishes and birds than an Ethan or a Heman, and as for proverbs some of theirs have lived on as well as his.

The answer is that Solomon humbled himself before God and sought the wisdom that only he can give. 1 Kings 3 tells of Solomon becoming king and of his prayer to God at the time. “I am a very young man, unskilled in leadership,” he confesses to God. “Your servant finds himself in the midst of this people of yours that you have chosen, a people so many its number cannot be counted or reckoned. Give your servant a heart to understand how to discern between good and evil, for who could govern this people of yours that is so great?”

God was pleased with Solomon’s prayer, and he assures him that he will receive “a heart wise and shrewd as none before you has had and none will have after you.” It was because he had asked “a discerning judgment” so that he might distinguish between good and evil. This is the mark of Solomonic wisdom, the crown of all Israel’s search to understand. It recognized that “All wisdom is from the Lord, and it is his own forever,” and that its purpose was to make possible the good life, which is possible only as men learn to distinguish between good and evil.

It is this wisdom that we must cultivate for our age. Like the sages of the East, we may know a lot of facts and have a lot of knowhow, but we do not have the understanding to see good as good and evil as evil as Solomon did. The wisdom that can make distinctions is the wisdom that is real. Knowledge may help us in conducting a successful war, but wisdom would have kept us out of the war. Science and technology may take us to the moon and beyond, but wisdom will show us how to live in peace with our fellows here on earth. What Proverbs says to an individual could well be said to America in her hour of crisis: “When wisdom comes into your heart and knowledge is a delight to you, then prudence will be there to watch over you, and discernment be your guardian to keep you from the way of evil.”

Wisdom is therefore the bulwark of civilization as well as the key to it. God’s wisdom makes us conscious of our words and thoughts, sensitive to the needs of the poor, aware of human weaknesses, confident of man’s potential for good, dedicated to honest employment, reverent toward God, respectful of human personality, and capable of distinguishing good and evil.

Just how this wisdom becomes ours is another subject, but it is enough to say that the Christian has special help, for “Christ is our wisdom,” and through his Spirit “our senses are exercised to discern between good and evil.” We are also told that the wisdom that comes from above comes through prayer.

But there are some rather simple rules about gaining wisdom from the Wisdom literature itself. From Ecclesiasticus, usually listed in the Apocrypha, comes this gem: “If you love listening you will learn, if you lend an ear, wisdom will be yours.” The Bible also urges upon us the quiet spirit. “Be quiet and wait upon the, Lord” and “Study to be quiet” may be closely related to the cultivation of wisdom.

Whether campus or office or den we are far too noisy to hear the clink of the key to civilization when it falls at our feet.

There is the man who keeps quiet, not knowing how to answer, another keeps quiet, because he knows when to speak. (Ecclesiasticus 20)—the Editor