God's unfathomable wisdom
[Under construction 3 June 2005 ]
Chapter 28 of the Book of Job was written between 2,000 and 2,500 years ago. The chapter achieves several tasks. It asks what knowledge is, and what wisdom is, and how they arise. What is it to know something? It sets knowledge within the framework of language - the passage is sumptuous! It also asserts that life and the universe are not simply a figment of human imagination.
· What is knowledge?
· What does it mean to know something?
· What different kinds of things are known to you?
· In what ways have you come to know what you know?
· How secure is your belief that what you know is true? For example, how sure are you: a) that atoms exist? b) about Darwinian evolution, c) that your parent / partner / friend loves you? d) about your religious faith?
· What is wisdom?
God's unfathomable wisdom
There are mines for silver and places where men refine gold; where iron is won from the earth and copper smelted from the ore; the end of the seam lies in darkness, and it is followed to its farthest limit. Strangers cut the galleries; they are forgotten as they drive forward far from men. While corn is springing from the earth above, what lies beneath is raked over like a fire, and out of its rocks comes lapis lazuli, dusted with flecks of gold. no bird of prey knows the way there, and the falcon's keen eye cannot descry it; proud beasts do not set foot on it, and no serpent comes that way. Man sets his hand to the granite rock and lays bare the roots of the mountains; he cuts galleries in the rocks, and gems of every kind meet his eye; he dams up the sources of the streams and brings the hidden riches of the earth to light. But where can wisdom be found? And where is the source of understanding? No man knows the way to it; it is not found in the land of living men. The depths of ocean say, 'It is not in us', and the sea says, 'It is not with me.' And gold cannot buy it, nor can its price be weighed out in silver; it cannot be set against gold of Ophir, against precious cornelian or lapis lazuli; no work in fine gold can be bartered for it; black coral and alabaster are not worth mention, and a parcel of wisdom fetches more than red coral; topaz from Ethiopia is not to be matched with it, it cannot be set in the scales against pure gold. Where then does this wisdom come from, and where is the source of understanding? No creature on earth can see it, and it is hidden from the birds of the air. Destruction and death say, 'We know of it only by report.' But God knows the way to it, he alone knows its source; But he can see to the ends of the earth and he surveys everything under heaven. When he made a counterpoise for the wind and measured out the waters in proportion, when he laid down a limit for the rain and a path for the thunderstorm, even then he saw the wisdom and took stock of it, and he considered it and fathomed its very depths. And he said to man: The fear of the Lord is wisdom, and to turn from evil is understanding.
