Chapter 17
Good Morning Moring to this week 17 of 2022
Grant me, O Lord my God, a mind to know you, a heart to seek you, wisdom to find you, conduct pleasing to you, faithful perseverance in waiting for you, and a hope of finally embracing you. Thomas Aquinas
Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds. (Rom. 12:3).
God cares about how you think, not just what you think. … No walk of life is without the need for insight, discretion and love of truth.”
How do we know what we know? What have wisdom, prudence and studiousness to do with justifying our beliefs?
To acquire knowledge, one must study; but to acquire wisdom, one must observe.
Marilyn vos Savant
I have held many things in my hands, and I have lost them all; but whatever I have placed in God’s hands, that I still possess. Martin Luther
Wisdom is the right use of knowledge. To know is not to be wise. Many men know a great deal and are all the greater fools for it. There is no fool so great a fool as a knowing fool. But to know how to use knowledge is to have wisdom. Charles Spurgeon
There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it.
Edith Wharton
Careful oversight of our intellectual lives is imperative if we are to think well, and thinking well is an indispensable ingredient in living well. J Wood
The global theater of information coming towards us on social media means our need for intellectual virtue is at present especially acute. Wood wrote more than two decades ago, but his suggestion of three key virtues—studiousness, intellectual honesty, and wisdom—is just as needful now. Bonnie Kristian explains as follows;
Studiousness means seeking truth well, steering between the excesses of vicious curiosity on the one hand and credulousness and oblivion on the other.
Intellectual honesty concerns how we respond to knowledge while acquiring it. It’s the virtuous mean between intellectual dishonesty and willful naiveté, and it requires us to deal in sincerity and good faith
Last, wisdom is the virtue we need to put knowledge we’ve sought and gained to good use. The wise person’s life will be “marked by deep and abiding meaningfulness, anchored in beliefs and purposes that offer lasting contentment,”
Thomas Aquinas says “love follows knowledge” so as our knowledge increases our ability to love God and others should also increase. He explains that those who have had the deepest and most intimate relationship with God, pursued God with everything they were – including their minds. In fact he claims that ‘the earnest pursuit of truth and a commitment to being the best stewards of our minds as we can be, are authentic acts of worship in themselves’ and should be assessed by the extent to which it helps us honour God and serve our neighbours.
Wishing you a blessed and good start to this new week!
Philemon