From a Modernist perspective, to know something was to be convinced of something because of observable facts. From the Postmodernist view, to know something was to feel something strongly. What does the Bible say about the source and mechanism of knowledge?
Genesis 2:16, 17
“And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.”
Genesis 3:4-7
“And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die: For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil. And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat. And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons.”
I Kings 3:5-12
“In Gibeon the LORD appeared to Solomon in a dream by night: and God said, Ask what I shall give thee. And Solomon said… O LORD my God, thou hast made thy servant king instead of David my father: and I am but a little child: I know not how to go out or come in.
And thy servant is in the midst of thy people which thou hast chosen, a great people, that cannot be numbered nor counted for multitude. Give therefore thy servant an understanding heart to judge thy people, that I may discern between good and bad: for who is able to judge this thy so great a people?
And the speech pleased the LORD, that Solomon had asked this thing. And God said unto him, Because thou hast asked this thing, and hast not asked for thyself long life; neither hast asked riches for thyself, nor hast asked the life of thine enemies; but hast asked for thyself understanding to discern judgment; Behold, I have done according to thy words: lo, I have given thee a wise and an understanding heart; so that there was none like thee before thee, neither after thee shall any arise like unto thee.”
A minister sits on a subway observing a mother and her child. The child is screaming and struggling to get away. Finally, the mother places the child in her lap. The child looks up in defiance at the mother, then slaps the mother in the face.
It occurs to the minister that humanity is just like this child. As we build universities and governments and churches using politic and intellect and rhetoric to distance ourselves from and finally deny God, we are using exactly those tools and gifts that God gave us to defy Him. In essence, we sit in God’s lap in order to slap Him in the face.
It should come as no surprise to us that the Bible teaches us that our capacity to know and understand things comes directly from God, and that using that knowledge at cross-purposes to God dissolves into non-productive foolishness.
Consider the first passage above which comes to us from Genesis. Man and Woman were created to be caretakers to God’s creation. As such, they were given sufficient knowledge and understanding to do their job. Adam, we see, was even gifted with the creative capacity to observe and define the world around him by naming the animals.
What man was NOT given was the capacity to know right from wrong. This area of morality was firmly God’s domain, and man was specifically forbidden from pursuing this knowledge.
This was a manifestation of God’s love and wisdom. If man was responsible for his own moral choices, he would fall short of God’s standards. This was not knowledge that was necessary to do the task for which he was created, and it could only be harmful to man. So God took that burden off man’s shoulders.
Man chose, however, to seize this knowledge against God’s instructions. We are told that, at the moment he did this, his eyes were opened and he knew things he had previously not known: specifically, that he was naked.
In the second story above, we read of Solomon who requested wisdom from God. Since the reason Solomon requested this gift was to be a more effective ruler of God’s people, it pleased God to grant Solomon his wish. Now, I need to stress that God gave Solomon wisdom for the purpose of governing the children of Israel. Solomon, however, chose to USE this knowledge for self-glorification. Since he did not use the knowledge for to purpose that God gave it, he ended his life in despair as we see chronicled in the book of Ecclesiastes. No matter what task Solomon accomplished with his great wisdom, he found it meaningless because he was not using his gift correctly.
Finally, let’s examine the case of King Nebuchadnezzar as chronicled in the book of Daniel. If you search the scriptures, you won’t find a single king who had more specific and direct revelation of the course of history than Nebuchadnezzar. So much so, that critics of the scripture have a very difficult time explaining how the book of Daniel specifically predicted the rise of Alexander the Great, and resort to giving the book a late date of authorship or tell us it was edited later to include these predictions.
Despite having a Jewish Prophet of the Lord at his beck and call, and despite being given direct prophetic revelation from God, Nebuchadnezzar remained in willful ignorance, glorifying himself as an equal to God.
God’s final act of discipline to Nebuchadnezzar was to “Let his heart be changed from man's, and let a beast's heart be given unto him.” In an instantaneous and miraculous act, God removed Nebuchadnezzar’s capacity for understanding and he was reduced to an animalistic nature. When the disciplinary period was complete, we read Nebuchadnezzar’s own words regarding the matter:
“And at the end of the days I Nebuchadnezzar lifted up mine eyes unto heaven, and mine understanding returned unto me, and I blessed the most High, and I praised and honoured him that liveth for ever, whose dominion is an everlasting dominion, and his kingdom is from generation to generation: And all the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing: and he doeth according to his will in the army of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth: and none can stay his hand, or say unto him, What doest thou?”
So we can ascertain from these passages that a Biblical approach to knowledge could be said to be this: that God gives man the capacity to observe and understand the world around him in a way that animals cannot. We are given the capacity to define our universe, and this was given us originally for the purpose of caring for God’s creation. As a result of Adam’s willful disobedience, we also have the capacity for determining right from wrong and making moral judgments.
However, we have the freedom to abuse this ability with the consequence that the inferences we make from our observation of the universe are errant, resulting in a distorted and incorrect worldview. This is a state that the Bible addresses at some length, defining it as “foolishness.”
“Wisdom,” as defined biblically, could be said to be the correct usage of knowledge to the glory of God, while “Foolishness” is the incorrect application of knowledge such that it robs God of the glory due Him.
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