Science and wisdom

Theology Today, Jul 2001 by Moltmann, Jurgen

A sense of the uniqueness of every happening has been preserved by people who are able to wonder in the primal-we could also say childlike-sense and can be astonished. They perceive the uniqueness of the present moment with the surprise with which they comprehended the "first-timeness" of the discovery. People who can neither wonder nor be astonished perceive only as a matter of routine, what seems to be always the same, and what they already know. They react in the customary ways they have learned-and they understand nothing. They expect nothing anymore, and life passes them by-or, rather, they pass life by.

Every chance in life is unique. Strictly speaking, there is no such thing as "a second chance," at least not the same chance a second time. We might also call the attention awakened and heightened through astonishment and wonder literally presence of mind. It lets us take the unique opportunity "by the forelock," like the kairos in Greek pictures. To live attentively means to be open for surprises and for what is new in every moment. It means experiencing life full of expectation, dis-covering anew the reality we encounter, and laying ourselves trustfully open to whatever happens to us.

THE FEAR OF THE LORD IS THE BEGINNING OF WISDOM

We ascribe wonder as the root of knowledge to the child, and to the primal child in every grown-up. What we expect of the old, in contrast, is wisdom. The old are supposed to have become wise through their experience of life and through the approach of death. But, although we undoubtedly assume that one becomes wise through experiences of life and death, this process is not a matter of course. "Sixty years old and not a bit wiser" people once sang in a hit that was a favorite with everyone who wanted to remain "forever young." But how do we become wise?

Wisdom does not spring directly from experience. It is the fruit of the reflective handling of experiences. It is not spontaneous perception that makes us wise; it is the perceiving of the perception. Wisdom is the ethics of knowledge. If we make a conscience out of consciousness, and hence a cognizant of what we do and leave undone, we become wise. We look over our own shoulder, so to speak, and ask: What are you doing? What purpose do your findings serve? What have experiences made of your life? What will remain when you die? Wisdom is a reflective countermovement to spontaneous wonder. The wondering discovery of the world is one thing, wise dealings with these perceptions another.

It is understandable, of course, that we should look for wisdom among the old, but that we should find it there is not a matter of course for all that. In order to arrive at reflection about ourselves, about what we know, and about what we do and leave undone, a countervailing force is needed, through which we are brought back to ourselves. This cannot be a particular perception; it must transcend all possible perceptions, and hence the perceivable world as well. In the biblical traditions, the transcendence that brings a person back to oneself is called "the fear of the Lord." This does not mean the awe and terror of the so-called "Wholly Other"; nor does it mean the mysterium tremendum of primordial religious experiences. It means the sublimity of God, the immeasurability of God's wisdom and the fathomless complexity of God's creative Spirit. The fear of God links reverence before the majesty of the "ever greater God" (Deus semper major) with a childlike, basic trust in God's immeasurable goodness and curiosity about God's creative activity in the history of the cosmos, the history of life, and personal history. The fear of God does not make people slaves of an unloved Almighty; this fear is merely the other side of the love of God. "To fear the Lord is wisdom's full measure"; "to love God is wisdom" (Sir 1:16, 14). "The fear of the Lord is glory and exultation, and gladness, and a crown of rejoicing" (Sir 1:11). It is not a contradiction to the fear of God when "the children of God" in the New Testament say: "There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear" (1 John 4:18). The fear of God and the love of God describe the two sides of God's presence: distance and closeness, sublimity and intimacy.