37 Among all the words I have heard, none has yet attained this: to recognise wisdom, which is beyond all
It’s worth spending a little longer on wisdom, and not just because it’s so important to Heraclitus. Wouldn’t we all like to be wise? Well, as I write that I wonder whether everyone would: but it’s always been my aim. And I still feel glad to be aiming for it, even while also knowing that Heraclitus is right, that wisdom is not something anyone can attain to the full. The Bible incorporates wisdom into the scriptural view of God, especially in the book of Proverbs. Wisdom is personified as working alongside God in creation:
The Lord created me at the beginning of his work,
the first of his acts of long ago.
Ages ago I was set up,
at the first, before the beginning of the earth.
When there were no depths I was brought forth,
when there were no springs abounding with water.
Before the mountains had been shaped,
before the hills, I was brought forth—
when he had not yet made earth and fields,
or the world’s first bits of soil.
When he established the heavens, I was there,
when he drew a circle on the face of the deep,
when he made firm the skies above,
when he established the fountains of the deep,
when he assigned to the sea its limit,
so that the waters might not transgress his command,
when he marked out the foundations of the earth,
then I was beside him, like a master worker;
and I was daily his delight,
rejoicing before him always,
rejoicing in his inhabited world.
Wisdom is part of the divine, so it is beyond us, but also woven into the fabric of the world which God created. Because it is part of God’s created order, wisdom is not morally neutral: true wisdom is integrally linked with righteous living.
“Truly, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom;
and to depart from evil is understanding.”
Seeking wisdom is always worth doing, for all of us, because we can reach out to touch and share in that creative wisdom which is at work in the world. The challenge always lies ahead of us, inviting us into a relationship with the creating power of God.