Today, upon the mention by an old friend of DL memories, I visited my Xanga for the first time in months. As I read the posts from my first step on campus to the beginning of my relationship, I had to smile. The youthful naivete mingled with genuine insight and wholehearted faith left a very distinct flavor. In some sense, I wish I was as wise now as I was then - for after all, it is the foolish that God has made wise! I benefitted from reading those reflections spiritually.
On the other hand, they were the musings of a theologically and emotionally immature youth. The past three years have changed my understanding of the world, God's grace, and the light of eternity in ways immeasurable. I have immersed myself in thinkers, philosophers, and the Word of God, and have chewed the meat and spit out the bones. Perhaps the biggest impact my education had on me was spiritual, and that is by far worth the expense.
My first reaction was to chuckle at the incomplete-but-good-hearted thoughts of the college freshman. But my second reaction was to ponder afresh the dangers of "wisdom" from education.
One of the necessary characteristics of the theory major is the tendency to view oneself as a prophet of the age. With eyes opened to the rich tradition of the past, we students were sobered, disgusted, and terrified by the state of American evangelicism. We recognize the shoddy theology, the detachment from any substantive thought, the lack of eternal perspective. I started as a college student with a love for contemporary worship. I graduated with a love for liturgy, church structure, and deep study of not only Biblical thinkers but secular theologians (a paradox it may seem - but then, one cannot help being a theologian). We are all deeply impressed by a love for the Good, and thirst after a community, in which virtue is more easily inculcated.
Yet in my studies, I was continually surprised at the cynicism of those who supposedly had knowledge of such wonderful traditions. It is amazing to me that those whose souls have come into contact with the rich traditions and thoughts of the past can disdain those who have not yet plumbed those depths. They can quote the right thinkers; they can tell you why your theology is wrong and why your church is unbiblical. Their intellectual arguments are well-crafted and in general, I agree with their conclusions. But I cannot understand how they, who have seen the glory of God, can be so bitter in their assessment of others. How they, having come to understand the errors of their thoughts, can have no patience for those who need to be trained.
Their message is lost because there is one thing they do not understand: knowledge is a poor substitute for virtue. Is it not the devil himself who walked in the desert with the Son of God incarnate? And did he not himself quote the Scriptures, the Word of God?
I have all too often watched my fellow theory majors thirst for knowledge, dig into their studies with the intention of "broadening the soul." But the reputation for snobbery is, I'm afraid, well-deserved. In their attempts to train their minds, they have failed to apply their vast amounts of knowledge to their lives.
The well-learned man must be the virtuous man. If he is not virtuous, then he is not well-learned, for he has missed the most important lesson of all. He has failed to serve the Good and serves only himself. In that failure, his knowledge has not passed into wisdom, which is the principle thing.
I find the naivete of the girl writing the Xanga posts rather refreshing, for she wrote from a mind which feared God. With that base, one cannot help but to become well-learned under the tutelage of the Great Tutor. Without that base, one can only accumulate knowledge, and never wisdom.
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