Wisdom

             Who is wise and understanding among you? Let them show it by their good life, by deeds done in the humility that comes from wisdom. (James 3:13)

 

            While this isn’t a dictionary definition, wisdom is the ability to observe life, the universe, and everything and act in accordance with how life, the universe, and everything is. For instance, you can eat the stalks of a rhubarb plant but not the leaves. That makes no sense to me. A botanist could explain it, but wisdom involves not eating the leaves. Wisdom involves distinguishing between Queen Anne’s Lace and Water Hemlock before you start handling or eating either.

            Every now and again, I see someone online ridiculing Christians as fools. After all, Christians believe in this invisible, all-powerful being who doesn’t exercise his omnipotence in the way one might expect. The interesting this is that I can see why they think what they think. If one accepts their premise, I can walk through their logic and admit that it follows. And their premise might be true. God may not exist. I could have been wrong all my life. And it’s interesting to me that I can posit the absence of a deity, but they can’t bring themselves to posit the presence of one. That seems to me to show foolishness on their part. But the important thing about my reasoning on the subject is that I can’t get past Pascal’s Wager.

            Paraphrased, Pascal’s Wager is that if the person who believes is wrong, he ultimately loses nothing of value. If the person who doesn’t believe is wrong, he ultimately loses everything. This is one of two factors I must consider when pondering the possibility of my being wrong about God.

            The other bit of wisdom involves the question “so what?” If God doesn’t exist, so what?  Would that possibility be sufficient reason for me to change my lifestyle? At one point, I was discussing this with a friend who claims to be agnostic but tends to argue the atheist’s position. I pointed out that if I concluded that God doesn’t exist, I wouldn’t take up smoking, drinking, doing drugs, having sex, or using foul language. It wouldn’t change my behavior all that much. I would not read some of the books I read and I would have Sunday mornings free, but other than that, a failure of my belief would not create a need in me to become another person. He seemed disappointed, but I have enough bad habits, why would I set about purposely developing more?

            Now, as for the good deeds that James mentioned, a good deed would be one that follows from our understanding of the universe in a way that promotes the well-being of those involved. And wisdom would promote the well-being, not the happiness of those involved, because in the long run, well-being produces happiness, but happiness is not likely to produce well-being.