The word science, as you may know, comes from the Latin word scire which means “to know.” Through the centuries, science has dropped yon blue bosom and showed us the breasts of her tenderness, slaking our thirsting mouths with knowledge. She has bathed our nubile minds in penicillins, Newtonian physics, gene therapy and quarks. And as the Good Lord gave us the minds to seek out the scientific mysteries he has hidden, the treasures uncovered have redounded to many blessings and a heart of wonder to his handiwork.
It also has had the net effect of making some people colossal prigs.
Science is knowledge, and knowledge is good. But it ain’t wisdom. And as someone somewhere once put it: knowledge can tell you that a tomato is a fruit but wisdom tells you not to put it in a fruit salad.
There is a tendency to anthropomorphize science. We get a taste of this when the talking heads on media sites say things like “the science says” or “the science is very clear” or “we need to follow the science.” The science. The science. Speaking like this gives the impression Science has descended in smoke on a quaking Sinai to gift the chosen erudite with the tablets of Truth, who alone are worthy to ascend the fiery mountain.
Of course, there is no science as we so often personify it. It doesn’t have a nest or anything. You can’t send it a Christmas card or buy it a drink or hurt its feelings. It has no emotions, preferences, opinions, or beliefs. Science is an ever-growing body of understanding increasingly specialized in the taxonomy of empirical knowledge. This taxonomy is presided over by those whose brains are fashioned by God to think categorically in this way. Some of these brains are level-headed and understand the limitations of their field. Others get their head so far into the heavens, that they take it to heart they can see the world from God’s perspective and start acting as such. This latter group is called “intellectuals” in the common tongue, or Caput inflatum, to use the binomial nomenclature.
Intellectuals have a long and storied history of thinking they know what is best for everyone. It follows from the belief born during the Enlightenment that only what can be understood by the senses, empirical knowledge, is what is true. Empirical knowledge is the one thing science does really well and it has practical and useful results to boot. The gifted among us have the cerebral hardware and acumen to bring this knowledge to us, unlocking the mysteries of nature and making our lives richer. But for intellectuals, having truth is the same thing as being right, and being right is easily confused with being righteous. By definition, then, if there are those who don’t listen to the knowledge they bring then they are the unrighteous. And so the perennial problem of intellectuals is that knowledge has not only gone to their heads, but also to their hearts.
We knew this already. “Knowledge puffs up,” 1 Corinthians 8:1 tells us. In the context of the verse, Paul was talking about food sacrificed to idols. To those sound-minded Christians who knew that this food sacrificed to idols was no biggie, this knowledge gave them an air of superiority over those brothers of whose weak consciences would not allow them the same freedom. They were right that they could eat the food with no problem, but this knowledge had the proclivity to bring with it a self righty-ness.
Knowledge can bring pride for the same reason muscles do: those who are weaker must rely on the strong. This can easily lead to might-makes-right, and often does without limiting principles. Same thing with strong minds. But just as problems can not be all solved with horsepower, they can neither be solved with brainpower. They both tend to think very highly of themselves. This is why we need wisdom.
Wisdom and knowledge work differently in this way. The more knowledge one gets the more prone to puffery they become. But with wisdom comes humility. The wise man knows that he does not know it all. Wisdom seeks counsel, it seeks a multidisciplinary approach and several points of view. Wisdom, as opposed to science, is personified. Proverbs speaks of wisdom as a woman calling in the streets inviting all to her banquet. She sits in the counsels of God and will give her delights to all who will sit and listen, no prerequisites other than a willing heart. And wisdom gives us knowledge that science cannot approach, the knowledge of the human heart; its desires, proclivities and waywardness.
Science is good. We are instructed by God to get knowledge. When we look to the heavens through the Hubble telescope, we obtain a plethora of data points along with more reasons to worship God. The quickest way for knowledge to sour is to ignore the majesty, power, authority and ownership of God over all the universe. Knowledge can turn our heads up to the heavens in wonder and awe, but without wisdom, it will have the simultaneous result of making us look down our noses at others.
Thought Butter 