Dr. Andrew Seeley
What is Wisdom?
Dr. Andrew Seeley graduated from the College in 1987,
and did his post-graduate work at the University of Toronto,
where he received a Master’s in Medieval Studies (1988),
a Licentiate in Medieval Theology, through its Pontifical
Institute of Medieval Studies (1992), and a Doctorate in Medieval
Theology (1995). While at Toronto he was an Instructor in
Philosophy at the Oratory Philosophy Programme from 1989-91.
He returned to the College in 1992 to teach. He is co-author
of an up-coming book on the Declaration of Independence and
its role in American politics.
When we consider the great doctors of the Church, something
immediately appears to be common to them: They are all saints.
“Of course, they are saints,” you might say; “what
did you expect them to be?” But why should we expect
them to be saints? Christians are canonized because they have
loved, not because they have thought. The Church holds up
St. Thomas Aquinas to us as the greatest of her teachers,
no doubt in part because of his extraordinary mind. But why
should it also happen that he should possess the overflowing
heart of St. Francis? Put another way: Why are the wise also
saintly? Holy Scripture provides us a guide for the answer.
Wisdom in the Wisdom Books
Five books of the Old Testament are generally considered
the “Wisdom Books”: Ecclesiastes, Job, Proverbs,
Sirach, and The Wisdom of Solomon.
Ecclesiastes raises the ultimate question facing the wise
man: What does man gain by all the toil at which he toils
under the sun? (1:3). The Preacher, there, never finds a real
answer to this question, as he foreshadows in his despairing
cry: Vanity of vanities! All is vanity! (1:2). All the pleasures
that men desire fail to give meaning to man’s existence
(1:12, 2:1 ff.). Even his own wisdom he judges finally to
be but a striving after wind. (1:17).
The tragedy of man’s life, which the wise man discovers
and faces, i
death. No matter what goods he may enjoy now, death will
rob him of them all: How the wise man dies just like the fool!
(2:1617). Because of death, faith seeking understanding fails;
all that is left is faith: The end of the matter; all has
been heard. Fear God, and keep his commandments; for this
is the whole duty of man. (12:13). The wise man knows he must
resign himself to God, accepting what comes from Him even
though he has no hope of finding satisfaction in it.
Job is in anguish for much the same reason as the Preacher
is tempted to despair: What good is man’s life? The difficulty
Job faces in answering that question is not the fact of death,
but the fact of suffering. Why does the good man suffer? For
seven days he sat silent in the ashes pondering that question
in the agony of his soul and proclaiming his failure in a
heartwrenching cry: Let the day perish wherein I was born,
and the night which said, ‘A manchild is conceived.’
(3:3).
The wisdom Job seeks is to understand the plan of God in
the suffering of the innocent, and conversely, in the success
of the wicked. But like the Preacher, he knows he is doomed
to failure. The wise man would be the one who understands
the plan of God in allowing, even bringing about, the suffering
of the innocent. He must be content with faith: Behold, the
fear of the Lord, that is wisdom; and to depart from evil
is understanding. (28:28).
Wisdom in Proverbs and Sirach
If human wisdom is fearing God and keeping His commandments,
a part of it must be knowing how to keep His commandments.
God therefore offers us the books of Proverbs and Sirach,
which offer hope: “To fear the Lord is the beginning
of Wisdom.” Sirach (1:14).
Wisdom is not unattainable. Proverbs and Sirach present wisdom
to us under the figure of a woman who entreats us to seek
her and promises she will come when we turn away from the
earthly city and pursue her: If you cry out for insight and
raise your voice for understanding . . . then you will understand
the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God. For the
Lord gives wisdom . . . he stores up sound wisdom for the
upright. (Prov. 2:3-6; Sir. 4:16-18; 6:19-22).
Both books present wisdom as one present from the foundation
of the earth: When he established the heavens, I was there
. . . when he marked out the foundation of the earth, then
I was beside him, like a master workman. (Prov. 8:27-31).
Alone I have made the circuit of the vault of heaven and have
walked in the depths of the abyss. (Sirach 24:5).
Wisdom was with God in creating, but what is it? Both Proverbs
and Sirach clearly state that wisdom is not God, but a creature.
The Lord created me at the beginning of his work, the first
of his acts of old. (Prov. 8:22). From eternity, in the beginning,
he created me, and for eternity I shall not cease to exist.
(Sirach 24:9).
The portrayal of wisdom in these books is indeed wonderful,
and yet strange. How can wisdom be eternal and yet a creature?
If it is not God, how could God create through a creature?
Didn’t He create all things from nothing?
The Book of Wisdom
The book of Wisdom, written in the person of Solomon, summarizes
many points we have seen so far. But on the question, What
is wisdom?, he takes a different approach. He says it is,
above all, knowledge of the goodness of God and of his power:
But thou, our God, art kind and true, patient, and ruling
all things in mercy . . . To know thee is complete righteousness,
and to know thy power is the root of immortality. (15:1-3).
But wisdom is more than the wise man’s knowledge of
God; it is also the very Providence of God at work since the
fall of man to save all men from ultimate disaster. Wisdom
is that which God gives to men so that they might know His
plan for them. Finally, wisdom dwells with God – it is
something of or intimately from God Himself: For she is a
breath of the power of God, and a pure emanation of the glory
of the Almighty . . . She is a reflection of eternal light,
a spotless mirror of the working of God, and an image of his
goodness. (7:25-26). Wisdom is then some sort of procession
(a “breath,” an “emanation”) and a reflection
(a “mirror,” an “image”). She comes forth
from the power of God and images His goodness.
To summarize what we know about wisdom in the Old Testament,
we know this much: All the works agree in presenting wisdom
as an understanding of the providential plan of God in creation.
This is what Job and Ecclesiastes seek but cannot find, while
it is what Proverbs, Sirach and Wisdom promise will be given
to those who seek. Moreover, we see that wisdom is variously
presented as with God from eternity, as at work in the creation
of the world and the salvation of man, and as dwelling in
individuals as a gift from God. The book of Wisdom goes further
and identifies wisdom with the knowledge of God’s power
and goodness, so that we see His plan for creation as a manifestation
of His own divine attributes.
Wisdom in the New Testament
St. Paul speaks of wisdom more than any other New Testament
author. Under the New Testament, God has now revealed his
plan for creation and he has chosen Paul to bring all men
to understand it. For this reason, Paul sees that the conversion
of his hearers is only the beginning of his labor. He cannot
rest until he has brought his newborn sons into the full understanding
of the mystery that Jesus has revealed to him: And so, from
the day we heard of [your faith], we have not ceased to pray
for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge
of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding . .
. increasing in the knowledge of God. (1:9-10).
A little later in the letter, Paul speaks of his great labor
in bringing them to Christian adulthood: [Christ] we proclaim,
warning every man and teaching every man in all wisdom, that
we may present every man mature in Christ. For this I toil,
striving with all the energy which he mightily inspires within
me. (1:28).
So it is natural for the Christian to become wise; spiritual
maturity is closely connected to growth in wisdom. Christians
are essentially contemplatives. The mystery of God’s
plan has been revealed to us and, if we have a living heart,
we long with the angels to gaze upon it.
But what are we to contemplate? [W]e preach Christ crucified,
a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those
who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of
God and the wisdom of God. (1 Cor. 1:23-24). What a wonder
– that the great and mighty wisdom of God should be found
in two words: “Christ crucified.”
Paul tells the Colossians that Christ is the beginning and
the end of creation: In him all things were created, in heaven
and on earth . . . all things were created through him and
for him . . . He is the head of the body, the church; he is
the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything
he might be preeminent. (Col. 1:16-18).
So “Christ crucified” epitomizes the plan of God
for creation. The idea of “Christ crucified” existed
with the Father from all eternity and was the driving force
behind the creation of the world. Moreover, “Christ crucified”
comes to dwell in the hearts of men so that they might understand
the wisdom of God: To [His saints] God chose to make known
how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of
this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. (Col.
1:27).
Paul says we must strive to become wise. Thus, we must strive
to understand “Christ crucified”: Has not God made
foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom
of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased
God through the folly of what we preach to save those who
believe. (1 Cor. 1:20-21). The wisdom of God is this: That
He would make Himself fully known through His act of saving
those who believe in the folly of Christ crucified.
How then do we become wise? Paul refers us to the one person
who, like wisdom in the Old Testament, can say “I was
there” at the Creation: The Holy Spirit. (1 Cor. 2:9-12).
Since we have received this same Spirit, we too can come to
understand the love that God has bestowed on us. The Spirit
gives us a share in the resurrected life that Christ now enjoys.
(Rom. 8:9-11). If we allow Him, He will continue to develop
that life in us, transforming our sinful natures so that we
become images and likenesses of God. (Eph. 4:22-24).
The essential element in our transformation into the likeness
of God is found in love: God’s love has been poured into
our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.
(Rom. 5:5). As the Holy Spirit transforms us according to
that love, we can begin to comprehend the love that God has
revealed through the cross of Christ: I bow my knees before
the Father that . . . he may grant you to be strengthened
with might through his Spirit in the inner man, and that Christ
may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted
and grounded in love, may have power to comprehend with all
the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth,
and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge,
that you may be filled with all the fulness of God. (Eph.
3:14-19).
We can now see why the wise man must be saintly. Christian
wisdom is above all the understanding of the plan of God to
reveal His merciful love through the death of Christ. But
His love surpasses all possibility of human understanding.
Only through the transformation of our hearts by the love
poured into them by the Holy Spirit can we begin to comprehend
its unsearchable riches. As we grow in love, or rather as
love grows in us, extending its roots into the deepest, darkest
corners of our hearts, we become other Christs, and can taste
and see the goodness of the Lord.
-- Qtrly Newsletter, Spring 2000
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