Continuing our treatment of the three essential truths about creation presented in the Bible,
we will now turn to consider what it means when the Bible describes the world as being
created with God’s characteristic wisdom. But, what does this entail?
It should first of all be noted that in this presentation of creation, the biblical authors
tend to focus more on the characteristics and qualities with which God created the world than
on God’s act of creation itself. Perhaps the most succinct example of this occurs in Psalm 104 with
its exclamation: “How varied are your works, o Lord! With wisdom you have made them all!”
Exactly what is meant by the assertion that God has made everything with wisdom is something that
is elaborated in the section of the Old Testament designated as “Wisdom Literature.” This includes
the books of Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Job, Sirach, and the Wisdom of Solomon.
In this video, we will draw upon examples from these books
and explore one of God’s chief attributes: his wisdom.
The fundamental theological axiom about the created world that underlies all of
Wisdom Literature is that God created the physical universe to be both well-ordered and intelligible
to human beings. Typically, God is presented in the Wisdom Literature as a wise craftsman who,
like an architect or builder, erects the physical universe in accordance with his wisdom. In fact,
since the created universe is characterized as an expression of God’s perfect wisdom,
it serves as a medium through which human beings have access—albeit limited—to God’s wisdom.
A wonderful example of this line of thought is found in the opening section of the
book of Sirach. There the scribe writes: “There is but one wise and truly awesome
seated upon his throne—the Lord. It is he who created wisdom, saw her and measured her,
Poured her forth upon all his works, upon every living thing
according to his bounty, lavished her upon those who love him” (Sir 1:8-10).
In this poem, the scribe uses a technique called personification—
representing an abstract idea as a human person—in order to speak about the many,
variegated ways and different degrees to which God instilled wisdom in the created world.
This technique is also used in the book of Proverbs in order to emphasize the personal nature
of the relationship between God and human beings that is enabled by a universe created with wisdom.
In Proverbs 8, woman wisdom gives an autobiographical account of her involvement
in God’s act of creation: “From of old I was formed, at the first, before the earth when there
were no deeps nor fountains nor springs of water … When God fixed the foundations of earth, then
was I beside him as artisan; I was his delight day by day, playing before him all the while,
playing over the whole of his earth, having my delight with human beings.”
By describing wisdom as both delighting God and taking delight in human beings,
this passage expresses wisdom’s ability to join human beings to God in a relationship of intimacy.
Now, the passages using personification to describe wisdom that we have just considered
are frequently characterized as depictions of “speculative” wisdom. According to the Bible,
speculative wisdom is a specific type of wisdom that a person is able to acquire
by reflecting on the orderliness of the world and one’s place within it,
especially in relationship to God. The better one understands one’s place in this
well-ordered universe, the easier it is to live in harmony with it, and by extension with God.
In this way, the created word serves as a medium through which God communicates truth to human
beings and as a medium through which human beings can learn truths about the Creator God
and their relationship with him. Thus, these descriptions of speculative wisdom complement
the rest of the Bible by illustrating how natural theology is involved in God’s self-revelation. God
not only reveals himself in dramatic events, like his appearance to Moses on Mt. Sinai,
but he also reveals himself in the regular operation of the wisely-ordered universe.
In addition to the speculative wisdom just described, it is important to note that for the
biblical authors, access to God’s wisdom through the created word is also a practical affair.
Practical wisdom is described in the Bible as a matter of perceiving a connection between
one’s behavior and the positive or negative results that it produces,
and then adjusting one’s behavior accordingly.
Returning to Proverbs 8, we see that woman wisdom
makes an emotional appeal to her audience as her children: “Now children listen to me;
happy are they who keep my ways . . . whoever finds me finds life and wins favor from the Lord.”
These words serve as a rhetorical argument designed to encourage those listening to act
wisely, something which involves acting prudently and morally in all situations.
In the following chapters of the book of Proverbs
many concrete situations are addressed in collections of sayings, and thus they are to
be understood as a specific application of woman wisdom’s general instruction to keep her ways.
Moreover, these sayings frequently appeal to the created world as a means to teach practical
wisdom: “Four things are among the smallest on the earth, and yet are exceedingly wise:
Ants—a species not strong, yet they store up their food in the summer;
Badgers—a species not mighty, yet they make their home in the crags;
Locusts—they have no king, yet they march forth in formation; Lizards—you can catch
them with your hands, yet they find their way into kings’ palaces” (Prov. 30:24-26).
The undercurrent of thought here is simple:
God has imbued these seemingly small and insignificant creatures with practical wisdom,
and therefore, human beings can access such wisdom by observing them. Thus, in the Old
Testament the way of wisdom is both speculative and practical; becoming wise is not only a
matter of growing in knowledge about the created world but also of acting in accordance with it.
Further, the biblical authors emphasize that in order to engage in the pursuit of wisdom
on either a practical or speculative level, it requires God’s prevenient action — first of all,
God must create an orderly, intelligible world; and secondly, God must create wise
human beings to seek out the order and wisdom inherent in the created world.
In conclusion, we have seen in this video how the biblical presentation of creation
is further rounded out by the Wisdom Literature
to include what might be classified as a kind of natural theology.
To be sure, this is not natural theology in the same precise sense that St. Thomas
Aquinas articulated it; for the biblical authors it is always a matter of faith
that God exists. Still, these sections of the Bible affirm that one can,
indeed, discover one of God’s chief attributes through a natural knowledge of creation: namely,
that God is supremely wise and bestows that wisdom on the created world.
Further, the biblical authors affirm that if human beings seek
out this divinely-bestowed wisdom through their observation of the natural world,
it is also possible for them to verify that God is just, merciful, and abounding in goodness.
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