Trading knowledge for wisdom

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What’s more important to you: Knowledge or wisdom? For me, I sacrificed a lot of knowledge to get the grace of profound wisdom. Why not have both? I don’t know, but that’s what happened to me. I would think that Saints, such as Saint John of the Cross, would be eager to sacrifice knowledge to get to supernal wisdom.
 
This is a tricky one. The quest for knowledge proves often to be a fruitless, endless endeavor. Often, one can yearn for knowledge unseen and that knowledge may lead morality or conscience astray. Wisdom, on the other hand, tends to be an innate quality which bestows upon its people a measure of satisfaction. With wisdom, one is content in one’s knowing, and is self-actualizing in the sense that it does not matter the relative wisdom of those around. Wisdom is comforting, for few are wise, and those who are do not generally wish to be wiser than those around them. I suppose what I am attempting to convey is that seeking knowledge is synonymous with striving, some quantity that can never be attained and always leaves the pursuer wanting for more. Wisdom is the quality of always having enough.
 
Knowledge without wisdom is foolishness, and can be very destructive.

Knowledge comes also from the world. You can gain knowledge from most text books. True wisdom only from the Lord.
You can have all the knowledge of the world and still be a fool. Not so with wisdom.
Knowledge is useless without the wisdom to know how to use it.

You can possess great knowledge and use that knowledge to deceive others and do evil.

“The wisdom of the prudent is to give thought to their ways, but the folly of fools is deception.”
  • Proverbs 14:8
The Word of God speaks more highly of wisdom than it does knowledge. It puts wisdom first above knowledge.

“The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise WISDOM and instruction.”
  • Proverbs 1:7
“How many are your works, LORD! In WISDOM you made them all”
  • Psalm 104:24
“Wisdom will save you from the ways of wicked men, from men whose words are perverse…”
  • Proverbs 2:12
“Do not forsake wisdom, and she will protect you; love her, and she will watch over you.”
  • Proverbs 4:6
Wisdom POSSESSES knowledge.
“I, wisdom, dwell together with prudence; I possess knowledge and discretion.”
  • Proverbs 8:12
“From the mouth of the righteous comes the fruit of wisdom…”
  • Proverbs 10:31
  • “When pride comes, then comes disgrace, but with humility comes WISDOM.”
  • Proverbs 11:2
etc… etc… etc…

Give me WISDOM! 👍
 
Perhaps, as it is often the case, there are two different definitions: one from the world, and one from God. For instance, when I say: what is more important, love or rationality? There is a worldly meaning of love and a divine meaning of love…what about truth? For the Greeks, a truth is something very specific…in the biblical sense, a truth is something beyond time, something eternal…

What comes to my mind is this: both knowledge and wisdom are gifts from the Holy Spirit…in which case, both are equally important, and we receive them in the measure that God wills us to receive them.

Yet either of these, compared to worldly knowledge or worldly wisdom, is infinitely more worthy…“For the wisdom of this world is foolishness in God’s sight” (1 Cor 3:19), and in a mysterious way, God’s knowledge is revealed to the little ones…
 
I like economist Thomas Sowell’s take on it:

“Brilliance–even genius–is no guarantee that consequential factors have not been left out or misconceived. Intelligence minus judgment equals intellect. Wisdom is the rarest quality of all–the ability to combine intellect, knowledge, experience, and judgment in a way to produce a coherent understanding…Wisdom requires self-discipline and an understanding of the realities of the world, including the limitations of one’s own experience and of reason itself. The opposite of high intellect is dullness or slowness, but the opposite of wisdom is foolishness, which is far more dangerous.” --“Intellectuals and Society”
 
Without wisdom, you’ll be incompetent in using the knowledge you’ve gained regardless of the quantity.

Jim
 
I think Wisdom comes first b/c it teaches us the importance of lasting things (such as Eternal life) as opposed to worldly things. Knowledge gives us the ability to understand the teachings of the Church, but first we have to have Wisdom or we will not care about understanding the teachings of the Church or acting on them.
 
Knowledge comes before wisdom because wisdom is something that comes with age.

We receive education, but we can not receive wisdom except from God.

Jim
 
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