The Lure of Knowledge

(I wrote this a while ago but got distracted by acquiring an allotment that needs lots of work!)

There is wonderful joy in learning and discovering new things about our universe and those we share it with. I’m not sure that as a teenage I valued learning that much, but with age comes the desire to keep on learning as long as I can. Knowledge can empower us. It helps lift people out of poverty, finds cures for terrible illnesses and enables our lives enormously.

Knowledge also has a dark side. What is discovered brings with it responsibility for what we do with that knowing. Alfred Nobel set up his 5 peace prizes, given to those who benefit humanity, following the realisation of how history might remember him and his discovery of dynamite. Since then we battle with the dangers of nuclear power and next, perhaps, it will be A.I. Our current environmental crises come from our failure to manage the industrialisation of our society. The dark is not the knowledge itself but how our moral values direct our use of that knowledge.

In the garden of Eden Adam and Eve were tempted to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The lie of the serpent was the promise that they would ‘be like God’. That appeal to our pride and desire for power remains in us. The idea of knowing something others don’t. Gossip is one manifestation of this; it gives us the upper hand.

In the early church the Gnostics, who claimed special knowledge (gnosis), caused a lot of trouble and confusion within the church and to its leaders. The apostles, Paul and John, wrote several letters to correct the false teaching that arose. Paul warns against those who get puffed up in their minds by the idea that they have special spiritual or mystical knowledge. Maybe those folk started out with good intent but somewhere down the line lost their way, caused distress in the church and sometimes ended up leaving.

Over decades of ministry I have seen this repeated again and again. Good people get deceived by a teaching or profound spiritual experience that appeals to them. They set themselves apart as knowing God and his will better than others. In society at large we have an explosion of information; the spreading of fake news. Groups like QAnon appeal to those who are lost not knowing who to believe. Special or secret knowledge still appeals to our pride and self-seeking. When we stop being accountable and become our own authority then danger looms.

Ironically the knowledge of good and evil should lead to greater discernment, but perhaps that only happens when it is coupled to humility before God and others?