Learning and Wisdom

A very old and vital distinction going back at least to Solomon is the difference between learning and wisdom. Learning is the accumulation of facts, information, and schooling, and our age is overflowing with it; experts and specialists dominate society, expanding knowledge at a rapid rate. But learning alone is not enough, and without wisdom it simply produces learned fools more dangerous than ignorant ones. Some of the wisest people have had little formal schooling, yet possessed the humility and discernment that learning often lacks, for “a wise man will hear, and will increase learning” (Prov. 1:5). Modern culture, however, treats learning as if it automatically grants wisdom and therefore exalts expert rule, producing an arrogant class of “brain-trusters” who act, like Job’s friends, as though wisdom was born with them and will die with them. The more such men govern, the worse the world becomes, because learning divorced from faith becomes pride, and the learned begin to act as little gods. What we need is wisdom God-given wisdom for “the LORD giveth wisdom” (Prov. 2:6), and He grants it freely to those who ask (James 1:5). The reason we have so many learned and unlearned fools is simple: they do not want wisdom. “Be not wise in thine own eyes: fear the LORD, and depart from evil” (Prov. 3:7).