The importance of Wisdom

Over at Sam Norton's blog he has a little piece about atheism which he called Reasonable atheism (1): Of atheisms humourless and sophisticated. He speaks of two different types of atheism, one humourless and the other sophisticated. It stirred my thinking when he spoke about Hume's attitude in his Enquiry being intellectually crippling in that it fails to take in the wisdom tradition, a stance he labels asophic which I think is to say "against wisdom" or having "no wisdom". He calls it humorless because it's like having a sense of humor, you either get the joke or you don't.

My Ramblings ...
Ponder this for a moment. What do atheists and atheistic philosphers do with humor? How do they account for that? Surely one reason that some philosophers don't get it is because they treat all reality as if it's only epistemology!

That's a very important reminder for those doing Philosophy and Theology. You can get thrown by the so called power of epistemological arguments against knowledge and truth, even against the doctrines of the Christian faith as though this new or old philosophical "epistemology" has overturned the Christian faith. But they forget that with the Christian worldview, the Scriptures - there's also wisdom, all those wisdom passages that tell us about the practical aspect of life, that which involves living, not just those things which are theoretical or for the philosopher, the stuff to do with the mind, no matter how much that's important.

Think of Proverbs 12:25 "Anxiety in a man's heart weighs him down, but a good word makes him glad." Good words, helpful words to think on. But what does the atheist say about it? How can he who believes in no god account for the value of such advice in our world? Doesn't he care for his friend or family member who is weighed down with anxiety?

It is only when we know of the Creator who made man in His image for relationship, who blessed him and yet due to man's rebellion we find we are out of fellowship with God and each
other. Only in that context can such a thing as wisdom make sense.

Often times you will hear or read of the atheist rejecting the Christian and His belief because of the argument from evil. We however must ask him, what about love and humor and wisdom - these things also count in the world we live in. How will he account for any of that?

In Christ
Gary