The Wisdom

While reading the Bible earlier today, I caught a beautiful passage from The Book of Wisdom, also called The Wisdom of Salomon. It is one of the deuterocanonical book of the Bible, which means that it is strictly Christian canon, and it is not included in the Jewish Torah. The passage is the first chapter of the book and goes as follows, and then I will make a comment:

"Love righteousness, you rulers of the earth, think of the lord with uprightness, and seek him with sincerity of heart; because he is found by those who do not put him to test, and manifests himself to those who do not distrust him. For perverse thoughts separate men from God, and when his power is tested, it convicts the foolish; because wisdom will not enter a deceitful soul, nor dwell in a body enslaved to sin. For a holy and disciplined spirit will flee from deceit, and will rise and depart from foolish thoughts, and will be ashamed at the approach of unrighteousness.

"For wisdom is kindly spirit and will not free a blasphemer from the guilt of his words; because God is witness of his inmost feelings, and a true observer of his heart, and a hearer of his tongue. Because the Spirit of the Lord has filled the world, and that which holds all things together knows what is said; therefore no one who utters unrighteous things will escape notice, and justice, when it punishes, will not pass him by. For inquiry will be made into the counsels of an ungodly man, and a report of his words will come to the Lord, to convict him of his lawless deeds; because a jealous ear hears all things, and the sound of murmuring does not go unheard. Beware then of useless murmuring, and keep your tongue from slander; because no secret word is without result, and a lying mouth destroys the soul.

"Do not invite death by the error of your life, not bring on destruction by the works of your hands; because God did not make death, and he does not delight in the death of the living. For he created all things that they might exist, and the generative forces of the world are wholesome, and there is no destructive poison in them; and the dominion of Hades is not on earth. For righteousness is immortal.

"But ungodly men by their words and deed summon death; considering him a friend they pined away, and they made a covenant with him, because they are fit to belong to his party" (Wisdom 1:1-16).

The first thing that this passage presents us is the problem of faith. God cannot be put to test. Such pretension inevitably brings the mark of unrighteousness, because implicitly we put ourselves above God, and him below as an object of study. It cannot but be called pride. Those that stubbornly believe in science, and deny God because of lack of proofs are these, that trusting too much in their bodily senses, deny what can only bee seen with the eyes of the soul; and instead of admitting humbly the limits of their capacity, assume the most foolish of behaviors. Hence, they are unwise, and unfit for the knowledge of God. This seems almost like a curse to me.

The second paragraph tells us something of the "nature" of God. He is aware of everything that happens inside our consciousness. If he is the Creator and the Force from where everything living springs, he is the consciousness of the world, which means that our individual's consciousness are in His. Whatever we do, whatever we say and think, our relation with God is so intimate, that only he can trace the origin of our actions, emotions and thoughts, so as to judge their righteousness. So as to know if we are blamable or forgivable for what we do and say. The fragment shows God as a perfect universal judge of all that is human. At the end of our lives we stand trial, not so much for our concrete actions, but for the internal state of our soul from which those actions sprang. In more philosophical terminology, of the principles of our will. Only because of this the Lord can understand us, even more than we understand ourselves. This is what makes the Lord all forgiving, for the Lord recognizes our falls and separates them from real unrighteousness, which here is characteristic of atheists. This last point is what connects with the first paragraph.

The third paragraph explains why God is all forgiving. Here death is not seen as the departure of soul and body. The promise of eternal life for all living things explains death not as the end, but as a turning point between bodily life on earth and eternal life in Heaven. Because he hears and knows everything that takes place within our soul, and because he loves life and wants to make it eternal, God's judgment of a rightful soul is immortality. Curious enough the mention of the realm of Hades, a pagan deity, is seen as an end. This end, which is identified by not being from this world, precisely by the lack of world at all, is the result of an unrighteous life. Again, only an end is reserved for those that deny God, the most unrighteous of all.

And why are they unrighteous? Last paragraph explains: because their pride, as represented in the first paragraph, has clouded their souls, and they no longer distinguish what is right, precisely because what is right is and springs from the Lord. Because they are ungodly, they are unrighteous, and the promise of eternal life is denied to them. Precisely because they are condemning themselves to extinction, to real infinite death, they are absolutely unwise.

However, and this is the Good News of Jesus coming, as long as we are living, there is always a chance to convert into the righteous, and be saved.