primordia rerum

I believe that a lot of sins have been committed in the name of progress—personal, political, and polytechnical. Therefore, I would like to suggest a theory, surely not original, which I believe helps me understand my world.

I do not believe, at a fundamental ontological (οντος=essēns=being) level that humans, animals, anything made of matter, spirit, or both, can become "better." I believe that one's behaviors can be modified for a time, possibly for a lifetime, to be "better." I believe that one can gain both knowledge and increase in wisdom, however, I do not believe that a person's, a thing's, or a society's essence can improve.

For instance, let's take my health. I am in the best shape of my life. I am cardiovascularly fit—I can run miles without feeling winded. I can do sit-ups, push-ups, and pull-ups (no, not the diapers). However, if I don't make a decision every day to watch my starch intake, go to the gym, go for a run, take my medicine, etc... I immediately gain weight and lose muscle tone. If I went for a month without doing those things, I would be significantly less healthy than I am today. Every single day, I must choose to live a "healthy" lifestyle.

The same is true for my "moral" life. Every day I must choose to be polite, helpful, thoughtful, self-controlled, honest, etc... I have the same potential every day to become flabby and lazy in my treatment of others as I do in my stomach. However, I do have the ability to make choices, and to learn from those choices.

Let's take the specific incidence of knowledge and wisdom. Over time, I do believe that humans can accrue more knowledge than they had before. Although this may seem to contradict my theory, I believe it dovetails quite nicely with what I am saying. I believe that knowledge is nothing more than a possession. Obviously, you would all agree that over time, humans can accumulate possessions.


Knowledge does not make us any "better." Of course, knowledge and wisdom, the sages would be quick to remind us, although sisters, are not one in the same. In fact, one can be very knowledgeable and not wise and vice versa. Of course, we all have heard that, "The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom." However, I believe this means that truly being wise is learning how much one does not know.

If someone is to gain from possessing great stores of knowledge, it would be to learn how much they truly do not possess. This is an easy lesson to learn when it comes to physical possessions. The media of our society make this clear to us every day. However, somehow, when it comes to knowledge, it is a very difficult lesson.

Therefore, just like having great wealth does not make a person "better," having much knowledge does not necessarily make one "wiser." And, being wiser, I would argue, still does not make one better in their every day actions. Even Solomon, to whom the Bible accords the highest level of wisdom, did "bad" things on a regular basis. What I mean, very specifically is this, that no matter how many possessions, either material, intellectual, or spiritual, that we accumulate, every day we still have the same potential for badness that we did on the previous morning.

The point of this whole essay is that the whole creation is still groaning under the weight of sin, and we are in this terrible time of already having a Savior but not yet being fully redeemed. However, there are two equally dangerous conclusions to make from the previous statement. The first problem would be the one I have addressed here, of somehow thinking that as humans we are making progress towards becoming ontologically "better," rather than thinking of making behavioral modifications that sometimes succeed and sometimes fail.

The second problem, which I have not addressed here, is the equally dangerous idea that there is no hope of modifying our behaviors for the "better." Anyone who has faith in Christ Jesus should believe that Christ gives us victory over sin. Although this battle will be fought until we are mouldering in the grave (and possibly afterwards?), we can live in the confidence of a LORD who gives us the strength to wake up every day and live fully for him in total fealty and freedom.