Think you know it all? Think again.

Knowing God, by J. I. Packer (InterVarsity Press, 1973, $16.00)

J.I. Packer has talent for conveying complicated truths using stellar imagery. Getting to know God, he explains, is an experiential thing - "knowing vs. knowing about," as he puts it.

I found his commentary on the meaning of wisdom to be especially relevant. Some of us, he explains, think of wisdom as if it were some kind of comprehensive understanding of how the world works, just like someone could understand how the York railway system works
if they crack into the central switchbox. Solomon shatters this reasoning in the book of Ecclesiastes:

"Apparently the young man [the reader of Ecclesiastes] (like many since) was inclined to equate wisdom with wide knowledge and to suppose that one gains wisdom simply by assiduous book work ([Ecc.] 12:12). Clearly he took it for granted that wisdom, when he gained it, would tell him the reasons for God's various doings in the ordinary course of providence. What the preacher wants to show him is that the real basis of wisdom is a frank acknowledgement that this world's course is enigmatic..., that much of what happens is quite inexplicable to us, and that most occurrences “under the sun" bear no outward sign of a rational, moral God ordering them at all.... It is this pessimistic conclusion, says the preacher, that optimistic expectations of finding the divine purpose of everything will ultimately lead you (1:17-18)...."

This is the same conclusion to which modern science is finally coming: there is no crystal ball in nature. We can predict, but the farther out in time our predictions are, the more prone they are to error.

A scientist named Lorenz realized this fact. After creating a computer generated model of the earthly weather system, he found that very minute changes can, in the long term, produce incredibly large consequences. This phenomena is known as "the butterfly effect," after an old folk poem which declares that a butterfly flapping its wings on one side of the world can cause a horrific storm on the other side (See Chaos: Making a New Science, by James Gleick).

We can't understand everything, yet Packer points out that this is no reason to despair. In answering the question of what wisdom is, he points to the preacher's admonition to "Fear God and keep his commandments.... Seek grace to work hard at whatever life calls you to do (9:10), and enjoy your work as you do it.... Leave to God its issues; let him measure its ultimate worth; your part is to use all the good sense and enterprise at your command in exploiting the opportunities that lie before you. This is the way of wisdom."

Packer's book is packed with insight. Granted, he does seem to waste some ink on a questionable attack on Christian symbolism and art. Nevertheless, the soul of the book is a refreshing drink for our age of many running to and fro with knowledge ever increasing.