Not Knowing

One of the most important lessons I learned this past school year was the transparency or opaqueness of knowledge. Within the context of especially modernity, ideologues desire to have complete knowledge of the world through the systems they implement. Their desire to create an earthly paradise often stops at no boundaries and is a reason for the unfathomable bloodbath that marks the 20th century.

But such ideas do not necessarily contain such terrible consequences. The desire to know things is human but finite man must come to terms early in his life, how limited he really is. No matter how many times we think we can "control our own destiny," perhaps the Lord's ways are much different than our own ways. Maybe in this world, there are some things we are NOT supposed to know.

I'm thankful for C.S Lewis's closing chapter in The Abolition of Man. These final words are meant as a warning for the man who desires answers at all costs so as to become his own god. Yet within the warning for the Christian, there is comfort. We do not need to know everything because God's plan is always best. When we seek to become more like Him we are better tuned to His will. Our prayer should not be to know, but to rest in Him.

Lewis writes in the final words of The Abolition of Man:
... the kind of explanation which explains things away may give us something, though at a heavy cost. But you cannot go on 'explaining away' for ever: you will find that you have explained explanation itself away. You cannot go on 'seeing through' things for ever. The whole point of seeing through something is to see something through it.... It is no use trying to 'see through' first principles. If you see through everything, then everything is transparent. But a wholly transparent world is an invisible world. To 'see through' all things is the same as not to see.

Sometimes attempting to see everything causes us to see nothing. Certainly ideologues in their attempt to enforce their view of the world on others, completely misunderstood the true nature of the world. Similarly, when we attempt to know everything we risk the chance of knowing nothing. It is good to find rest by trusting in God regardless of our circumstances.