Secular Education / Higher Education (Part 1)

As a youth I resonated to T. S. Eliot's lamentation: "Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?" (T. S. Eliot, The Rock [1934], I).  How much more is his lament true now in our ‘information age?’

As a mid-to-late-teenage boy I read and loved the Holy Bible.  As enlightening as the Bible was to me, however, I soon found that by including prayer and pondering I was being led more-and-more to the conclusion that there must be something more.  Didn’t even my Bible reading of Paul suggest that? “…Be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive; but speaking the truth in love … grow up into Him in all things. /  Wherefore He saith, awake thou that sleepest and arise from the dead [meaning intellectual and spiritual stupor] and Christ shall give thee light. / Walk as children of light. / Wherefore be ye not unwise but understanding what the will of the Lord is.” (Ephesians 4:14-15; 5:8, 14, 17) In short, I didn’t buy the conclusion my protestant mentors posited--that revelation of truth was over; that God wasn’t talking to man any more—it had all been said. I knew the Bible simply didn’t teach that. 

Later, when I came much more fully into the Gospel light I read this related warning and explanation: “For there are many yet on the earth among all sects, parties, and denominations, who are blinded by the subtle craftiness of men whereby they lie in wait to deceive and who are only kept from the truth because they know not where to find it.” (Doctrine and Covenants 123: 12)  From The Book of Mormon the prophet Nephi lamented over those who "will not search knowledge, nor understand great knowledge" (2 Nephi 32:7).  Clearly he was referring to a particular kind of knowledge.  If we understand the Bible, we know there is higher knowledge, indeed eternal truths God wants us to understand,  but that kind of knowledge comes only by revelation and, thereby, is only "spiritually discerned" (1 Corinthians 2:14).

In reflecting upon my young life, when I read this I knew it to be true.  Truth could be found!  In my early adulthood I had found it—at least an important part of it.  I found it on the path Jesus trod. 

But of my associates then, and some even now, I have also come to know that many had not pursued this quest for truth—the ‘higher education’ that the Gospel promised ; it was something they no longer, if they ever had, even thought about.  These good, but ‘natural men,’ pursued the secular ‘higher education’ essential to get along well in the work world, but insufficient, for a complete education that could direct them to ‘the truth , the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help me God.’  The apostle Paul said, “The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.” (1 Corinthians 2:14)  

By contrast, those who diligently sought spiritual 'higher education' would be gifted with a ‘pearl of great price’:  “For by my Spirit will I enlighten them [the spiritually enlightened], and by my power will I make known unto them the secrets of my will--yea, even those things which eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor yet entered into the heart of man.” (D&C 76:10)  Knowledge that is ‘spiritually discerned’ does not come without knocking, seeking, searching, pondering, and committing, and is not always easily or with persuasion communicated by the receiver to the non-believer who will not make the same diligent effort to know. 

Embedded in the scriptures, of  the Old World and New World,  are the words ‘truth’ and ‘understanding’ and a plea not to be ‘unwise.’ Implicit is the notion that there is such a thing as ‘truth’; we can come to ‘understanding’, and we should not be ‘unwise.’  

  

It is clear from scripture that some truths turn out to have a place in a hierarchy of Truth that the world doesn't understand. The highest education, therefore, includes salvational truths, bringing us “a knowledge of  things as they really are, as they were, and as they really will be" (Jacob 4:13; Doctrine and Covenants 93:24). Christ's manner of life is truly "the way, the truth, and the life," and he has directed us to pursue it.  (John 14:6; see also Matthew 5:48; 3 Nephi 12:48; 3 Nephi 27:27).

The point I am trying to make is that all knowledge is not of equal significance. There is no democracy of facts or even knowledge, and certainly not of wisdom.  It should be clear that many things may be factual but unimportant.  Our challenge is to give the weightier matters their deserved prominence without leaving the lesser learning chores "undone" (Matthew 23:23).

Neal A. Maxwell commented that:

“Brilliance, by itself, is not wholeness, nor happiness. Knowledge, if possessed for its own sake and unapplied, leaves one's life unadorned. A Church member, for instance, might describe the Lord's doctrines but not qualify to enter the Lord's house. One could produce much brilliant commentary without being exemplary. One might be intellectually brilliant but Bohemian in behavior. One might use his knowledge to seek preeminence or dominion. Such are not Jesus' ways, for he asks that perception and implementation be part of the same spiritual process.” 

The Prophet Joseph Smith observed, "If you wish to go where God is, you must be like God, or possess the principles which God possesses" (Teachings, p. 216). God possesses perfect knowledge, but he also possesses perfect love and mercy.  Elder Maxwell again observed: “What a contrast He is to those mortals who are bright but bad, who are clever but carnal! Even genius without goodness can be dangerous.” 

No wonder, therefore, "to be learned is good if [we] hearken unto the counsels of God" instead of setting them aside as if we have somehow outgrown them (2 Nephi 9:29). How can one ever outgrow Christ's beckoning example of knowing, behaving, and doing? What happens, however, is that some easily fall into the trap described by Paul, "Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth" (2 Timothy 3:7). For example, one might learn a great deal about the physical characteristics of this planet earth but yet be ignorant of why it was created (for us) in the first place (see Isaiah 45:18; 1 Nephi 17:36; Moses 1:33,39).  The highest education deals much with who, why, and when.  ‘How,’ I suppose, will come later.