The Death of Morality Means the Death of Logic

For about a year now, I've been studying through the book of Proverbs, usually 3-5 verses a day. I have been trying to decide what I want to blog about next, and I think I want to talk about Proverbs for awhile.

The number one thing Proverbs is known for is its wisdom. It was written by King Solomon, the wisest man who ever lived, and covers a very wide range of topics. One of the things I realized fairly quickly that I hadn't seen before was that Solomon equates wisdom with righteousness. The two are one in the same. To live a live that is right before God and follows His teachings is to be wise. This makes perfect sense once you say it, but it was a little revolutionary to me at the time. I had always thought of wisdom as this vague, somewhat undefined concept that generally meant doing the correct thing in any given situation. But how could you know if something was wise or not? It couldn't just be that things work out well, because that would be the end justifying the means. I knew I was missing something in my definition, some line of measurement for identifying real wisdom. And here it was. If it's righteous, it's wise.

Because these two things are linked, it makes so much more sense why our culture is rapidly losing all ability to be logical, wise, and even possess common sense. It's lost the ability to be righteous. When you reject objective morality, all you have left is subjective morality. I think and feel what is right and wrong for me. With only subjective morality, rationality falls apart. Everything becomes about me and what I feel. People become incapable of making and following logical arguments, because from their view, there is nothing to base them on, no truth to build on.

Onto this stage steps the book of Proverbs, ancient and so relevant. Chapter one covers two major themes: a warning about staying away from those who love to hurt people and a warning about what will happen if you don't listen to the voice of wisdom. In the first section, Solomon is saying, "There will be people who will invite you to come with them and cause trouble and pain for other people for fun and dishonest profit. Don't listen to them. They are ultimately setting traps for themselves, and their end is sure." In the second section, he makes wisdom out to be a woman trying to get people's attention. Those who listen get to learn from her. Those who don't meet very unfortunate ends. Since we know that wisdom and righteousness are linked, it's not hard to think Solomon might have been personifying people's God-given conscience, which is the voice of righteousness and wisdom of each person's heart. Those who listen to it become wiser. Those who ignore it get to the point where they can no longer hear it and end up in trouble.

The end of the chapter, verses 32-33 say, "For the turning away of the inexperienced will kill them, and the complacency of fools will destroy them. But whoever listens to me (Wisdom) will live securely and be free from the fear of danger." Avoid listening to the voice of wisdom, the call of righteousness, and be destroyed. Heed her, and you can be secure in the knowledge that you are God's, and He will take care of you.

Do you want to be wise? If so, how seriously do you take living a life marked by righteousness? The enticements of the world are strong, but their end is destruction. Living according to what God says is not always easy, but it's more fulfilling and ends in life everlasting.