Ok, no time for a real update, so instead I will post what I wrote in response to the question "What is Wisdom?" for honors class. If it seems disjointed I'm sorry.

What is Wisdom?

Wisdom is the ability to discern what is right and proper. It is related to but very different from knowledge. Knowledge is merely a collection of lifeless facts and findings: something that even a computer can have. Wisdom, on the other hand, is the ability to take knowledge and make judgments which do not themselves come from that knowledge.

So, while knowledge is needed for wisdom (or at least for wisdom to be shown), wisdom is something that does not itself reside in knowledge. Even with all the knowledge in the world about stem cell research available to a person, he could not from that information alone, discover whether it is right or not to use embryos for the research.

Wisdom comes in two forms, although one is in fact a derivative or shadow of the other. The first is what Socrates refers to as “some wisdom greater than human” (Apology 20b), or which I will call Divine wisdom. This is the highest of all wisdom, as it is that of the Creator and is the perspective of the One who created and understands every detail of the universe.

The second form of wisdom is human wisdom. This wisdom is the inferior of the two, yet finds its ultimate source in Divine wisdom. Contrary to the beliefs of the Calvinists, who hold that humans are completely fallen and without any good at all separate from God, I believe that by looking at the world we can see that everybody has what has been called “The spark of the Divine”: an innate ability to understand and do good. Contained in this Spark of the Divine is our capacity for human wisdom. So, while incomplete, human wisdom can, in fact, divine right from wrong. Differences between Divine wisdom and human wisdom come from either the fallen nature of human beings or the incomplete perspective that we have on the world.

If wisdom is something that we all naturally have, foolishness is not the lack of wisdom, but rather it is the despising of that wisdom which we already have and the Divine wisdom from which it comes.