Recently, I did a presentation for our university's pre-seminary students. Here are some clips:
I want to talk about truth tonight – the search for
knowledge. This is the connection
between learning and faith, or as Augustine put it: “faith seeking
understanding”. In the title of this
talk I have put it as “faith seeking truth”.
I will also tie all of this in with libraries, vocation, technology and
evangelism – all in under forty-five minutes!...
For me, libraries have always held some real
fascination. All that information – I
dare say knowledge – in one place. I
loved going to libraries when I was little.
And libraries go way back – the earliest libraries we know of were
storehouses of religious “knowledge”, and were connected with the religious
temples (in Egypt, for example). Later
on, all manner of learning were sought by the cruel Assyrian conqueror Ashurbanipal,
who, oddly enough, was at once the leader of the world’s superpower and one of
the world’s first librarians. When he
said “Shh”, you took heed....
From a simple worldly perspective, I can think of a variety
of reasons persons might seek truth:
Truth is something we just want to know....
Truth is valuable in a practical sense...
...it is good to seek the truth, even if the truth is not always
good...
We actually
suppress the truth.
We
have nothing to fear from a robust conversation with the world (they,
alternatively....). All real truth and knowledge are of Divine origin.
The people of God have always been about learning, and hence, literacy,
universities, and libraries have taken hold in areas influenced by
Christianity...
Just remember though "For with much wisdom comes much
sorrow; the more knowledge, the more grief" (Ecc. 1:18). But we are to imitate Christ, the Man of
Sorrows – who also knew great joy...
