The Perils of a Know All

THE PERILS OF A KNOW ALL

Jn. 9: 1-41

A familiar proverb says, “Knowledge is power”.  I’m sure we have all experienced the truth of this saying.  If your car won’t start and you don’t know what the fault is, you are helpless.  At this moment for you the ‘strongest’ man in town is the car mechanic.  His knowledge is strength.  The same is true in the medical profession.  If you fall ill and can’t help yourself, we hope a doctor who knows what is wrong and has the medicine will cure you.  At that moment he is the strong one because of his knowledge.

It is true that knowledge is power.  The more we know, the better prepared we are to cope with the problems and challenges of life.  But there is another proverb given to us by William Shakespeare.  “A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.”  His meaning is fairly obvious.  A doctor who thinks he knows so much that he never questions his own diagnosis nor seeks the counsel of a colleague, poses a serious threat to the health of his patients.

It is important for us to know everything that we possibly can, but it is also imperative that we recognise the limitations of our knowledge.  Today’s Gospel reading tells us about a group of men who failed to make that distinction.  They were knowledgeable, but they overestimated the extent of their knowledge.  They had learned a little but assumed they knew everything.  That erroneous assumption cost them dearly.  It slammed the door of discovery in their faces and locked it tightly. They lived at the same time as Jesus, the greatest Teacher our world has and will ever know and they learned nothing from Him. They were too busy protecting their little store of knowledge to open their minds to any new insights.  All they could do was to bicker about the proper observance of the Sabbath.  As a result their lives were a tragedy.

Ignorance is not the primary hindrance of knowledge, arrogance is.  People who are ignorant, and know it, can learn.  People who know little and think they know much are almost impossible to teach.  I smiled when I heard of the student who had completed his study of physics.  One day, unknown to him, he sat next to Albert Einstein, the greatest physicist of the twentieth century.  He asked him what his profession was.  Einstein said, “I teach physics.”  The student replied, “I finished that subject last year!”  There was the great Einstein still learning more about his subject while this upstart had hardly scratched the surface.

St. Luke wrote of Jesus when He was 12 that He steadily grew in wisdom, age and grace before God.  Obviously like any normal child He was still learning, still growing in wisdom.  But I think that statement could have been said of Jesus at any point in His life.  He never ceased to be a learner.  Jesus involved His followers in on going formation.  He taught them for as long as He lived, and when He left them He had this to say, “I have much more to tell you, but you cannot bear it now.  When the Spirit of Truth comes, He will guide you into all truth”. (Jn. 16: 12-13)  Jesus clearly did not think that He had spoken the final word.  He did not close the door of truth.  He opened it and left it ajar.  The only way that door can ever be closed again is for us to slam it in our faces, by the incredible arrogance of knowing too much.  This is what the Pharisees did to themselves.

This attitude also destroyed their relationship with other people.  They were so sure of their knowledge that they would not tolerate any opinion that differed from their own.  The man who was born blind told them that Jesus had opened his eyes, and explained how He had done it.  They should have praised and thanked God for such a miracle, instead all they could say was “This Man cannot be from God:  He does not keep the Sabbath.” The Pharisees were not prepared to accept what Jesus had done and so excluded the man who had been cured from the temple.  That is precisely how an ignorant and arrogant person behaves.

Think of how many hearts have been broken and relationships ruined by that kind of dogmatic certainty.  The father in a family makes his opinion known on a given subject.  After that, no other opinion will be tolerated.  Many young people have left home too soon, because of that very attitude.  An owner of a business has his own way of doing things, and is not open to improvements.  Many companies have lost employees because of that attitude.  Whatever our role in life may be, we should be careful of knowing too much.  It could cost us the greatest knowledge of all – the privilege of really getting to know other people.

How true are the words of that Jewish prayer:

“From the cowardice that fears new truth,

From the laziness that settles for half-truth,

From the arrogance that thinks it knows all truth,

O God of Truth, deliver us.”

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