Sunday, May 21, 2017

Zeal Without Knowledge

The Bible does not oppress or suppress the intellect, despite the multitude of contrary claims one can find.  Indeed, it supports and even demands thorough use of the intellect [1]--in fact, it outright condemns zealousness for God not founded on sound knowledge of him.  Zeal and passion do not inherently threaten Christianity or use of reason, yet Proverbs instructs that intellectual caution not be exchanged for haste, nor knowledge for unfounded zeal:


Proverbs 19:2--"It is not good to have zeal without knowledge, nor to be hasty and miss the way."


Passion for God and Christianity must be accompanied by theological knowledge or that passion remains aimless.  Alone, passion can lead people astray intellectually, morally, and spiritually, but knowledge can impose restrictions on the extent to which individuals yield to their passions.  There is nothing intrinsically damaging or wrong about emotion and passion according to Christianity, yet misinformed passion stymies rationality, personal growth, and adherence to true beliefs.

An anti-intellectual or un-intellectual religion will likely not survive very long in the modern world, nor is there any reason to fret over this fact.  If a religion (or any other belief) cannot withstand examination, seekers of truth will discard it as a legitimate worldview option, at least until genuine evidence or proof for it surfaces.  The Bible does not teach blind trust in a particular theological ideology; instead, it commands its readers to test everything (1 Thessalonians 5:21) and to not indulge in zeal that stands apart from knowledge, and Proverbs 19:2 reinforces this objective unmistakably and blatantly.


[1].  http://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2016/06/the-necessity-of-reason.html

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