On the way into the house Joe stops at the mailbox and removes a four-inch-thick pile of various letters, newsletters, brochures, catalogues, magazines, flyers and advertisements. This supply of literature is enough reading for three full days, yet an equal amount or greater will come tomorrow. Dinner is again in front of the television, but not in the kitchen as was breakfast. Now it is before the giant screen in the family room. This is the set to which Joe has connected his mini satellite dish, with perfect reception. Joe had real trouble choosing between the two providers of this service. Finally the company that offered 157 channels won out. The other company, after all, offered only 84 channels. While surfing the myriad of offerings on the big screen, Joe finishes some work that he has brought home on his lap-top computer. Before going to bed, he spends a considerable amount of time on his computer playing an interactive, on-line game that he believes himself to be addicted to. The game is wildly popular among on-line computer users and is called MUSH: M.U.S.H. which stands for Multi-User Shared Hallucination. Joe has told his wife, who complained once about his habit, that this is better then being addicted to a MUD—Multi-User Dungeon. MUDs are a brutally violent version of MUSHes, because the object is often to kill or be killed.
Joe finally pulls himself away from the computer when his eyes can no longer focus on the screen. He takes a shower while listening to the waterproof radio hanging on the shower spigot. Then, it’s off to bed where he finally dozes off under the flickering of his bedroom TV and the accompaniment of his clock radio, which will awaken him tomorrow morning once again to the sound of the latest morning news.
Truly we live in the Information Age. We are bombarded with information nearly every minute of the day. Is this good? Is it healthful? We have been imparted a God-given thirst for the Truth. Yet like so many gifts from God, we have corrupted this thirst and have turned it into a passion. How should we Orthodox Christians deal with the glut of information?
It is commonly accepted today by the educational establishment and society as a whole that acquisition of knowledge is empirically good—the more knowledge one acquires the better a person one becomes—more well rounded, more enlightened. Yet is this necessarily true?
Some Definitions
It is important for us to understand that there is a difference between information, knowledge, truth, and wisdom. We must also realize that a Christian defines these terms differently from a non-Christian. Let us focus our attention on these concepts:
“Information” according to the American Heritage Dictionary is simply defined as “a collection of observations or data.” We can certainly agree with this definition. A phone book is a collection of information. If we were to arrive at a bus station from out of town and needed a ride to church, if we discovered that our phone battery had gone dead, a phone book would surely contain some very useful information for us. Yet, we would all agree that if we were to memorize the phone book for the city we were in, we would be filling our brain with a lot of extraneous information. Thus, not all information is necessary or useful. An overabundance of information can actually be distracting and even harmful.
We can also agree that a phone book may contain a great amount of information, but we would not call this information wisdom or even knowledge.
The dictionary defines “knowledge” as “the sum or range of what has been perceived, discovered, or learned.” Notice that in this secular definition there is not even a hint of discernment between healthful knowledge and harmful knowledge. Yet the Church has always distinguished between the knowledge of good and the knowledge of evil. We must remember that our current fallen condition is the result of our First Ancestors’ disobedient partaking of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. What moved Adam and Eve to violate the one limiting commandment given to them by God in Paradise, given to them, so that, as St Ephraim the Syrian says, “they, by remaining obedient to it, could show their love for God” (Works, vol. 6, p. 233). Why did they transgress? Yes, they were tempted by the Devil; and yes, they became prideful and began to think that they knew better than their Creator; yet there was a large dose of curiosity present as well. After all, the Devil had promised them: …in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil (Genesis 3:5). Is it not sinful curiosity that so often causes us to stray where we know we should not? To seek knowledge that we know will not bring us any benefit? What is the usual result of this divergence? Are we truly satisfied by our foray into the sinful? No, we are not. The result is usually a feeling of defilement, emptiness. The only useful knowledge that we may have gleaned from our action is that it is best not to stray from the commandments of the Lord our God. This is exactly what St John Chrysostom says. In answer to the question “Why was the tree called ‘the tree of the knowledge of good and evil?” he responds: “The tree did not give birth to the nature of good and evil. It merely exposed the disposition of man. It is called by this name not because good or evil was bound to its essence, but because it served for the disclosure of good and evil. And actually,” continues St. John, “what knowledge did Adam attain from partaking of the tree? He found out that obedience to God is good while disobedience to God is evil. This then is it,” concludes Chrysostom, “the knowledge of good and evil, nothing more” (Vol. 8, p. 799).
Thus we see that not all knowledge is healthy, positive. On the contrary, there is much knowledge that is harmful and even poisonous.
Divine Scripture points out that some knowledge can be useless. Eliphaz the Temanite in the book of Job asks: Should a wise man utter vain knowledge, and fill his belly with the east wind? Should he reason with unprofitable talk? or with speeches wherewith he can do no good? (Job 15:2–3). What would Eliphaz have to say about the endless hours spent by so many engaging in the interminable deliberations in the discussion groups of the Internet and exchanges on social media?
Yet, how are we to discern worthy knowledge from vain knowledge? The Holy Prophet David gives us a good indication of this in his 118th psalm, that most beautiful noetic prayer. The psalmist cries out: Despondency took hold upon me because of the sinners who forsake Thy Law… The cords of sinners (web of the wicked) have entangled me… Goodness and discipline and knowledge teach Thou me, for in Thy commandments have I believed… Thou art good, O Lord, and in Thy goodness teach me Thy statutes.
Goodness and discipline and knowledge teach Thou me…. Contemporary proud humanism dictates to us that man can attain true knowledge through the efforts of his own reason or experience. Yet the Church, ever trying to humble our proud souls, teaches us the opposite. King Solomon in his first proverb plainly states: The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge (Prov. 1:7). Can we really trust a teacher to teach us genuine discernment if he not only does not fear the Lord, but does not even acknowledge God’s existence?
It is truly humbling to realize that St John Climacus, in his Ladder of Divine Ascent, (a book organized as a series of rungs on a ladder, each step depicting a virtue one must attain or passion one must overcome), places discernment on the twenty-sixth of thirty steps. There is so much to overcome and so much to attain before one can, with the help of God, hope to possess at least the sprouts of spiritual discernment. How close to the Church then must we remain, to Her good Bishops and pastors, to Her Fathers and Teachers; how often must we delve into the Word of God, in order not to be led astray, following leads of false knowledge, idle imaginings of the sinful human mind.
Further, can we lead a sinful life, engage in illicit relationships, pollute our mind’s eye with corrupting images, defile our speech with obscene words, fill our mind with vile imaginings, yet honestly hope to be able to distinguish indispensable knowledge from knowledge void of worth or significance? At every Sunday Liturgy we hear the Beatitude: Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God (Matthew 5:8). There is only one way to purify one’s heart: that is through repentance, Holy Confession and Holy Communion. Dare we live in this world without frequently turning to these salutary Sacraments?
Clearly then, in order to discern worthy knowledge from vain knowledge we must live a life of spiritual struggle, that is, we must live a life in the Church. This takes time, dedication, concentration, and rejection of vain distractions. It requires that we escape from Informational Sensory Overload which is heaped upon us by the Information age.
To be continued…