What does Wisdom Mean?
Wisdom, also known as sapience or sagacity, is a person’s ability to act and contemplate using their experience, understanding, learnings, knowledge, common sense, and insight. Wisdom is associated with positive attributes that include experiential self-knowledge, self-transcendence, unbiased judgment, compassion, non-attachment, and virtues such as benevolence and ethics. Wisdom has been defined in a number of different ways. These ways include several distinguished approaches to assessing and analyzing the characteristics that are attributed to wisdom.
The Oxford English Dictionary defines wisdom as " a person’s capacity to judge a matter rightly. This matter can be related to the soundness of judgment in the choice of means and ends, life and conduct, or sometimes, less strictly, even one’s sound sense, especially in practical affairs. In contrast to folly, wisdom is also known as “Knowledge (particularly of a high or abstruse kind), enlightenment, learning, or an erudition.”
Charles Haddon Spurgeon, an English preacher, defined wisdom as “the accurate utilization of knowledge.” Robert I. Sutton and Andrew Hargadon, other prominent preachers, have expressed the ‘attitude of wisdom’ as a person “acting with knowledge along with doubting what they know.” In psychological and social sciences, several distinct approaches have existed throughout. There have been significant advances in the last two decades concerning the measurement and operationalization of wisdom as a psychological construct.
Wisdom is a person’s capacity to have foreknowledge of some event or a thing. It also refers to knowing an event’s positive and negative consequences under all available courses of action. Wisdom allows an individual to yield or take the options that promise them the most advantage for present or future implications.
Wisdom in Christianity
In Christian theology, the word ‘wisdom’ is used to describe a facet of God or even the theological concept that concerns the wisdom of God. The two main dimensions of Wisdom in Christian thought, namely secular wisdom and Godly wisdom, exist in differing and oppositional elements throughout this understanding.
Paul, the Apostle, stipulates that worldly wisdom believes the claims of Christ to be stupidity and foolishness. However, to everyone “on the path to salvation,” Christ’s claims represent God’s wisdom. According to Anglican, Catholic, and Lutheran beliefs, wisdom can also be understood as one of the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit. Corinthians and their texts give an alternate list of nine virtues, and wisdom is one of them.
The book of Proverbs in the Bible’s Old Testament was written by one of the wisest kings in the world, according to Jewish history, King Solomon. This book primarily focuses on wisdom. The proverbs found in the Bible’s Old Testament section have been known to guide handling difficult situations in life. These situations are taken from various aspects of life that range from dealing with finances, work, friendships, one’s relationship with God, marriage, and persevering in difficult situations that one faces in life.
According to the teachings of King Solomon, wisdom is an attribute that is gained directly from God, “For the Lord gives one wisdom; from His mouth come knowledge and understanding.” He adds that one can rely on God’s wise aide for a better life. King Solomon has also mentioned that “He holds success in store for the upright person, he is a protector to those whose walk is righteous, for he is known to guard the course of the just and protect the way of his faithful ones.”
King Solomon asks his pupil to “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on one’s understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.” Solomon stipulates that with the wisdom one has received from God, one can find success and happiness in life.
Wisdom in Indian Religions
In Indian traditions, wisdom is either known as prajña or vijñana.
In Buddhist traditions, developing wisdom is of central importance. The ultimate aim of wisdom is understood as “seeing things as they are” or even gaining a “perceptive understanding of all phenomena.” This understanding is described as a virtue that can ultimately lead an individual to “complete freedom from suffering.” In Buddhism, wisdom can be accomplished by following the Noble Eightfold Path and understanding the Four Noble Truths. This path understands mindfulness as one of eight mandatory components for cultivating wisdom.
Buddhist scriptures believe that a wise person is bound to be endowed with good verbal and mental conduct. A wise person participates in unpleasant actions to give good results. Moreover, he doesn’t participate in any pleasant activity that gives terrible results. Wisdom is the medicine for all forms of ignorance. According to Buddha, many conclusions can be drawn on the subject of wisdom, such as –
- He who arbitrates force cannot become just (as is established in Dhamma). A wise man is one who carefully discriminates between right and wrong.
- He who leads others righteously, equitably, and by non-violence is the guardian of wisdom, justice, and righteousness.
- One is not wise just because he talks a lot. He is wise because he is calm and devoid of fear and hatred.
- If he is ignorant and foolish, one can not become a sage (muni) through quietude alone. A wise man takes the good and shuns the evil. He who understands both evil and sound can be called a true sage.
To recover the original supreme wisdom of self-nature, one has to let go of the three self-imposed dusty poisons named the kleshas: greed, anger, and ignorance. Buddha taught that one could let go of these poisons through threefold training. His students were instructed to turn greed into generosity and discipline, ignorance into wisdom, and anger into kindness and meditation.
In Hinduism, wisdom is regarded as a state of mind and soul through which a person can achieve liberation. In Hinduism, Ganesha is known as the God of wisdom, and Saraswati is known as the goddess of knowledge.
Wisdom in Islam
The Islamic term used for wisdom is hikmah. Muslims believe that prophets of Islam possess high levels of wisdom. The term ‘wisdom’ occurs several times in the Quran. According to Ibn Arabi, a Sufi philosopher al-Hakim (“The Wise”) is considered one of the Creator’s names.
Truth and wisdom are regarded as divine attributes. These concepts have been primarily related and valued in the Islamic sciences and philosophy since their beginnings.