Wisdom 1

19 November 2023

Wisdom 1

I posted recently, November 2, about the shift to theology that took place in Platonism in the late classical period.  I was struck by how this shift to theology took place in both Christian and Pagan contexts.  The shift was a shift away from wisdom and towards theology.  Here are a few observations and comments about this:

1.  When I was studying Buddhism I was very taken by the Perfection of Wisdom Sutras.  These are a collection of Mahayana Discourses that are focused on the perfection of wisdom, or ‘prajna paramita.’  I studied these works with intense focus and ended up writing commentaries on two of the most influential of these Sutras; the Heart Sutra and the Diamond Sutra.  I still have very positive feelings for these discourses, though I also have changed my mind about some of the central ideas found therein, not the least of which is emptiness itself.  But I bring this up because the overall view of the Perfection of Wisdom Sutras is that wisdom has liberative power; meaning that wisdom can open the gate to higher understanding that leads to the cessation of sorrow.  I still agree with that.

2.  I see Platonism as a wisdom tradition, a tradition in which wisdom is the way, wisdom is the path, to breaking free from genesis and samsara.  I don’t think of this as a controversial claim.

3.  The wisdom of philosophy is transcendent wisdom, or the wisdom of transcendence.  It is not extensive knowledge about a particular subject.  We might say, for example, that someone is ‘wise in the ways of pottery’ or ‘wise in the ways of poetry’ or ‘wise in the way of war’ or ‘wise in the ways of grammar,’ and so forth.  But the wisdom of philosophy is not that kind of wisdom; the wisdom of philosophy transcends those kinds of topics, goes beyond those kinds of topics.

4.  In wisdom literature the word ‘beyond’ is often used to signal the transcendent nature of philosophical wisdom.  This usage is found repeatedly in the Perfection of Wisdom Sutras, as well as Mystical Theology of Dionysius the Areopagite. 

5.  If I were to express the wisdom of philosophy briefly, I would say that philosophical wisdom is the wisdom of eternity, of that which is eternal, of that which is eternity as such.  Wisdom is gained by distinguishing eternity from that which is ephemeral.  For example, the soul is eternal, the body is not.

6.  When philosophy is displaced by theology one of the consequences is that wisdom is also displaced, or put into an inferior, subordinate position.  Proclus makes this clear in his Theology of Plato:

“. . . [T]here are three things which collect together the natures that are filled, being secondary indeed to the former, but all things are saved through these, and are conjoined to their primary causes; some things indeed, through amatory mania, others through divine philosophy, and others through theurgic power, which is more excellent than all human wisdom, and which comprehends prophetic good, and purifying powers of perfective good, and in short, all such things as are the effects of divine possession.”

(Proclus, The Theology of Plato, translated by Thomas Taylor, The Prometheus Trust, Lydney, UK, 1816, page 114, ISBN: 9781898910077)

7.  I see theurgy as a specialized knowledge, meaning knowledge of a specific topic.  In this case it would be knowledge of ritual practices.  But I don’t see theurgy as transcendent, or leading to, or assisting in, transcendence, and for that reason I view transcendent wisdom, which is to say philosophical wisdom, as the key to philosophical awakening, the key to going beyond, and even beyond beyond.

8.  In a way, when we are considering philosophical wisdom, we are already entering into the Noetic.  I say this because the noetic is free from material content.  As I have previously written, the Being of Noetic Being is not the being of any particular thing; it is Being as such.  In a similar way, transcendent wisdom is not the wisdom of a specific topic, but the wisdom of transcendence as such.  It therefore embraces the entire Noetic domain and from there transcendent wisdom becomes the launching pad to the Good, the One, and the Beautiful.