The Pursuit of Knowledge and the Computer Age⤒🔗

As you read this article, many of you will be involved in precisely that – a serious, concentrated pursuit of knowledge. For many of you a new school year has begun in high school, college, or graduate school, and your very objective is to increase in knowledge. The pursuit of this objective may partially be motivated by your own thirst for knowledge, but it is also largely dictated by the society in which you live – a society which demands the pursuit of knowledge. As a matter of fact, the complexity of our society has become such that it is unforgiving to those who do not wish to pursue knowledge, a fact which is conveyed by the common saying that you need a college education to make it in today's world. We could actually go a step further and say that our Western civilization lusts after knowledge and therefore pursues it with obsession. I believe that it is not too far­fetched to conclude that we are living in the times of which Daniel prophe­sied, "the time of the end," in which "many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased" (Dan 12:4). What better words could we find to depict the age in which God has sovereignly decreed to give us a place? I do not believe that anyone needs to be convinced that life in the Western world is proceeding at a breath-taking pace – a pace so breath-taking that our life at the threshold of the twenty-first century is frequently referred to as a "rat-race." Increasingly, people who cannot maintain this pace any longer are falling by the way-side.

By the inspiration of God's Spirit, Daniel establishes a direct relationship between this "running to and fro" and the "increase of knowledge," a relationship which is very evident to the keen observer of our society. There is an obvious causal relationship between the advent of the computer and the ex­plosive growth of human knowledge in this century. It appears as if the computer literally puts the world at our finger tips and permits man to use information creatively in a manner which has never been possible before. The computer therefore undoubtedly fuels man's innate desire to know, and pres­ently gives him the illusion that there are no limits to what he can know. Moreover, the computer also encourages man to "run to and fro" at an ever-increasing pace in the feverish pursuit of that knowledge and its fringe (monetary) benefits – the unmistakable lifestyle of the yuppie generation.

All this translates into a human race, a global community, which bears a very strong resemblance to the human community shortly after the flood, which with its tower of Babel was determined to reach and dethrone the very God of heaven.

It is within this context that we must also place your current pursuit of knowledge. For both the danger and tempta­tion are very great that also you will be caught up in the mentality of our society which pursues knowledge for the sake of knowledge itself, thereby feeding man's pride and strengthening his illusion that he is as God and with his knowledge can ultimately usher in a new age, a utopia in which all will be well.

The Pursuit of Knowledge from a Biblical Perspective←⤒🔗

Perhaps by this time the question will burst forth, "Is the pursuit of knowledge then wrong? May and ought we not to pursue an education if God has given us the talents to do so?" My answer is that the pursuit of knowledge itself is not wrong, but the serious question I would like you to contemplate on is this: "What is your true objective in pursuing knowledge?" In order to assist you in doing so, let us briefly consider what Scripture has to say about knowledge. This will give us an entirely different perspective than the world offers you – also much of the academic world.

The Lord Jesus tells that "this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent" (John 17:3). In these few simple words, "that they might know Thee," the Lord Jesus expresses a reality which is so profound that it will take a never-ending eternity to probe the depths of that truth. Why? In these words the Lord Jesus defines with precision what the highest purpose of our human existence is, namely, to know God! That was the glorious purpose of Adam's existence before the fall, and it will be the eternal employment of God's children to glory in the knowledge of God. This is why Christ defines eternal life as the perfecting of the knowledge of the only true God.

My dear young friend, this was the reason that God endowed Adam with intelligence and a thirst for knowl­edge, namely, that he might know His Maker. And this is precisely the reason that God has endowed you with intelligence! God created us with an intelligent mind in order that we would be able to discern and respond in worship to the revelation of His magnificent character as declared in His adorable attributes. Furthermore, God gave us such a mind that – had we not fallen – it would have been our eternal desire to ever know more of the infinite dimensions of the character of our in­finite Creator. And thus, if man had not fallen, he would have eternally delighted himself in God, and his life would have consisted of a perpetual increasing in the knowledge of His magnificent Creator.

Our Fall and its Effect on the Pursuit of Knowledge←⤒🔗

How tragically has our fall altered all this! In turning away from our blessed Creator we lost the true purpose of our human existence, for the deepest tragedy of our fall is that we lost God Himself. Ever since that wretched moment, man himself has become the focus of his existence, and therefore fallen man no longer desires to know God. Instead he pursues the knowledge of himself – a pursuit which takes on ever more sophisticated forms in our present day. Man's thirst for knowledge has lost its proper focus, and therefore the ultimate objective of all human knowledge is self – the knowledge of his innermost workings, the knowledge of his historical development, the knowledge of his great ac­complishments, the knowledge of his environment in which he pretends to be god, etc. "The world was made by Him, and the world knew Him not" (John 1:10). We live in a world in which the pursuit of knowledge is en­tirely misdirected; a world which has an academic and intellectual commun­ity which is ever learning and never coming to the knowledge of the truth; a world which does not know God; and most importantly, a world which is blatantly hostile to the knowledge of God. How very applicable are the fol­lowing words of Scripture to modern man: "They spend their days in wealth, and in a moment go down to the grave. Therefore they say unto God, Depart from us; for we desire not the knowl­edge of Thy ways" (Job 21:13-14).

Dear young friend, this is the world in which we live and which you are about to be caught up in – if you are not caught up in it already. The educational community of which you are now a part will only accelerate your total assimilation into a way of life and thinking which will possibly make you successful and financially independent, but which – if God prevents not – will also result in your eternal ruin. Oh, that God would intervene in your life with His mighty, regenerating grace, so that you may become a new creature for whom God becomes the focus of existence! Then you will again be­gin to answer to the purpose for which you were created and you will begin to pursue the knowledge of God.

This is precisely why Scripture states that the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom. Therefore, only when you have begun to pursue the knowledge of God has your education truly begun. All other education – as eminent as it may make you in the eyes of society and as needful as some of it may be for your profession – is misdirected and will ultimately cause you to perish. Hell will be filled with highly educated people with brilliant minds who perished because they refused to know God, who "when they knew God, they glorified Him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their im­aginations, and their foolish heart was darkened" (Rom. 1:21). Paul refers to such when he writes that "the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with His mighty angels, in flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God" (2 Thess. 1:7, 8).

The Wondrous Fruit of God's Grace: The Pursuit of the Knowledge of God←⤒🔗

Oh, may it therefore become the highest goal and most urgent objective of your young life to know God! Nothing so honors and pleases your Maker as when you seek Him and desire to know Him. He therefore promises that those that seek Him early shall also find Him. How painful it will initially be when God makes you acquainted with Himself. That acquaintance will cause you to realize that you are a sinner. It will cause you to realize the abominable nature of sin, namely, that you have despised your Maker, held Him in contempt, and displayed by the fruits of your life that you neither desired Him nor the knowledge of His ways. God will then make you acquainted with His attributes and cause you to realize that such a rebel deserves to perish forever. However, He will not stop there! His ultimate goal is that you may know Him again as a God of infinite love, and He will therefore inevitably make you acquainted with His beloved Son in whose blessed face fallen sinners may again behold the glory of God without being consumed (2 Cor. 4:6). That is the profound truth which the Apostle John expresses when he writes, "And we know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding, that we may know Him that is true, and we are in Him that is true, even in His Son Jesus Christ" (1 John 5:20).

May the Son of God, by His Spirit, give you understanding to "know Him that is true." May God also fulfil the promise of the covenant of grace in your life – the mark of which you bear on your forehead. "And I will give them a heart to know Me, that I am the LORD: and they shall be My people, and I will be their God" (Jer 24:7). As you thus pursue your education, may you never forget that you were created to know God – created to be "theologians" in the literal sense of the word! May the words of Jeremiah be your guiding principle in your pursuit of knowledge:

"But let him that glorieth glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth Me, that I am the LORD which exercise lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness, in the earth: for in these things I delight, saith the LORD."  Jeremiah 9:24