In 1978 my parents purchased the World Book Encyclopedia for the family. My siblings and I were entering the latter half of our grade school education, and my parents, rightly so, believed that we should have access to information. For several years following they purchased the Yearbook, an update or revision of the information in the encyclopedia. For years that set sat in its specially designed bookshelf, and we used the information in it for school projects and the like. I don’t recall when the 30 or so volumes disappeared from my parents’ home, but I suspect that they were given to a thrift store and then recycled and the paper has made its way into egg cartons or newsprint.
The printing press was invented in about 1440 AD, about the same time that scholars were beginning to translate ancient texts into the common language. These translations, along with contemporary writings, for the first time in history, became widely available. People like Leonard da Vinci and many others, built on the information they could not access freely, and they became inventors, thinkers, and artists. In the 20th century, these learned scholars were labelled as “Renaissance Men,” meaning that they were influential in the rebirth of learning and knowledge in the west. Universities were being established, offering a broad education in all the disciplines for people who, a century or so earlier, would have had no opportunity to learn. The world began to change rapidly, and we are recipients of those changes, now having access to medical care, transportation, travel, home appliances and so much more. The World Book Encyclopedia owes its existence, in part, to printing press and the Renaissance Men.
While people like Leonardo da Vinci could become adept in many fields of study (he studied, among others, art, anatomy, astronomy, botany, and was known as an inventor of mechanical devices), the range of information rapidly became too great for one person to know everything about everything. Very rapidly people began to specialize in particular areas of study, focusing on one aspect of life so that today we have mechanics who are proficient in their ability to fix one kind of vehicle (heavy construction machinery, for example) but who have little expertise with the modern computerized automobile. It is said that it takes about 5 years for someone to become adept in a particular area, and life is simply too short to become adept in more than 3 or 4 specialties. There is simply too much to know.
When the printing press enabled us to print books relatively cheaply and store knowledge in libraries, some of which hold hundreds of thousands of books, the amount of information is so great that we need other methods to store it. Thankfully, a computer thumb drive can often hold thousands of books, and data centres such as the ones being constructed around the world can hold the information found on millions of thumb drives. So vast is the quantity of information that Artificial Intelligence is becoming essential for research, and programmers teach computers to search millions of documents for the information we need.
And God knows all of it already. In Psalm 139 we read that the thoughts of God outnumber the grains of sand. That is to say, God’s knowledge is infinite, and nothing we discover surprises him. As we discover more things, we are realizing that there is more left undiscovered than what we already know. Data centres are power hungry, and it is a reality that at some time, as we discover more about God’s world, even all the data centres in the world won’t be able to hold the information. But God knows more.
In Psalm 139, the context of verse 18 speaks of God knowing the psalmist and caring about him. In spite of God having vast stores of information, the psalmist is amazed that God knew him even before he was born, that God saw his unformed body. The psalmist takes great comfort in this, for he knows that God not only knows him but he also will provide for him, and in the context of the psalm, he is assured that God will deal with his enemies so that he (the psalmist) will once again be secure.
Not only does God know all things, he also uses his knowledge for good, for the good of his people, and for the good of his kingdom. God uses what he knows to accomplish what he has long planned, the salvation of those who he has called to be his children and enjoy life forever in eternity. God sifts through the grains of sand to find exactly what he needs.
God is different from us, for we do not always use the information we have for good. Very often, we take good inventions and use them for purposes of destruction. A rifle, for example, enables us to procure meat for ourselves without great effort and without causing undue suffering to the animal, but that same rifle can take the life of a father, husband and brother. Nuclear reactions can enable us to produce huge amounts of energy, but that same energy can be used to destroy entire cities. We have a tendency to use what we know not only for good purposes but for exceedingly harmful ones. We might not be all that far off when we say that everything good that has been produced has also been used for harm. We are not like God, for God uses his knowledge only for good, not for destruction.
As human beings, we have the privilege of increasing our understanding of the world. As Christians we have the responsibility to use what we learn for God’s purposes and not for ourselves or, even worse, for destruction. Is there a limit to how much we can learn? Probably not. As we continue to gather knowledge throughout our years, let us be sure to use what we have learned for the glory of God and the purposes for which he meant it used.