The Curse of Knowing

 January 2, 2024

I’ve often said I’m not very original: If I were to claim two or three original ideas in my lifetime, I’d be overstating it by at least two. Tonight’s musings are a reflection on the words of G.K. Chesterton. In his book “Orthodoxy,” he explains that in all fairy tales “the vision always hangs  upon a veto. All the dizzy and colossal things conceded depend upon one small thing withheld. All the wild and whirling things that are let  loose depend upon one thing that is forbidden.”

In all fairy tales known to mankind, an incomprehensible happiness  rests upon an incomprehensible condition. A box (Pandora’s) is opened, and all evils fly out. A word is forgotten, and cities perish. A lamp is lit, and love flies away. A flower is plucked, and human lives are forfeited. An apple is eaten, and the hope of God is gone.

But why? Why should something be withheld?

Chesterton explains that true knowledge, deep relationships depend on trust and faith: “To trust means to accept not knowing. If you must know, you cannot trust. And if you can’t trust, you cannot be happy.”

Our church is reading through the Bible in one year…chronologically. We began yesterday with the story of Creation, and of course, Adam and Eve:

And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” —Genesis 2:16-17 

They ate, and…you know the rest of the story.

Their dilemma is our dilemma. By trying to get knowledge at all costs, we let loose unthinkable evils into the world. Not everything should be done that can be done. Sometimes it’s best not to eat the apple, or in the parallel story of Pandora’s box, to look under the lid. Some things, if let out, can’t be undone.

Knowledge is good. Our craving for knowledge is bad. When we can’t  trust and accept a “no,” we are ignorant because we cannot attain true knowledge, which is a relationship.

When Adam and Eve were told not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, it wasn’t because God was holding out on them. He was  inviting them to a deeper knowledge – the knowledge that comes from “not knowing.” The knowledge of unknowing is always based on trust! It’s the mystery in love, that indescribable something that brings two people together, that unites us in Communion with God.

To unknow means you accept the idea that you are not God. We cannot  know everything. We cannot predict everything. When we try, we end up destroying the very good we seek.

There’s no true knowledge without accepting one little “no.” My friend Willie Davis often told me, “People need to learn the power of “No.”” Knowledge only works when there’s room for trust – not knowing. There  must be this happy tension between knowing and not knowing for knowledge, for relationships, for love, to work.

Without this essential paradox, knowledge becomes a curse.