COLLEGE PARK, MD –
If we truly believe, we’ll care. If we care, we’ll subscribe to a set of values packaged as principles. If we subscribe to principles, we’ll make decisions rooted in that subscription.
Those decisions will add up to a deliberate life. Those who live deliberately will become civilizational producers. Civilizational producers have something to offer the society in which they live.
Those with something positive to offer are givers. Life is always better as a giver.
Roots
That is all well and good, but, admittedly, there is a missing piece. What is our belief based upon? What are the roots that allow it to retain nutrients and grow into a thriving organism capable of subscribing to those ever-important principles?
Our belief should be rooted in sound knowledge. Knowledge grants us the footing to rationally understand what we believe and why we do.
It also empowers us to have an idea of what right action is and to challenge regimes of normalized oppression (ie a harmful status quo). A commitment to the right action or value your knowledge informs you of can be considered a principle.
That kind of knowledge is beneficial knowledge. Not all knowledge is so.
Vigilance
Beneficial knowledge is what we’re aiming for and what we’re referring to when talking about it being sound. It is the data that we analyze that serves as the basis for our rational belief.
If our belief has been sufficiently rooted, that data should be processed into a set of principles we’re committed to and willing to sacrifice for.
However, there are all kinds of knowledge out there. There are data points of no value. They grant no basis for belief and, thus, no commitment to principles. They are just empty facts and figures.
That is not beneficial knowledge and can actually knock us off the scent of Truth.
Of course, one could argue that the benefit of knowledge is in the eye of the seeker. Some knowledge may benefit one and harm another. This is a concept that requires vigilance on our parts and is not one-size-fits-all.
God guide us gently. We ask Him for sincerity, forgiveness and well-being in both lives, beneficial knowledge, pure provision, and accepted works.
We ask for His protection from knowledge that does not benefit, hearts that do not take heed, eyes that shed no tears, and stomachs that do not get satiated.
Amen.
Tarif