Abstract
This book brings together theology, ethics and biblical studies in a fascinating synthesis around questions of how ‘wisdom’ should be characterized. It is a rich, profound, insightful and detailed study bringing together three elements that are all concerned to clarify the nature and foundation of practical reason and its implications for ethics: the insights of the early church fathers (mainly Augustine and Aquinas); those of modern theologian-ethicist Oliver O’ Donovan; and insights from biblical ‘wisdom’ scholars and the book of Proverbs. Errington’s central argument is that wisdom has an essentially practical aspect that many, across the centuries, have underplayed. He writes, ‘Rather than being a perfection of speculative knowledge […] wisdom is a practical knowledge of how to act well, grounded in the reality of the world God has made.’ (p. 3). God’s wisdom whilst a perfection in itself is not a theoretical knowledge but rather it results in action, notably God’s activity in the world through creation and through the person of Jesus Christ.
As a wisdom scholar myself, I will mainly discuss his thoughts on Proverbs on which he focuses in chapter 3. Errington sees Proverbs as essentially promoting practical knowledge and good action. He discusses Prov. 8 at length and, importantly, in conjunction with Prov. 3:19–20’s statement that God created the world ‘by wisdom’ and by ‘his knowledge’. God’s wisdom is a reality within creation and yet also exhorts to action. He draws an interesting parallel between Prov. 3:19-20 and Prov. 14:1’s emphasis on house building which has an abstract intention but a practical outworking in the building and ultimately in the household who will reside there. In the same way, Woman Wisdom in Prov. 8 is orientated towards action – she calls into being the primeval order and yet she also calls her followers to love her and walk in her ways. Errington plays down the abstract aspect of wisdom saying that the idea is ‘not to build a moral and intellectual capacity’ (p. 106) in relation to an abstract notion of character formation. It is about the day by day practicalities of the path/way/journey. And yet, do these need to be alternatives? Doesn’t every day build into a lifetime of moral pathways? And those choices taken when young surely furnish the ground of such formation. Errington states that ‘moral kinds’ are real in Proverbs.
This book is a helpful counter to those who have sought to see Woman Wisdom in particular in highly abstract terms, often as a personification of God or as Christ himself speaking. It is not to deny that aspect, but to affirm the reality of wisdom in relation to practical knowledge, a knowledge that is also of the essence of reality— a ‘knowing how’ as well as a ‘knowing that’, as Errington puts it.