Are we wiser today than prior generations?
Question:
I believe that I have wisdom that I have obtained from a society that has evolved. It is because of the Bible, and other resources similar to it, that we as humans have been able to communicate our thoughts and rationalize our actions, but we have only grown from it, not depended upon it. Therefore, I can say that I have more wisdom than found in the Bible because many years have passed since it was written. In those years many aspects of life have changed and people have been opened up to more views and opinions, none of which can be said to be wrong. If anything I, and people like myself, have a far more balanced view than those that depend entirely on the Bible as a reference to how they should live their lives.
Answer:
It has been an ever-present fallacy of man to believe that the current generation is wiser than all prior ones. George Orwell once noted, "Each generation imagines itself to be more intelligent than the one that went before it, and wiser than the one that comes after it." He isn't the first to notice this flaw. The problem is our personal memories. "There is no remembrance of former things, nor will there be any remembrance of things that are to come by those who will come after" (Ecclesiastes 1:11).
You can illustrate this for yourself. How long have we debated how people could have possibly built the pyramids, the statues on Easter Island, the Nazca line drawings that can only be seen from the air, etc. But do you realize what this means? We who have so much technology can't figure out what people clearly did years ago without modern technology -- and often we have no idea why they did it. I still find it humorous that the Myans created a more precise calendar that remained accurate longer than the calendars we've put in our computers (remember the Y2K problem?).
What you are willfully forgetting is that morality doesn't change. Just because 2,000 years have passed by, it doesn't mean that lying is now acceptable or right. People are people. Their choice of tools might change, but the spiritual problems they struggle with remain the same.
I hope you will realize this before it is too late to make good choices. Because right now your view will never be "balanced" when you think so highly of yourself. "For I say, through the grace given to me, to everyone who is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly, as God has dealt to each one a measure of faith" (Romans 12:3).
"Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world through wisdom did not know God, it pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe. For Jews request a sign, and Greeks seek after wisdom; but we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God" (I Corinthians 1:20-24).
