VIRTUOUS LIVING - Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University

world?” The answer given then is that humanity can master the world by “counsel”(Prov. 11:14; 15:22). “Plans are established by counsel; by wise guidance wage war”(Prov.20:18). The torah directs us to the wise counsel, and counsellor wastraditionally the designation of the sage. Counsel would be drawn from human reasonand practical experience regarding what is good, expedient, and seen to work. Fromthe secular point of view, law commands us to go out and establish the things of God,while wisdom instructs us to establish the things of the world. Wisdom helps us toanalyse the perceptible data of our experience, controlled by reason, and adapting thedata by judgement (Prov 20:1-11). By wisdom, we are taught how to makeobservations of particular kinds of actions that could affect human situations. Then wecan establish, hopefully, viability and value of human life and achieve “goodness”. By“experience, one grows to realise that certain things ‘just do not work’” (cf Cox1982:79).The secular view perceived in the Wisdom literature thus does not present a dreamworld of the ideals. The presentation is that of an anthropological life experience withless specific reference to the divine sphere. Humanity is in charge; people can raisequestions concerning God, as opposed to insistence on faith by the rest of the biblicalliterature. Wisdom literature reckons, often toward the end, that since human beingsare in charge, they will have to give an account of their performance. Humanity willreap what it propagates. To this end Wisdom literature is not isolated from the overalltheme of the biblical theology in which God remains at the centre even of secularperceptions of the world. Thus Cox concludes:The faith of the Old Testament is centred on historical acts of encounter,God’s gift of self-revelation, which is continued in history. This is the firstthing that marks out the wisdom tradition as distinctive, for it is essentiallyfree of this historical, revelatory dimension. However, it would be wrong tothink of Wisdom as purely secular discipline; it exists always in the ambientof faith. This is seldom explicit, and is not emphasised, but it does exert acertain influence. Mankind (sic) still has a religious commitment butperimeters have changed (Cox 1982:79; bold my emphasis).Ronald E. Clements, in his book Wisdom in Theology (1992), referred to earlier,develops a very important observation worth recapitulating here. First he affirms thatwisdom emerged in Israel most probably in the pre-exilic period. And in an effort toaccord wisdom a firm and credible source, its emergence was associated with251