Fear of the Lord

Is the beginning of wisdom.

Even before I became religious at all, I had heard that quote. I had heard it in both positive and negative contexts. I had heard it from anti-religious people about the negative consequences of "fearing" a supposedly loving God. How this was the tool by which the proletariat was held in check by the ruling classes using religion to establish some sort of pre-ordained dominance. How this was an "anti-Deity" sentiment corrupted by religious totalitarians in order to exert influence over their congregation.

I had heard religious apologists use this argument to contradict the questioning mind. I had heard hellfire and brimstone preachers use these exact words, with spittle flying from their mouths as they went on a prooftexting rampage, trying to exact their will on weak-minded parishioners.

In all the ways I had heard it described, it was the "fear" word that created so many ridiculous interpretations. As people are temporal beings, they tend to put greatest emphasis on the first in any list, or even in a sentence. What if it had said, "Wisdom has its beginnings in the fear of the Lord"? Would people then have concentrated more on the term "wisdom" rather than "fear?"

For me personally, approaching this sentence with a description of wisdom first fills in what the remainder of the intent of the sentence is, in a much calmer and more humane explanation.

What is wisdom? So far, in all the Proverbs quotes, we have seen wisdom described as something that was in place before the heavens and the earth. We see wisdom as something that will promise good results to those who practice it. We have seen wisdom as the foil of Folly, the prostitute who will desecrate a man's future. In all the examples of wisdom, we see a constant "rightness," a way of making sense of the universe. Even, if you will, a moral order to the universe, that if you practice it, will align your life up with a good outcome, even if it means delaying gratification, eschewing the quick carnal fix, or just rejecting being lazy.

In any of these applications of wisdom, we see a commonality, and that is a setting aside of one's immediate "selfish" desires. "Self-ish" refers to the insistence on one's "self" as an arbiter of the choice of action. "Self" only exists as the final arbiter of choice if there is nothing other than "self" around. If one accepts one's creation, and therefore one's Creator, then one must, by that logic, recognize that there is something greater than "self" around. I did not create my self, someone else did. My Creator did. He has a say in my choices, not just my "self."

However one interprets the word "fear," (awe, reverence, fear, terror, respect, obeisance, submission, etc.) the end result is that there is an "other-ness" that is outside one's self, and GREATER THAN one's self. Since the practice of wisdom demands a recognitions of the pitfalls of following one's selfish demands, and suggests that a long-term better way to behave is a non-selfish way, recognition of any spiritual path which aligns oneself with this end result, the destruction of the "self" in "selfish," results in the practice of wisdom.

It has always seemed clear to me what the proverb is intending if one starts from the back of the sentence and works backward. Define wisdom, and how one's "selfish" interests usually result in un-wise behavior, devise a code of conduct that "destroys the self," and pretty soon, you have wisdom. This takes root in education, compassion, family orientation, and civic duty, because all of these tend to remove one's thoughts from oneself.

Starting with the word "fear" always lent itself to pretty foolish antipathies, in my opinion. In no way am I understating the need to fear God's commands, and to treat Him and His creation (us) with reverence, awe, and love, but trying to denote "fear" in the ways I have heard it, well, that simply never seemed all that wise to me.