Two recent experiences brought to mind a couple of proverbs that I heard growing up. I have invoked them sometimes in jest. The proverbs, “Ignorance is bliss” and “What you don’t know can’t hurt you,” at a superficial level appear to be saying the same thing. But is ignorance bliss? Am I fortunate to be unaware of the historical roots of homelessness and evictions in this country?
The phrase, “ignorance is bliss” comes from the poem, Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College, by the 18th century English poet, Thomas Gray. It is part of the couplet, “where ignorance is bliss, ‘Tis folly to be wise”.
As used by the poet, the phrase is not a paean to the virtues of being unschooled or uneducated. Written sometime after the poet and his friends had completed their courses of study, he was looking back on their college days as days of innocence (ignorance). It’s akin to us looking back at our early and adolescent years with a certain nostalgia as we contrast those years and experiences with our life and experiences as adults. The author John Welford commenting on the poem says, “He [the poet] is summarising everything that has gone before in this poem to say that misfortunes will come in their own good time and it would be cruel to inflict them on young people before they are ready to bear them.”
No matter our stage of life or how intellectually gifted, we can’t know everything. Ignorance of some aspect of life, whether of the commonplace day-to-day or the religious/Biblical variety, is a given—it is inescapable.
Commenting on the concept of ignorance in Biblical usage the Encyclopedia of the Bible says,
“Ignorance is a quality, not of the academically unschooled, but of the sinner. It is the result of sin…Ignorance is a consequence of sin, for sin darkens the mind, depriving it of true knowledge of God and the self. Ignorance is, therefore, also a matrix of sin. Men sin in ignorance because of ignorance.”
Does this mean that we are therefore free to live in blissful ignorance? Without even implicating questions of innocent and willful ignorance, the answer is clearly no.
Even though we can’t know everything, we are obliged to exert ourselves, to learn what we need to know in order to navigate daily life. The consequences otherwise can be adverse to our interest. For example, retirees who are unaware (innocently ignorant) that they are required by law to make a prescribed minimal withdrawal from their employer administered 401K retirement plan when they reach age 70½ can pay a heavy financial price for that ignorance. It is not advisable to entrust one’s future well-being entirely to some hopefully benevolent person or organization.
To live faithfully as followers of Christ likewise requires deliberate intellectual effort. In the “Mental and Spiritual Culture” chapter of her book Education Ellen White writes:
“…The most valuable teaching of the Bible is not to be gained by occasional or disconnected study…Many of its treasures lie far beneath the surface, and can be obtained only by diligent research and continuous effort…The mind occupied with commonplace matters only, becomes dwarfed and enfeebled. If never tasked to comprehend grand and far-reaching truths, it after a time loses the power of growth.”