Wisdom can be thought of as the ability to order all things. This entails understanding the relationship of each part of God’s creation to all the others, ultimately so that we know how to love all things appropriately. The goal/end of wisdom is love, and to love well is to love all according to God’s intent displayed in his craftsmanship. This is the way God loves all he makes.
Perhaps first we should note that all created things have come forth from the love of God. The physical world is the invisible love of God beautifully rendered in material substance, the result of love artistically forming everything in the mystery of a harmonious good that God wills. God establishes the created order, and that order can be thought of as “the great chain of being”. The whole of it must exist within God, for all has existence from and in him (Acts 17:25).
The analogy of a chain suggests, first, that all things are related to one another and nothing exists in isolation or separation, but also that there is a distinct hierarchical order. Everything is not the same in its “being” and its created nature. The essential “being” of each thing is its own reality, place, and purpose in the world as God has prepared it.
But why are people even important to you? Why do you take care of human beings?
You made them a little lower than the angels and crowned them with glory and honor.
You put them in charge of everything you made. You put all things under their control. Psalm 8:4-6
First in this order are the angels and spiritual beings, and then below them, humanity. But as the psalmist observes, humans have been created to be over, lovingly, of course, all other created things in the world. Below humanity is all animal life, with which we share life and sensation, even though they do not have either reason nor consciousness to the same degree as us. Further below the animals is plant life, which has life but even less of sensation. And lastly, there are all the inanimate created things with which we share existence, but which have no life in them.
The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Psalm 19:1
Even non-living things bring glory to God in their own way and according to their capacity as granted by God. The call for us to glorify God is for us to occupy our rightful place in the world, to be and do what God has willed for us, which is the same as knowing and living as our true selves.
All this is to say that wisdom is the application of this understanding of the ordering of the world so that we might love it as God does. Everything should be loved appropriately. Sin is loving things in the wrong way and in the wrong order.
For example, if we love all things well, we will love the goods which the earth produces and which come from the work we do, but never more than our neighbors. If we properly love our possessions, and if our neighbor is in need, we will happily give what we have for their well-being. We love our neighbors more than our possessions, though we do love our possessions for what they are, gifts from God. Through wisdom we understand the God-given value of all his has made. To love our possessions more than our fellowman, or to love animals more than people, as Jesus says some do (Luke 14:1-5), is sinful.
Wisdom entails loving each thing as the creation of God that it is, whether sunsets, mountains, animals, people, or anything whether great or small. Everything belongs as part of a whole of creation, which when restored, will seamlessly glorify God. Humans are the only ones who are struggling to find our rightful place, to have the wisdom to love all things well, and in doing so to be the true children of our Father.
For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. Romans 8:19
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