On curiosity

  • The deep waters of faith seem tur­bu­lent when we peer into them too curi­ously; but when con­tem­plated in a spirit of sim­plic­ity, they are calm. The depths of faith are like the waters of Lethe, mak­ing us for­get all evil; they will not reveal them­selves to the scrutiny of med­dle­some rea­son­ing. Let us there­fore sail these waters with sim­plic­ity of mind, and so reach the har­bor of God’s will.

    – Diado­chos of Photiki


    This quote in “Daily Lives” seems qui­etly rad­i­cal to me and entirely at odds with our con­ven­tional wis­dom. In our cur­rent cul­ture, curios­ity is cel­e­brated as being one of our high­est human abil­i­ties (as if it weren’t shared with all the lowli­est crea­tures on earth), and even Chris­tians rarely would put this sort of stric­ture on it.

    The psalmist says, “My heart is not proud, O Lord; my eyes are not haughty. I do not con­cern myself with great mat­ters or things too won­der­ful for me.” But when is the last time we con­sid­ered any­thing too won­der­ful for us? Even Chris­tians have caught a lit­tle of the fever of the Mod­ern Man. We are smit­ten with our own accom­plish­ments and hun­gry for the next thrill. We live in the age of space shut­tles, Web-surfing and dizzy­ing med­ical advances. Surely we are equipped to know the heart of God. Surely now is the time for that Tower of Babel that our desert fore­fa­thers weren’t men­tally equipped for.

    But some things just don’t change. And so, even if you think curios­ity is always a good thing, it makes no sense to keep agi­tat­ing it to pur­sue secrets that are still secret. As Diado­chos of Photiki says, bet­ter to “sail these waters with sim­plic­ity.” In my very hum­ble expe­ri­ence, the times when you do that are the times when God reveals more about Him­self than you can pos­si­bly handle.


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    October 18th, 2005 | Grace | 3 Comments |

3 Responses and Counting...

  • Karl Thienes 10.18.2005

    I think we need to be care­ful to make the dis­tinc­tion between a curios­ity born of child-like won­der and a curios­ity born of hubris. It is only the lat­ter St. Diado­chos is condemning.

    One could make the argu­ment that the lack of authen­tic curios­ity in mod­ern man is one of the rea­sons for our cul­tural col­lapse, not a sign of virtue.

  • Grace

    That’s a really good point. In my rush to agree with words of wis­dom, I wasn’t clear. What I meant to say is that the assump­tion that curios­ity is *always* good seems to lead to pur­su­ing it for its own sake, rather than real­iz­ing that it’s the means to an end. Then you get the sort of per­son that asks lots of ques­tions and gets annoyed if any­one has an answer.

    That’s a long way away from the authen­tic curios­ity you men­tion, which seems like it would always lead a per­son towards the King­dom of God.

    (BTW, speak­ing of curios­ity — hope­fully, the *right* kind — how are things are in New Dad-land?)

  • Karl Thienes

    “the assump­tion that curios­ity is *always* good seems to lead to pur­su­ing it for its own sake…”

    That is cer­tainly true, I think. Maybe the real prob­lem is that we are curi­ous about the wrong things and indif­fer­ent to the right things.

    Speak­ing of curi­ous: Wow, is my lit­tle girl ever! She is truly amaz­ing. 9 months old, almost walk­ing, almost talk­ing, fully alive. :)

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