by Mary Cullen

In an essay published in 2008, Nicholas Lash argued that the church should become a school of wisdom in which we ‘endlessly learn to know God better’.1 Such a move would require a complete transformation of the church’s self-understanding, imagination and resources, he believed, and would have a significant impact on its almost exclusive emphasis on Catholic schools.

Professor Lash drew on the teaching of Thomas Aquinas, who described wisdom as the virtue of sound judgement, which is exercised in two different ways. The first is the instinctive, almost intuitive understanding of the wise person, which we all recognise. This is the wisdom of the virtuous, the gift of God’s Spirit, which has nothing to do with erudition or learning. The second is the kind of sound judgement which is the fruit of reasoning, reflection and study. Wisdom in this second sense is dependent on the first, as ‘all our labours serve to catch a glimmer of that eternal wisdom whose self-gift, in Word and Spirit gives us the possibility of wise or faithful thinking in the first place’.