Literary Devices

Proverbs 8:22 (KJV) The LORD possessed me in the beginning of his way, before his works of old.

One of the challenges in reading scripture is to discern whether you should be reading literally or figuratively.  Here we see one of the tools of literature called “personification.”  Personification is where you have an inanimate object taking on the characteristics of a person.  In this case, we have a body of knowledge, called wisdom, which is pretending to be aware and interacting with us.

The point being made in this verse, and actually through the passage, is that this body of knowledge called wisdom was created by God for the universe that we live in.  Wisdom is an application of the attributes of God, who is eternal, to the physical world, which is not.

The significance of this is that God’s principles are designed to work in the world we live in.  Are they eternal?  Yes, in the sense that God is eternal, and they reflect His character.

So?  We learn about God.  We learn about the universe.  The two will work together because one was designed by the other in the light of who He is.  That means that science should be consistent with the universe that God made.  We run into problems when the scientists reject that God and the principles He established.  We see that in things like nuclear weapons and GMO.  One of the questions that science refuses to answer is, “Just because we can, does that mean we should?”  Wisdom answers that.  Science is clueless.