Curiosity Killed a Cat

“If we ever need to know, you may be sure that we shall.”
~The Hermit of the Southern March in C. S. Lewis’s The Horse and His Boy

“[Digory] was . . . longing more and more to know what was written on the pillar. And very soon they both knew. What it said was something like this—at least this is the sense of it though the poetry, when you read it there, was better:

Make your choice, adventurous Stranger;
Strike the bell and bide the danger,
Or wonder, till it drives you mad,
What would’ve followed if you had. . . .

“ ‘We don’t want any danger,’ [said Polly.]

“‘Oh but don’t you see it’s no good!’ said Digory. ‘We can’t get out of it now. We shall always be wondering what else would have happened if we had struck the bell. I’m not going home to be driven mad by always thinking of that. No fear!”[1]

And so Digory seized the hammer and struck the bell. (If you want to know what happened next, you’ll have to read the tale!)

The desire for knowledge (especially biblical knowledge) is so gratifying that we need to exercise restraint lest we seek it inordinately, a trait medieval theologians labeled curiosity. Curiosity, when used in this sense, is more than eagerness and aptitude to learn. It is an intemperate desire to press beyond the limitations of human understanding, to know more than God intended us to know.

One writer put it this way: “Do not seek what is too difficult for you, nor investigate what is beyond your power. Reflect upon what you have been commanded, for what is hidden is not your concern. Do not meddle in matters that are beyond you, for more than you can understand has already been shown you” (Ecclesiasticus 3:21).

Moses struck the same chord: “The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may follow all the words of this law.”[2] In other words, God will take care of the things we don’t know and don’t need to know. Our business is to attend to what we do know. Or, as Mark Twain once mused, “It’s not the things in the Bible I don’t understand that concern me. It’s the things I do understand.”

Studiosity is the word the old theologians used to describe the temperate use of our minds: it is the desire to know what God has plainly revealed. It puts humble limits to our intellect. As Israel’s psalmist wrote, “I do not concern myself with great matters or things too wonderful [3] for me. I have stilled and quieted my soul; like a weaned child with its mother, like a weaned child is my soul within me” (Psalm 131:1–2).

Curiosity is a trait to which we “orthodox” easily fall prey. Many years ago I fell into a foolish debate with an elderly Christian whose theology seemed imprecise to me. His quiet response has never left me: “Young man,” he said kindly, “we must not make definitive what God has made ambiguous.” Augustine puts the idea another way: We err, he said, “by being uncertain of things that are certain and by being certain of things that are uncertain.”

I’m learning to be uncertain—less dogmatic about things I don’t know. [4] Like David, I’m learning to be a child once more.

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[1] C. S. Lewis, The Magician’s Nephew

[2] Deuteronomy 29:29. In the Hebrew text of this verse there are a series of dots, one over each letter of the phrase “to us and to our children forever.” Grammarians call these dots puncta extraordinaria. They serve, like underlining, for emphasis. One commentator, Bishop Lightfoot, suggests that they stand as a warning to latter generations of “children” that read these words. (That would be you and me!)

[3] David’s word translated “wonderful” (pala’) means “to be beyond one’s capabilities,” and thus unsolvable or inaccessible.

[4] Socrates used to counter a student’s arrogant certitude with the reply, “Well now, you know more than I know.”