Rediscovering ‘sapientia’ in an age riddled by ‘scientia’ : prophetic knowledge in Thomas Merton

Abstract

Our age is one characterised by a progressive outlook to life, one that invites us to succeed, and hence to become what society deems as successful. But this success, as times are molding history into society’s aspirations, is being revealed to be more as one reaching to itself, with no real end than itself, as a success for the sake of success. This is bringing many to a sense of unreasonable absence or loss, one that, in spite of having everything, there is still something missing, unnamed. This study treats primarily of this structure of feeling in the sense of attempting to give it a voice formative of an expressive hope. Using an interdisciplinary approach to an understanding, this study sheds light on various aspects of this age, one characterised by research, science, and technology; but a peculiar understanding is given by placing all this in the light of God’s Wisdom, Whose ways are not our ways, and the quality of an intimate relationship with Him, essentially through the life and writings of Thomas Merton, someone who is considered by many as a prophet to this age.