Study as a Spiritual Discipline

Rev. Dr. Logan Hoffman

Curiosity vs. Studiousness

As a father of three young children, I don’t think that I’m alone in encouraging my children to be curious. I want my kids to learn and grow, to be interested in other people and the world around them, and to follow that interest in developing their passions and talents. I was a bit surprised to discover, then, that for the early and medieval church, curiosity (or curiositas) was considered not a virtue, but a vice.

Curiosity, for the Church Fathers and Mothers, is the pursuit of knowledge run amok. When we attempt to know things that are not ours to know, perhaps knowledge of things that are harmful (or even just details of a person’s life that do not pertain to us), we are curious in precisely this sense. Thomas Aquinas says that we exhibit curiosity when we seek knowledge that distracts us from more important things or when we seek knowledge for its own sake rather than for the ways knowledge might draw us back to God.

The Virtue of Study

The solution for an undisciplined mind, one ruled by curiositas, is study, or studiositas. Studiousness, in contrast to curiosity, is a classical virtue. We are studious when we seek knowledge not for its own sake, but because it connects us to God. We are studious when we seek the right kind of knowledge, about the right topics, and for the right purpose.

In other words, our minds and our knowledge are as much in need of discipline as the rest of us. When asked which commandment is the greatest in Matthew 22:37, Jesus responds, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” We are to love God with our whole selves, including our minds, but our minds are not naturally wired to love God well. Our minds wander down blind alleys and into dead ends. We are attracted to knowledge that actively harms us, as when we seek out knowledge of things that are in themselves sinful. Sometimes our curiosity leads us to the counterpart of gossip, the desire to know details of others’ lives that are not for us to know. Even following the news can be an exercise in curiositas when it becomes an obsession, a distraction from the things of God that consumes our attention and our time.

Training the Mind Through Study

What we need is the spiritual discipline of study. One way to love someone or something well is to simply pay attention, to fix your gaze upon the beloved and do the slow, focused work of knowing them. So it is with God. By fixing our gaze upon the Lord, by engaging in careful study of his Word and his ways, we train our minds to focus upon its proper end.

Study and Worship

Too often, those of us in the church in America view study with suspicion, as lacking the appropriate rootedness in the heart. We oppose study to passion or worship, or simply reveling in the presence of God. The Bible admits of no such opposition. Study does for the desires and impulses of our minds something that parallels what fasting does for the appetites and desires of our bodies. That is, by denying our appetites and desires the right to chase after whatever they fancy, and instead intentionally focusing them on the highest good, God himself, we train both body and mind to desire that which is best for them.

A Hymn and a Vision

There is a song that we sang in church when I was growing up that I think captures the spiritual value of study well:

Turn your eyes upon Jesus,

Look full in His wonderful face,

And the things of earth will grow strangely dim,

In the light of His glory and grace

Knowledge Rightly Ordered

Having pursued study as a spiritual discipline, and having tuned our understanding to the glory and beauty of God, we are enabled to return to the study of the world around us. With our newly trained eyes, we become able to see how all Truth is God’s truth, how God’s goodness, power, and mercy are displayed in all things. Ironically, by denying our curiosity free rein, by disciplining ourselves, the whole world of knowledge is opened to us, only now rightly ordered as serving our contemplation and adoration of God. I could hope for few things better for my children, and for the church today.