Ignorance Is Not Innocence

January 1, 1970

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There is a widely accepted legal maxim to the effect that ignorance of the law is no defense. And yet, as most of us go through life, we ask to be excused for many things by reason of our ignorance, and we are prone to say to ourselves: “We would do better if we knew better but how may we acquire wisdom and how may we surely know the right from the wrong.” Let it be assumed that most of us have a sincere desire o do the right thing and that our tragedies and failures come not so much from lack of willingness as from lack of wisdom. Even making allowance for this, the very fact of our permitting ourselves to remain in ignorance while we are within constant reach of the source of all wisdom, is something to be accounted for. It was Robert Browning who said: “Ignorance is not innocence, but sin.” And from another source: “Ignorance, when voluntary, is criminal, and a man may be properly charged with that evil which he neglected or refused to learn how to prevent.”51To state the proposition in another way, we have for our guidance the accumulated record of human experience: the spoken and written thoughts of the great and the wise; the sacred and inspired words of our various scriptures; an active voice of conscience, which is reliable is we have not tampered with it; and an approach through prayer to the God and Father of us all, in response to which we may receive the promptings of the “still, small voice.” And by all of these, the fundamentals of life are defined. They do not change from generation to generation even through our regard for them may change. With all this before us, why should we ask of expect to be excused for our ignorance or our lack of wisdom. And if we still insist that our ignorance should be allowed as an excuse for our misdeeds, we shall surely be called upon to answer for that greater guilt by which we permitted ourselves willfully to remain ignorant in spite of all the ever-present sources of wisdom that lie constantly before us. The real answer lies not in a scarcity of wisdom, but in our own lack of will and determination to acquire and apply our hearts unto wisdom. In short, willful and needless ignorance is in itself a kind of sin.

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