Not All Knowledge Has Eternal Value

I just finished writing my talk, and it's mostly just an expansion of yesterday's blog post, so if you're a regular reader of my blog and you're in my Ward, most of what I say tomorrow should sound familiar to you. But there's a small caveat I added to my talk that I didn't really bring up yesterday, and I'll only bring it up tomorrow if I have time. So, in case I don't get to it tomorrow, I'll share the caveat with you now: Not all knowledge has eternal value.

You might remember that I said that in order for a treasure to have eternal value, it has to come with us into the eternal world, and it has to retain its value when we get there. All knowledge does the former, but not all knowledge does the latter. I'm pretty sure that when we pass on, we will remember everything. We'll remember everything we did, everything we ever knew, and we'll even remember what we experienced before we were born. Nothing will escape our recollection.

But not everything that we remember will be helpful to us one the other side. For example, I know how many cards are in a standard UNO deck. I know a lot about Magic: the Gathering and D&D. That knowledge will stay with me forever, but it probably won't improve my life (or afterlife) very much. That knowledge is eternal, as all knowledge is, but it doesn't have eternal value.

Other knowledge is much more valuable, both in this life and in the next. This includes knowledge of the commandments and the Christlike attributes. Basically, everything we learn in church and from the scriptures and through the Spirit, has eternal value. That is the knowledge it's most worthwhile to study and retain.

Thankfully, once we've gained knowledge, retaining it won't be a problem. We may forget something temporarily, but when this life is over, we will probably remember everything, from the critical to the trivial. Whether this memory adds anything to our lives or not depends on the nature of the knowledge.

So, while learning about how spell slots work or about the ten guilds of Ravnica may be interesting to some people, it's not going to add very much, if anything, to their eternal value. I can't imagine how knowing what the five shards of Alara are called or what racial bonuses wood elves get might help me in my eternal pursuits, so it's probably not a priority to study that sort of thing. At least, that knowledge isn't anywhere near as valuable, eternally, as is the knowledge of the gospel. While almost all knowledge has at least some value, not all knowledge has eternal value, even if we remember it forever.