I wish that I knew what I know now When I was younger
— umm, no you don’t
The Faces - Ooh La La on YouTube
I wish that I knew what I know now
When I was younger
I wish that I knew what I know now
When I was stronger
Faces: Ooh La La lyrics Songwriters: Ronnie Lane / Ronald David Wood
Well, I’m thinking, actually – no you don’t!
We don’t really want to have known, when we were younger, what we now know.
That would turn many of our youthful mistakes – in not cooperating with grace – into sinful refusals to cooperate.
God placed us in time to slowly learn what we would not otherwise be able to grasp all at once!
So, mistakes are part of God’s plan to help us gradually learn the differences between Who He is & isn’t, what love is & what it is not, and how we’d most enjoy sharing His Love, each in our own unique way!
Why not just gift us an immediate vision beatific & be done with it?
Well, per some accounts of election & predestination, there’s nothing, in principle, standing in the way of our thus experiencing the abundance & intensity of that primary beatitude, should God so decree it! Good enough.
It may well be, though, that, beyond that abundance & intensity, God invites us to a divine superabundance by allowing us to broaden our scope of beatitude, secondarily, to thus expand our modes of divine intimacy.
And that’s the gift that inheres in our epistemic – distancing, notwithstanding that it made sin – not necessary, but – possible. Of course, the consequences of any sin must be remedied & the reality of any vicious natures must be purged. And, so, they shall!
Of course, we must distinguish between wishing that we weren't fallible, in general, and wishing we'd otherwise known any specific thing, in particular. I’m really just addressing our fallibility, in general. This really boils down to, is precisely structured even as, a logical defense (free will). As with evidential theodicies, though, we don’t know enough about the weight of the eternal glories to persuasively argue individual cases. In fact, we best positively eschew such explanations, so as not to trivialize the enormity of human pain & immensity of human suffering.
I suppose there's a way that one can accept one's youthful ignorance as part of "God's plan."
However, take contemplative prayer for example, which I began practicing in 1970. I cannot see, however much I'd like to be open to what you're saying here, how it would not have been helpful to have had access to "Into the Silent Land," by Martin Laird, which in the intervening 50+ years I consider to be the single best book written on Christian contemplative practice.
I suppose taking the Divine view, one could say that whatever frustrations or limitations I've experienced in my prayer life were meant to help me grow.
(but I still wish I had had that book and knew then what I know now:>)))