What Is Foolish in God’s Sight?

Today we live in a world adrift in confusion.  We find confusion and uncertainty in the realms of government, economics, education, sexual identity and conduct, marriage, and morality. Society’s being adrift did not happen suddenly; this rudderless ship of culture has been adrift for well over 200 years.  Society at large has traded the sure compass of God’s word for the ever-changing compass of human philosophy.

The same challenge of man substituting his “wisdom” for God’s wisdom, was faced by the early Christian church.  The Pharisees, the stoics, the secular Greeks, the pagan Romans, and the Sadducees thought their wisdom to be above that of God.  The Apostle Paul, writing to the early church in Corinth identified the hollowness of worldly wisdom in his first letter to that church. Exposing human wisdom, he writes: “18 Let no one deceive himself. If any of you thinks he is wise in this age, he should become a fool, so that he may become wise. 19 For the wisdom of this world is foolishness in God’s sight. As it is written: He catches the wise in their craftiness. 20 And again, “the Lord knows that the thoughts of the wise are futile.” 1 Corinthians 3:18-20. (Emphasis mine.)

The human philosophies that have tended to undermine the belief that God is the Creator, are many.

In the 1800’s, both Henry David Thoreau and Louisa May Alcott were proponents of Transcendentalism, proposing the “Over Soul” as the god of nature.  This teaching strongly suggests that God is impersonal rather than personal; the Bible teaches, on the other hand, that God gave His Son, Jesus, to die on the cross to cover the confessed sins of mankind.  What could be more personal?

Another eighteenth century philosopher that attacked the account of the Genesis creation, was Friedrich Nietzsche, a nihilist, who called for the destruction of everything, including religion and culture, wanting to rebuild them from the ground up.  His negative philosophy, no doubt, had a marked impact on Adolph Hitler, whose thirst for power triggered World War II.  In total, Hitler was responsible for killing some 12 million people, half of these being Jews.

In 1848, Karl Marx’s Communist Manifesto, propelled the dangerous doctrine of Communism and atheism around the world.  A little later, Charles Darwin, with his theory of evolution and chance, challenged the Genesis account of a Divine Creator and eternal Designer.  Darwin strongly suggested that man evolved from apes; this theory attacked the Biblical teaching that man was created by God in His own image.  To many of Darwin’s followers, his writings took on the aura of divine inspiration.

In addition, we have eastern religions, such as Yoga, undermining the Genesis account of creation. According to Mike Oppenheimer, “The practice of Yoga is pagan at best, and occult at worst. Its teachings emanate from the Eastern religions, all of which teach that self is God, only we just don’t realize it until we do the techniques. The goal of Yoga is self-realization, to look deeply within to what ought to be the temple of the one true God and to discover the alleged true Self or higher Self to be God. Nothing could be more religious than that…. ” (Lighthouse Trails Research Project; also, see Self-Realization Fellowship on www.)

Therefore, the false human theories of such people as Emerson, Alcott, Marx, Nietzsche, Hitler, and Darwin, plus pagan religions, have shaken the faith of many Christians in the Bible and its teachings.

Under materialism, values shifted from the supernatural and the eternal to the present and the gaining of material possessions.   Jesus Christ asked the right question of the skeptics of His day: “For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?” (Mark 8:36.)

The same question that Christ raised with his followers, is the burning question that every thinking person must ask himself today.   Friend, where do your values lie?  Are they rooted in transient things of this world, or are they built on the solid foundation of Jesus Christ, who arose from the dead, demonstrating that He is the Savior of mankind and the Source of life. All of us are sinners, Romans 3:23.   John 1: 3-5, gives each sinner, who is on death row, the following glorious hope: “3 Through Him all things were made, and without Him nothing was made that has been made. 4In Him was life, and that life was the light of men. 5The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.…”  Let us never exchange the light of eternal salvation for the darkness of sin and eternal death, promoted by the foolishness of human philosophies.

Dr. Hevener may be contacted at (434) 392-6255; fhevener@oilart.com; www.guthriememorial.org .

©2016 by Fillmer Hevener