Foolishness To Those Who Are Perishing

The Folly of Worldly Wisdom and the Question of God

For our study this evening, I would like to turn to 1 Corinthians 1 and consider together with you something that you may be aware of, I'm not sure, depending on how much you pay attention to what is being said in the media and things like that.

This past week, there was a discussion, once again, concerning a well-known leader in the world. There is a physicist by the last name of Hawking. Most of you are familiar with him. You may have read his Brief History of Time back, I believe, in 1988 that came out.

It sold over 9 million copies. He is a man who has degenerative neuron disease and therefore is confined to a wheelchair. He speaks with a computerized voice. But he is a Cambridge scholar. He is considered one of the leading theoretical physicists in the world today.

And obviously, on the level of intellect, a brilliant man. He made a lot of news last year when, in a book, he basically said, we don't need God to explain anything anymore. With the various theories we have now developed concerning the universe's origins, we no longer have any need for a deity.

God is not needed to explain anything any longer. And this past week, he made the comment that belief in an afterlife, belief in a heaven, is for people who are... It's a fairy tale for people who are afraid of the dark.

It's a fairy tale for people who are afraid of the dark. Now, Hawking is considered a tremendously gifted intellect. And in our society today, there are many who want to be in the groove. They want to be on the cutting edge.

They want to be considered cool. And so, when someone like a Stephen Hawking says belief in an afterlife is for... It's a fairy tale for people who are afraid of the dark. There will be many young, aspiring scholars who will take that to heart, and will take it as an axiom of truth.

And as such, will be very much hardened to any discussion of that person's responsibilities before God, and will in fact be encouraged in that process of suppressing the knowledge of God that is a part of their own created being.

Young Skeptics, Morality, and the Loss of Moral Ground

Yesterday on my webcast, which we pray for on our calendar, I appreciate that, I had two callers, the first caller and the last caller. The last caller identified himself as an atheist, really didn't get to that point with the first caller.

But in both situations, we had very clearly, evidently, young people. I would say of the young Callahan gentleman's age group, their generation. The first caller was taking umbrage at a video that I had posted, in which I was addressing the homosexual agenda in the world today.

And as we discussed the issue of morality, I had basically asked this young lady, so you believe it is the state's job to educate kindergartners about homosexuality because it's out there. Well, we could argue about the year, whether it's kindergarten or first or second, but yes, because parents aren't doing it, so that's the state's job.

And we very quickly got to the issue of how this person knew anything about what was right or wrong, what's moral or immoral. It did not take much reasoning on my part to force this young lady into a rather tight and vicious spiral, a circle of reasoning on her part, where she could not give an answer as to why she considered one thing to be good or true or honest or just or anything else, and suddenly be evil or bad.

In fact, I pointed out that given her own reasoning, she was being grossly inconsistent, and she just hadn't been challenged like that before, and I would imagine she probably thought I was pretty mean for doing that.

And at the end, we had an atheist call in, and he tried to sort of pick up that same theme, and it was sad to listen to these young people attempting to address important issues of morality and ethics and the purpose in life.

It's funny, both of them felt we had a purpose in life, and even Hawking, even while identifying a belief in the afterlife as a fairy tale, had to finish his interview by saying that we should seek to find our meaning in the lives that we have.

And in my conversations with two young people, I basically asked the question, why? I mean, if you are what you think you are, if you are just a bag of protoplasm, and the whole purpose of your life is to pass on your DNA to the next generation, if that's really what you are, then why should you do anything?

Where does the should come from? Where is there any ground for a moral imperative at all? And evidently, that kind of stuff isn't being discussed too much in the educational system today. Young people, they are considered wise by the people of the world.

Even the perspectives that these young people were taking, they would have been considered to be very inclusive and open-minded, and isn't that what everyone wants to be today? You want to be considered inclusive and open-minded.

Some of you might work in companies where you've been brought in and you've had sensitivity training done. And you've heard those words repeated over and over again, we need to be sensitive, we need to be inclusive, we need to be open-minded.

But what was really being said to you was, you don't want to believe in things like absolute truth, objective truth. You don't want to believe in, well, let's just be honest, in Christianity. In 1 Corinthians chapter 1, the apostle addressed the church at Corinth, and he said these words beginning in verse 18, he said, Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?

God Makes the Wisdom of the World Foolish Through Preaching

Well, the expected answer of the apostle is a positive answer. He expects the answer to be, yes, God has made foolish the wisdom of the world, but how is that so? How is it that God has made foolish the wisdom of the world?

I really wonder at times whether Christians consider this, because it seems to me that one of the hardest things we have to deal with today are the number of people who call themselves Christians, but they really, really seem to be enamored with the wisdom of the world.

They really want to be considered wise by worldly standards. I received a personal invitation this week to attend a breakfast. I'm not going to be able to go, I'm going to be out of town, but it's in California anyway, so I'm just not one of those folks that has the ability to jet on over to California for a private breakfast.

But I was invited, and it's a limited number of people who are invited, to a breakfast in June with the president of the BioLogos Foundation. How many of you have heard of the BioLogos Foundation? Just a handful of us.

The BioLogos Foundation has made a lot of waves recently, because BioLogos is founded to basically say, you can be a Christian without throwing your brain out. In other words, you can be a Christian, and evolution is true, and all that creationism stuff is just cultic.

So they are people who call themselves Christians, but they're embarrassed by believing that God created everything. And so they work to say, you can be a Christian and still keep your brain. You don't have to check it at the door.

You can believe what science has proven to be true. Now, I don't know, if it was local, I'd sort of have fun going to something like that. I'm not sure how long I'd actually be allowed to be there, but it would be rather interesting.

But you see, there are a lot of people that don't get this. They might want to answer the end of verse 20 with a negative. No, God hasn't made foolish the wisdom of the world. He has given us the ability to Christianize the wisdom of the world.

That's not the form of the language. The form of the language expects an answer. God has made foolish the wisdom of the world. And how do you do so? Well, verse 21 tells us, For since in the wisdom of God, the world, through its wisdom, did not come to know God.

Through the foolishness, the kerugma, the message, the preaching, God was pleased the foolishness of the preached message to save the ones who believe. So that's how God has made foolish the wisdom of the world.

How do you do it? He did it by setting things up so that it's not climbing the mountain of human philosophy that leads you to the knowledge of God. I'm awful glad that's the case. I remember there have been a number of times in my educational career where I have, in a class, either learned about or had to teach through the various theistic proofs.

And I'm sure that Mr. Callahan has had to do this a number of times as well. And I don't remember if in the logic class I took from Mr. Callahan we did any of these or not. But I know that in one of the textbooks that you assigned, there was a good bit of discussion of that reason and responsibility, a green hardback.

I still got it and I still use it. I never sell my textbooks back. That's why my library is as big as it is and I'm as poor as I am. But anyways, going through some of those can be a mind-bending experience.

I have often said to my classes, you might want to bring some Tylenol or Advil next time because we're going to talk about the ontological proof and it might just sort of help. Because you work through it and if you really work hard, and I remember trying real hard as a seminary student to understand.

Because I was thinking I might need to explain this to somebody someday. And as someone as well said, even if you put out all the effort and you manage to get through it and you think, I see it. I see how it works.

The problem is about five minutes after you get out of class, there's no way you could ever help anybody else get through it. And you're not even certain you can remember it yourself, to be perfectly honest with you.

And certainly in a witnessing situation, you wouldn't have much confidence that you could get somebody, I mean, because I'm going to tell you, but in most of my experiences, I start getting that glassy-eyed look on the part of even the most intrepid students about five minutes into that thing and that's just about it.

If coming to a true knowledge of God was the result of climbing the Mount Fuji of philosophy, you finally pull yourself up over the last ledge and there's God. There wouldn't be too many people that would ever come to know God.

And having met philosophers in my life, I'm not sure that I'd want to be with the people who got to the top of that mountain anyways. And so we have the statement, you know, God has set it up in such a way.

It's God's wisdom that the world through its wisdom does not come to know God. That's not just saying, well, man just hasn't developed a good enough philosophical system yet. That's not what I'm saying.

God's wisdom is that that's not how people come to know him. He has chosen another way. He has been pleased. It pleases God that through the foolishness of preaching, of proclamation, that he saves those who believe.

Pride, Human Wisdom, and the Need for Grace

Now, may I suggest that maybe, maybe for Professor Hawking, Dr. Hawking, leading scholar Hawking, that's beneath him. In his opinion, that's beneath him. That's not good enough. That's not intellectually satisfying enough.

And fundamentally, he's not willing to humble himself. Because see, that puts him on the same level with, well, let's face it, you and I. Us little people. How can that be? Now I'll be honest with you.

I'm not really certain why it is that people in our society are so all fired and pressed when people who are trained in the area of physics decide to make overarching statements about a field about which they know absolutely, positively nothing.

But that's how our society works. I mean, our society is really interested in what Barbara Streisand says about politics. And that tells us that our society does not think straight. Does not think well at all.

We think what actors have to say about nuclear arms is somehow relevant. And so in the same way, once somebody has a major publication in the science field, they can now address all of theology and everyone's, oh, wow, that's something.

That tells you something about the real religion of our society, doesn't it? Who are the high priests in our day? The scriptures knew all about that. It's not the first time that philosophers and the leading intellectuals are viewed as the source and be all and of all things.

Corinth had its share of snooty philosophers, just like Athens did. There's nothing new under the sun. I really think that the problem with Professor Hawking is that he's proud. He's proud of his intellect.

And on a simple physical level, he might have reason to be proud of his intellect. But the reality is, he hasn't even begun to think the thoughts of God. And in fact, to be honest with you, as you think about the theories that have been developed, and I don't even understand all of them.

I used to keep up with that kind of stuff. I can't keep up with it any longer. But I know enough about it to realize that it changes. The popular theories change about every five years or so. And maybe five years from now, there will be a theory that will have a wide open door for something way beyond the limited material universe that Professor Hawking is so confident he knows all about.

There's something in Romans chapter 1 about professing themselves to be wise. They became fools. You see, Professor Hawking needs to deal with the fact that as a human being, he has something called pride and a prideful person.

That's not the person who finds Revelation of God. It strikes me you would think someone limited to a wheelchair, speaking by a computerized voice, you would think if anyone had reason to recognize that they have no reason for pride, it would be someone like that.

I mean, it's one thing to see LeBron James throwing the chalk in the air because his body still works. But you would think, but then again, that's not the case. Children of Israel saw supernatural events all around them.

How many of them died in the wilderness? You can have the clearest evidence right in front of your face, but outside of a work of grace in the heart, that through the foolishness of preaching, he would save those who believe.

We can pray for Professor Hawking. We can pray for this next generation that has been taught, has had a ground in their head that the wisdom in this world is something worth pursuing after. And we should certainly pray for us as Christians that we would not, we would not pursue the wisdom of the world so as to in any way denigrate the glory of our Lord and Savior.