renew your wonders: 14 July 2021 - knowledge puffs up, love builds up

you have hidden these things

from the wise and the learned

Saint Paul also celebrated this fact, writing "in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom," because God preferred and was pleased to save believers through the "folly" of the Gospel (see First Corinthians 1:21). But why would God do things this way? Why would he hide himself from those who, apparently, strove after wisdom and after knowledge? The problem Paul seemed to have in mind is that "knowledge puffs up while love builds up" (see First Corinthians 8:1).

Wisdom and learning apart from God have been used to attempt to pierce the mysteries of being, to build a bridge back from the frail world of humanity to the realm of the divine. The destination and desire isn't so much the problem as is the way in which we imagine we can attain it by our own effort, skill, and greatness. Wisdom according to the traditions of men can only become a tower of Babel, which, yes, reaches to the heavens, but which is not valued for that purpose so much as it is valued as a sign of the greatness of the builders. Not only does such egotism miss the point, it actually prevents the very attainment it is attempting. Rather than leaving the world to wallow in doomed attempts to find him by our own strength, God frustrates the designs of the wise and the learned.

For in much wisdom is much vexation, and he who increases knowledge increases sorrow (see Ecclesiastes 1:18).

On the one hand, this is a corrective to a world with too much pride. It is protection to prevent the spiritual pride of those who believe they have attained knowledge of God by their own efforts. Such a sin twists individuals such that they tend to lord their knowledge over others, seeing themselves as superior because of their learning. Yet because of it's spiritual guise it can be difficult to weed out. So we can be thankful for that Jesus let us know that was not the right way to go, and that he would even frustrate attempts to do so. On the other hand, there is a deeper existential reality to the need to be childlike, even without regard to whatever our temptations to pride may be. For God reveals himself in his Son Jesus, and it is only in him, as sons and daughters in the Son, that we can truly come to know the Trinity.

No one knows the Son except the Father,

and no one knows the Father except the Son

and anyone to whom the Son wishes to reveal him.

It is of this sort of knowledge that we read when Jesus told Peter, "Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven" (see Matthew 16:17). Paul too did not come to know God as revealed in Jesus Christ because of his impressive background as a Pharisee. It was not until Jesus knocked him to the ground and revealed himself that Paul came to know him. It was for this reason, that, by comparison, all of his previous accumulation of wisdom seemed to him to be now no more than rubbish.

We too are called to be childlike and humble. This is not the same thing as mere naive ignorance. It means that, as children, we are open, that we expect and receive God's own self-revelation, and that this revelation is the basis on which we build, or better, on which we ourselves are built.

you have revealed them to the childlike.

Perhaps it was to inculcate this humility and simplicity in his servant Moses that God chose to have him tend sheep for forty years after having been a prince of Egypt, and only after that God chose to reveal himself. But notice, although Moses did respond to God's revelation with humility, it was not so much so that he refused to receive it. He was humble enough to let God decide if, when, and how that revelation should happen.

As he looked on, he was surprised to see that the bush,

though on fire, was not consumed.

So Moses decided,

“I must go over to look at this remarkable sight,

and see why the bush is not burned.”

When the LORD saw him coming over to look at it more closely,

God called out to him from the bush, “Moses! Moses!”

He answered, “Here I am.”

God said, “Come no nearer!

Remove the sandals from your feet,

for the place where you stand is holy ground.

I am the God of your father,” he continued,