The Failure Of Human Wisdom

The human mind is a marvel. Man is the only creature capable of reason. The brain functions baffle scientists. Man has a remarkable capacity within his brain container.

Why do the academics or scholars pride themselves in their supposed wisdom? Every generation does that. Well, wisdom is preferable to ignorance. That is certainly true. A missionary friend said his people used to think that drinking water out of a hole would make them sick because there were spirits in the water. But he had to teach them to boil their drinking water because there were bacteria in the water.

However, in the most serious areas of life, human wisdom can and does fail us. Notice what the apostle Paul wrote in I Corinthians 2:6-10:

6 Howbeit we speak wisdom among them that are perfect: yet not the wisdom of this world, nor of the princes of this world, that come to naught:

7 But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the world unto our glory:

8 Which none of the princes of this world knew: for had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.

9 But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.

10 But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God.

Here, then, the apostle Paul gives us the clear REASONS of why human wisdom fails.

The first reason human wisdom fails is because it is:

6 Howbeit we speak wisdom among them that are perfect: yet not the wisdom of this world, nor of the princes of this world, that come to naught:

Human wisdom is always fluid and on the move. We never really arrive. I remember some years ago when addressing a group of young people about the truthhood of the truth, one of them said to me, “I believe truth is a receding horizon.” I said, “I don’t. I believe truth is absolute. I believe your concept of truth is a receding horizon.” So we keep moving on into more and more of the truth that is available.

When I was teaching in a Christian college, the dean said one day, “We are doubling our knowledge every ten years.” I presume by now we double our knowledge in much less time than that in some fields. No one has all the facts, but often the conclusion is wrong because of the basis of what is known. We applaud the progress of learning, but we should recognize that human wisdom is always tentative. We do not know everything. Our computer networks place vast areas of knowledge at our fingertips, whole libraries, and from different parts of the world. However, it is never total. We cannot come to the total accumulation of knowledge.

As I was saying, conclusions are often drawn without total facts. As a result, they end up at zero. The apostle Paul says it “comes to naught.” The wisdom of this world and the wisdom of princes come to naught. That’s zero, nothing!

The September 1995 issue of Campus Alert reports the backtracking of one of the leading evolutionists of our time and nation.

The audience sat in stunned silence. All eyes were on the speaker at the front. The speaker leaned forward on the podium, grinned at the audience, and spoke: “State of shock?” he asked.

The speaker was Dr. Michael Ruse, a celebrated evolutionist, and the occasion was a national meeting of the members of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

As the keynote speaker, Ruse had just completed his speech in which he was asked to specifically debunk the “New Creationists.”

And members of the A.A.A.S. did get a shock. Instead of criticizing the opposing side, Ruse stated publicly for the first time that he now essentially agrees with the main point of the new creationists: the theory of evolution as it is now understood lies more in the realm of philosophy, not science.

Ruse’s confession was all the more surprising when his background is considered. As the expert witness for evolution in the famous Arkansas Creation Trial, Ruse swayed the judge to rule that creationism could not be taught in schools. Ruse’s central argument was that creationism required certain philosophical assumptions, and therefore could never be considered a science.

Well, there you have it, my friend. The failure of human wisdom is due to its curtailment of a total of zero. So the apostle Paul clearly stated one reason the human wisdom fails is its bottom line is zero.

The second reason human wisdom fails is because it is:

7 But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the world unto our glory:

8 Which none of the princes of this world knew: for had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.

Paul illustrated this reason by the crucifixion of Christ. Because the people did not understand, they crucified the Lord of Glory. Divine truth escaped them because of their basic presupposition. They concluded no one could be both divine and human as Jesu s is. And since by their philosophical conclusion it is impossible, they considered Jesus as a normal human being, subject to human government and courts. They considered Him a usurper in the realm of religion. The Roman governor, Pilate, condemned the innocent by his own admission, which was contrary to the Roman law. It was also contrary to Jewish law.

In his sermon on the Day of Pentecost, Peter made some very compelling statements. In Acts 2:22-24 he stated: Ye men of Israel, hear these words; Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God among you by miracles and wonders and signs, which God did by him in the midst of you, as ye yourselves also know: Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain: Whom God hath raised up, having loosed the pains of death: because it was not possible that he should be holden of it.

Peter was appealing to them on the basis of their own particular understanding. When speaking to the Sanhedrin, after healing the man who had been born lame, in Acts 3:12-17 Peter said: Ye men of Israel, why marvel ye at this? or why look ye so earnestly on us, as though by our own power or holiness we had made this man to walk? The God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob, the God of our fathers, hath glorified his Son Jesus; whom ye delivered up, and denied him in the presence of Pilate, when he was determined to let him go. But ye denied the Holy One and the Just, and desired a murderer to be granted unto you; And killed the Prince of life, whom God hath raised from the dead; whereof we are witnesses. And his name through faith in his name hath made this man strong, whom ye see and know: yea, the faith which is by him hath given him this perfect soundness in the presence of you all. And now, brethren, I wot that through ignorance ye did it, as did also your rulers.

You see, that is the same thing the apostle Paul said. The princes of this world through ignorance did it. So both Peter and Paul state clearly that human wisdom fails because it is controlled by a twisted zeal.

The third reason human wisdom fails is because it is:

9 But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.

10 But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God.

Human wisdom cannot go beyond that which it has prerogative or ability to travel. Divine truth goes beyond reason. Now get this clear. God’s truth is not unreasonable but goes beyond reason. No one has the ability to arrive at divine truth without revelation from God. The human mind is incapable of reaching out to divine wisdom wit hout some input from the divine mind. The apostle Paul made it very clear in verse 9. He said, “Eye hath not seen nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him.”

So divine truth is not discernible by the human eye. It is not discernible by the human ear. It is not discernible by the human heart.

Back in the 1700s, there was a man named Immanuel Kant, a German philosopher. The Encyclopedia Britannica claims he was the greatest philosoph er of all time. Sometimes it is very difficult to follow the reasoning of some of these philosophers because they go around and around and around. That’s because they are circumscribed by a limited zone. But in his literary works, Immanuel Kant aimed to show that because of human limitation of reason no one can really arrive at the reality of anything outside of human experience. That is exactly what Paul wrote about in verse 9. If you depend upon your human reason, you will not be able to understand what God has in store for them that love Him.

To break out of this limited zone, we must depend on divine revelation, the revelation in the Holy Bible. That is why God gave us the Bible, so we could know divine truth.

We should also remember the divine ideal was definitely faulted when Adam and Eve sinned in the Garden. The only perfect human being who ever lived was Jesus Christ. The rest of us are all faulty. The rest of us have an area of dependency. Therefore, human wis do m fails because it is circumscribed by human mortality in its limited zone. So then to know truth, we are dependent on divine revelation.

Our secular schools and universities without God cannot arrive at truth. The reason is they depend on faulty human wisdom.

So I urge you to come to the Holy Bible, which alone can lead you into divine wisdom, superseding, going beyond human wisdom. Don’t rely on human wisdom. It cannot answer the important issues of life.

Here again are the reasons human wisdom fails. It is:

Human wisdom adds up to zero.

Go back to I Corinthians 1:30, where the apostle says that Jesus Christ is made unto us wisdom. Now we understand that when we are properly related to Him, then we have wisdom that goes beyond human wisdom. Yes, Amen.