For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, He takes the wise in their own craftiness.
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Arnobius of Sicca
AD 330
What the issues to be proposed in lawsuits are, how many kinds of cases there are, how many ways of pleading, what the genus is, what the species, by what methods an opposite is distinguished from a contrary,-do you therefore think that you know what is false, what true, what can or cannot be done, what is the nature of the lowest and highest? Have the well-known words never rung in
For on the believer alone, who is separated entirely from the rest, who by the Scripture are called wild beasts, rests the head of the universe, the kind and gentle Word, "who taketh the wise in their own craftiness. For the Lord knoweth the thoughts of the wise, that they axe vain; ".
This, then, "the wisdom of the world is foolishness with God "and of those who are "the wise the Lord knoweth their thoughts that they are vain."
For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. God has rejected the wisdom of the world as worthless, (1.) because it has nothing in it that is wholesome and Divine, and does nothing towards salvation; (2.) He would not use it in the preaching of the Apostles, but employed instead unlettered Apostles; (3.) It is often contrary to the faith, not only in speculative matters (as, e.g, all who are merely worldly-wise reject the mystery of the Holy Trinity, of the Incarnation and death of the Son of God as being impossible and incredible), but also in matters of practice and morals. For Christ bids us love our enemies; the wisdom of the world bids us hate them: Christ bids us overcome evil with good, the world says, "Return evil for evil;" Christ calls blessed the poor, the meek, them that mourn, that hunger, that suffer persecution, but the world says that it is the rich, those that are in high station, that laugh, feast, and rule, that are happy.
For it is written, He taketh the w...
As I said before, having launched out before the proper time into accusation of the fornicator, and having half opened it obscurely in a few words, and made the man's conscience to quail, he hastens again to the battle with heathen wisdom, and to his accusations of those who were puffed up there-with, and who were dividing the Church: in order that having added what remained and completed the whole topic with accuracy, he might thenceforth suffer his tongue to be carried away with vehement impulse against the unclean person, having had but a preliminary skirmishing with him in what he had said before. For this, Let no man deceive himself, is the expression of one aiming chiefly at him and quelling him beforehand by fear: and the saying about the stubble, suits best with one hinting at him. And so does the phrase, Do you not know that you are the Temple of God, and the Spirit of God dwells in you? For these two things are most apt to withdraw us from sin; when we have in mind the punish...
How does God catch the wise in their own craftiness? By showing them that while they imagined they can do without God, just then they would have all the more need of him. They are reduced to such a strait as to appear inferior to fishers and illiterates, whose wisdom they cannot now do without.
I was vainly puffed up, and increased wisdom; not the wisdom which God has given, but that wisdom of which Paul says, "The wisdom of this world is foolishness with God."
Wherefore? "Because the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God.".
an excellent testimony turns up in what (the apostle) here adjoins: "For it is written, He taketh the wise in their own craftiness; and again, The Lord knoweth the thoughts of the wise, that they are vain.".
According to the estimate of God, and that the very "Wisdom of the world is foolishness "(as the inspired word) pronounces it to be.
