Posted by
ValiantForTruth on Tuesday, September 19, 2006 5:31:18 PM
You will look in vain to find an example in the New Testament where Christ or His apostles appealed to unbelievers through the use of human wisdom. The teaching that human reason was uncorrupted in the Fall of Genesis 3 was advocated by Thomas Aquinas. His teaching was adopted and advanced by the Catholic church and led to an autonomous human reason along side the Scriptures. This allowed extra-Biblical practices and abuses into the church that eventually led to the Protestant Reformation. The Reformers rejected the belief that human reason was unaffected by the Fall saying that the whole man was fallen and that the whole man was in need of redemption. Therefore, reason dared not be trusted independent of the revelation of the Scriptures.
Let the Scriptures speak to human wisdom…
“Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel, not with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be made of no effect.” [I Corinthians 1:17]
“I was with you in weakness, in fear, and in much trembling. And my speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith should not be in the wisdom of men but in the power of God. [I Corinthians 2:3-5]
“Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God. These things we also speak, not in words which man’s wisdom teaches but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual. [I Corinthians 2:12]
“Let no one deceive himself. If anyone among you seems to be wise in this age, let him become a fool that he may become wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God.” [1 Corinthians 3:18]
Acts 17 is a good example of Biblical revelation coming face to face with Greek philosophy. Paul did not appeal to their philosophy because he knew they suffered from the same deficiency as all other men.
Paul testified that God had spoken in the Scriptures and through Jesus Christ. Therefore, man could know truth about God and truth about himself and the world in which he lives. Here was the unity of thought that finite man had searched for in vain. Here was redemption for the body and the soul.
Paul addressed their lack of knowledge evident by the altar TO THE UNKNOWN GOD by declaring to them the true God. He understood that,
"In the wisdom of God, the world through wisdom did not know God…" [I Corinthians 1:21]
Hear Paul before the Greek philosophers declaring unto them the gospel and putting into practice what he had preached at Corinth.
“Men of Athens, I perceive that in all things you are very religious; for as I was passing through and considering the objects of your worship, I even found an altar with this inscription:
TO THE UNKNOWN GOD.
Therefore, the One whom you worship without knowing, Him I proclaim to you: God, who made the world and everything in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands. Nor is He worshiped with men’s hands, as though He needed anything, since He gives to all life, breath, and all things. And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their pre-appointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings, so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; for in Him we live and move and have our being, as also some of your own poets have said, ‘For we are also His offspring.’ Therefore, since we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold or silver or stone, something shaped by art and man’s devising. Truly, these times of ignorance God overlooked, but now commands all men everywhere to repent, because He has appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by the Man whom He has ordained. He has given assurance of this to all by raising Him from the dead.” [Acts 17]
Today the autonomous human reason introduced by Aquinas has resulted in a widespread belief that unregenerate men can be appealed to based on human reason. The Bible says that the unregenerate man is at enmity with God. Islamic radicals are a vivid picture of what is normally unseen. Their acts and words reveal the unregenerate heart for all to see. You cannot reason with dead men. It takes a work of God to raise the dead. He does this in the gospel through the message preached.