Foolishness and Sin Nature

 

A framework for Understanding Foolishness: Ecclesiastes 10

There are two kinds of foolish in the world, the lunatic and the intellectual. We usually lock the first type up for their own good. We used to at least. Now we let people roam the streets until they harm themselves or someone else. The second kind is respected but equally dangerous. They deny the existence of God and use their influence to undermine morality. Not all intellectuals deny God, but history is full of movements steeped in the philosophy of nihilism. 

Ecclesiastes 10:12-14 says “The words of a wise man’s mouth are gracious, but the lips of a fool shall swallow him up; the words of his mouth begin with foolishness, and the end of his talk is raving madness. A fool also multiplies words.”

In true Solomon fashion he gives a contrast, the wise does this and the fool does that. He leaves it vague enough so we can fill in the blanks. We’d rather hear something specific about the fool. What kind of foolishness, or what subjects does the fool focus on? But wisdom and foolishness should be self-evident. At least that’s the idea I get when I read this. Wisdom is clear when it’s beneficial. Foolishness is clear when it’s ruinous. It’s a distinction we all see.

Lunatic Foolish

I went for a short run a few years ago in my neighborhood. Homeless people are usually nearby. On occasion I’ll stop and talk to them. I’ve offered prayer. Some accept, others don’t. A few are completely out of their mind. That’s not a surprise. We use words like “homelessness” to describe people living on the streets because it fits. But it’s increased at an alarming rate. It’s beyond whatever natural distribution used to exist. I don’t pretend to know all the reasons, but it’s at least related to deinstitutionalization and laissez faire attitudes toward drug use. It’s just cheaper to get drugs and live in a tent than it’s ever been. Responsibility for this group was always done on a local level. Eventually the financial burden was kicked to the federal government when Medicaid came about.

That’s a complaint for another time though.

 People on the streets need Jesus. This hasn’t changed. One guy was sitting on the steps at a small Methodist church on the corner. It’s right along my normal jogging route so I stopped for a second. I offered him a granola bar and he declined. The exact details of our short conversation are lost to the ether. I remember thinking that he was completely insane. His thoughts, logic and stories were disconnected. He complained that the cops had beat him up. I got that much out of him. Did he realize how nutty he looked and sounded? Was he aware that most people would see him as dangerous because of his twitchy, shaky movements? He was most likely a junkie. I said a quick prayer when I could get a word in. He agreed to listen to me at least.  

Multiplied Words

Whenever I think of Solomon’s description, I imagine my encounter with this man. He multiplied words like a madman and spoke in disconnected ideas. At one end of foolishness there is a crazy man who dumps words and phrases like a snow plow salting a slick highway. He covers everything with foolishness. But I also think Solomon refers to something closer to home. We don’t encounter crazy people every day. But even people with rational thinking can be fools. Even those respected academics, writers, intellectuals and philosophers can have nonsensical ideas.

Anytime a respected individual disputes the existence of God, they speak foolishness.

Intellectual Foolishness

I watched a debate with Richard Dawkins and John Lennox. Dawkins is a renowned atheist and biologist, Lennox a Christian mathematician. Both men are Oxford professors. Dawkins rejects the existence of God, because of the “pettiness” of a creator who judges the sin of man. He’s a brilliant guy with a gigantic hole in his rationalization of the universe. The moral code we live by came from somewhere. Natural selection can explain why the fittest species survived, but it can’t introduce a moral code. The only lesson is survival at all costs. Our laws aren’t based on dog eat dog survival. They're rooted in Judeo-Christian tenets about morality. Dawkins seems to think morality is self-evident. Other times, he thinks morality itself is kind of irrelevant and tough to define. But a lack of definition and structure leads to chaos. In the long term, a society becomes tribal and war like.

Denied Reality

 Mankind lives in a state of sinfulness that’s been in existence since the garden of Eden. Without the “pettiness” of a Savior, we are doomed to eternal justice. Atheists like to separate the idea of God into categories or myths. “Which god are you referring to?” is a common refrain. But they clearly understand the basis of the question, do you believe in God, or at least, in a universal right and wrong? How about a creator? These might seem like different questions but they’re the same. There is a correct way for a created thing to behave. A toy car rolls forward when you crank the wheels back. It stops working when the wheels won’t crank. If you send the toy back to the manufacturer to have it fixed, you can expect they know what to do. If they said “We created it, but we have no idea how it’s supposed to work” You’d be confused.

Conclusion

Created things function a particular way because they were designed to. Humans were created with an inherent need to behave in a moral capacity. Sin puts up a wall between the Creator and the created, by introducing a ‘work around’. It says you don’t need God. It says you are God. It says there is no God, or creation or ultimate justice.

You can behave however you like. Solomon would call this “raving madness”. His description assumes a self-evident reality. We can understand how things work by observing creation. Foolishness comes in two varieties, socially acceptable or socially unacceptable. Neither is hopeless. Salvation is for all and redemption is for today.