Foolishness
Kirby Apodaca
Foolishness is the inability or failure to act following reason due to lack of judgment, stupidity, stubbornness, etc.[1] The things such as impulsivity and/or influences may affect a person's ability to make reasonable decisions.[citation needed] Other reasons of apparent foolishness include naivety, gullibility, and credulity. Foolishness differs from stupidity, which is the lack of intelligence.[2] An act of foolishness is called folly. A person who is foolish is called a fool. The opposite of foolishness is prudence. [3]
Andreas Maercker in 1995 defined foolishness as rigid, dogmatic, and inflexible thinking which makes feelings of bitterness and probable annoyance. It is considered the foundation of illusions of grandiosity like omniscience, omnipotence and inviolability.[citation needed]
St. Paul writes "the foolishness of God is wiser than men." The poems in William Wenthe's God's Foolishness mine the feelings of human uncertainty in matters of love and desire, time and death, and uncover difficult truths with transformative insights.
These are poems of crisis. Wenthe examines our conflicting urges to see nature as sustenance and to foolishly destroy it. His poems shift from close observation to panorama with cinematic fluidity, from a tea mug to an ancient monument, from a warbler on an elm branch to the specter of imminent natural disaster.
Offering passion and intellect balanced with a careful concern for poetic craft, Wenthe's God's Foolishness gives us fine poems to savor and admire.
The same could be said when Abraham took off for a new land or when John, James, and Peter left everything to follow Jesus. It seemed foolishness on many levels but was a great act of obedience and faith.
As always, dedicate yourself to seeking God with all that you have. Fast, pray, and lean into Scripture. Myself and others are also available to pray with you. Sometimes a listening ear and partner in prayer is a good step to choosing faith over foolishness. So if that is your need today ask away!
I recently climbed the Three Peaks with Phil Packer and Kate Silverton. The event proved far more difficult than we had anticipated and at one time we had to discuss whether to give up or continue. It was a fascinating discussion and one relevant to many people who have taken on challenging expeditions. Before I examine the fine line between foolishness and bravery I will recap the three options that we were discussing.
I do not always measure up to that by any means. I guess the Brethren, of whom I am one, do as much preaching and speaking in Church congregations as anyone, unless it is the seminary and institute teachers. There are times when I struggle and strive to get a message over and just do not seem to myself to be getting in tune with the Spirit. The fact is, it is a lot harder for me to choose what ought to be said, what subject ought to be considered, than it is for me to get up and preach it. I am always struggling and trying to get the inspiration to know what ought to be said at general conference or in a stake conference or whatever. If we labor at it and if we struggle, the Spirit will be given by the prayer of faith. If we do our part, we will improve and grow in the things of the Spirit until we get to a position where we can, being in tune, say what the Lord wants said. That is what is expected of us. And that is foolishness in the eyes of the world, in the disciplines of science and sociology and so on. But it is the foolishness of God, and the foolishness of God, which is wiser than men, is what brings salvation.
All this invites a question. Even if Paracelsus's foolishness, like Erasmus's and Brant's, were metaphorical, surely metaphor only works by its relationship to some positive referent, i.e. a small, pre-existing, pathological group? At the opposite end of the foolishness spectrum from the universal, Paracelsus does indeed identify a limited group which is, if not pathological, then odd. But it does not match the intellectual disability model. In Erasmian fashion it has several guises, and can be traced back to earlier sources. Since metaphor was not just a literary device but could also be explanatory, the narrative slips from universal foolishness to this more specific state and back without any sense that somewhere reality ends and metaphor begins.
those born foolish and insipientes [unwise], who show signs of foolishness immediately as infants by a habit of mimicry exceeding that of other infants and are not submissive or amenable, so that often they do not learn to speak, much less to take on functions requiring industriousness. This evil is frequent in particular regions, as written about in Egypt and in the village of Bremis in the Valais as I myself have seen, and in the Pinzgau valley in Carinthia; many in addition to their foolishness tend to have a poorly shaped head and a goitre, are dumb with a huge swollen tongue and present a deformed sight sitting in the streets gazing at the sun, putting sticks in the spaces between their fingers, writhing about with mouths wide open, moving passers-by to laughter and amazement.44
This blessing not only perfectly sums up the rally and our weekend in Raleigh, but also the passion, exuberance, and joy I have for mission. I have found that during formation and while on mission there will be times of discomfort, anger, tears, and foolishness, but I hope that like in the blessing, these times will lead to great fruit.
A spontaneous road trip, a rally at the North Carolina Capitol, a march to a bus, and an interfaith blessing has taught me that in mission I hope that God will bless me with enough foolishness to believe I can make a difference in the world. On the feast of a man who himself was a fool for Christ, it was a fitting reminder of the commitment I am making as a Franciscan lay missioner to work for peace and justice, no matter how difficult it may seem.
I once asked a number of people which verses came to mind when they thought about preaching. I had already gone to one of the concordances and looked up verses where the English words preaching, preacher, or preach occur, and I found that, even in these cases, which do not reflect all occurrences of the Greek and Hebrew root words (these are also translated "proclaim," "make known," "speak," and so on), there are 150 verses. But when I began to ask my question, people referred again and again to one verse, 1 Corinthians 1:21, which says, "God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe.
I think that says something about the way many people regard what they hear coming from the pulpit. They think of it as foolishness. In the minds of many, the content of preaching, and perhaps even the delivery of the sermon itself, is a very foolish thing.
Is preaching really foolishness? It obviously is in some sense because Paul uses that word. Indeed, preachers will often say that there are times when they feel foolish as they try to bring a word from God to those living in the midst of a secular culture. Yet when we look at the passage from which that word comes, it is perfectly evident, even on a very superficial reading, that the apostle is using this word foolishness in a specialized sense. He is talking about that which is foolish in the world's eyes, but which in actuality is the wisdom of God unto salvation.
Paul makes this statement in a very interesting context. In this passage, he speaks not only of foolishness and wisdom, but also of weakness and power (a parallel contrast) and signs versus what we would probably call the foundation stone of revealed religion.
This is the context in which Paul talks about foolishness. But in writing to the church at Corinth, he has a Greek mentality in mind. Greece had lost the power it once had under Philip of Macedon and Alexander the Great. That dominion was gone. But what the Greeks did have (and the Romans did not, at least not to the same degree) was wisdom. Greece produced the great philosophers. Greece provided the teachers. In most wealthy Roman homes, there was a slave who was responsible for the education of the children, and nine times out of ten he was a Greek. The Greeks were proud of this wisdom. When the early ambassadors of the gospel came, proclaiming that the ineffable God had become man in human flesh in order to die for our salvation, that contradicted everything the Greeks understood about philosophy. The basic principle of their philosophy was that mind was separated from matter, that spirit was separated from flesh. It was inconceivable to the Greek that there could be an incarnation. So what happened when Paul preached in Athens? They laughed, because his message seemed foolish. What Paul had to say to the Greeks was that this message, which appears to be foolishness, and which is communicated in a manner that is conceived to be the height of folly, is actually the wisdom of God.
On the basis of 1 Corinthians 1:21, we can say that preaching is that wise means of God by which the wisdom of the world is shown to be foolishness, and the folly of the gospel, as the world conceives it, is shown to be true wisdom.
On the other hand, growth mindset individuals understand that human abilities are malleable, meaning that improvement is always possible with work. Therefore, growth mindset individuals are more willing to risk failure (and are less vulnerable to fears of foolishness) because they understand that error and failure are not permanent measures of their ultimate abilities.
The October 2023 issue of Tabletalk concerns the topic of wisdom and foolishness. Throughout all of human history, wisdom has been highly prized and fools have been mocked and derided for lacking wisdom. Much has changed over the last century or so, however, and it seems that too many people today praise the fool and reject the wise. Furthermore, the world continually holds before us a counterfeit wisdom that shapes us in ways that we are not aware of, making it that much more difficult to discern true wisdom. This issue of Tabletalk will seek to help readers in our foolish age be able to define and acquire true biblical wisdom while rejecting foolishness.
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