More Fireworks in the Fog
I recently read a piece that reflected on an article that talked about suffering. The article reviewed (actually, it wasn't
reviewed), we were told, claimed that the answer to human suffering was
found in the book of Job. (It’d take a brave or wild man or woman to
make a claim like that.) We weren’t told who wrote the article and more
importantly we weren’t told what the writer of the article had
said. This means we weren’t told how the writer of the original article
related the book of Job to "suffering answered". We were only told how
astonished the reviewer was and how harmful the piece was; which the
reviewer assured us was an expression of pride and arrogance that we
should ignore and regard as "man’s wisdom".
The reviewer didn't tell us why the article astonished him, why it
was harmful and created havoc; we weren’t told how the astonished one
knew it was merely "man’s wisdom" or why we should ignore such a piece
of writing. Ignore what, for pity’s sake? The reviewer treated us to
fireworks in the fog while professing to give us light. The reviewer
asked us to accept his word that some article of some kind saying
something or other was arrogance and harmful man's wisdom. The reviewer
accused our unknown author of arrogance and sets himself up as the judge
of his work without even allowing us the opportunity to give it a
hearing. Hmmm.
I wouldn’t suppose that any of us would want to rely on "man’s
wisdom" as over against God’s; but that’s precisely the problem, isn’t
it? We often don’t know the difference between what is God’s wisdom and
man’s wisdom. To warn against man’s wisdom is wise and it’s also
pious—it shows our own wisdom and humility, don’t you see. But to warn
without telling others what we’re warning against is worse than no
warning at all. Why is this teaching "man’s wisdom" rather than that teaching?
How can we tell? Who can tell us? We hear the same kind of talk when
people warn us against "Liberalism" and "heresy". Some years ago a
prominent figure, in an open forum, was raging away against "Liberals"
and a questioner asked him what he meant by the word. He said, "Those
that don’t agree with what we’ve always believed."
The old piece of advice goes this way: if you want to get rid of a
troublesome dog, get it to eat soap and when it foams at the mouth yell
"mad dog," shoot it immediately and make sure no one has a close look at
the corpse. Then there’s the story of "Live Forever" Jones who was
convicted of a criminal charge. Someone asked him why he hadn’t made any
points in his defence and he said, "I was afraid if I made points
they’d hang me on them."
Here’s a piece of wisdom: see if what you read makes any points. If
it doesn’t—no matter how pious sounding it is—dismiss it as fatuous and a
waste of your time.
It isn’t hard for me to understand why some non-believers can’t put up with our pious bleating. Sometimes we’re just too sweet to be wholesome.
©2004 Jim McGuiggan. All materials are free to be copied and used as long as money is not being made.
Many thanks to brother Ed Healy, for allowing me to post from his website, the abiding word.com.
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