“Every man is stupid and without knowledge”
Tell me: which widely read book contains the above statement?
I was very surprised when reading the book of Jeremiah recently to come across this very blunt assessment of the human race. (Jeremiah 10:14 and Jerimiah 51:17 ESV)
On second thought, it should not be a surprise because the Bible consistently gives an accurate assessment of the human condition and part of the reality of our existence is that we are finite. Another example from the Bible of this assessment of our abilities is in Job 38 through 41where God asks Job a series of questions about the natural world and Job does not have a clue about the answers. The purpose of God’s questions to Job is to awaken in Job the realization he does not understand all of God’s purposes. “I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted. ‘Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge?’ Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know.” (Job 42:2-3 ESV)
Job’s realizatlion is what we have consistently shown in this blog. If we want to correctly understand our predicament we must understand the implications of what it means to be finite. Because of our success in understanding and controlling our physical world, we tend to be rather arrogant and think our knowledge is so great that every few years someone will make the prediction that soon we will know everything. The reality of our existence is that we, like Job, talk about things we do not understand. We have only begun to learn what we need to know.
