Children of a Prodigal Age
by Rev. Dr. Frank Uhlir
Where is the wise? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this world? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?
1 Cor.1:20
When St.Paul wrote these words to Corinthians in the first century of our Christian calendar, the old classical world was at a fatal crossroad. The glory and misery of Rome which put its seal on three continents showed apparent signs of decline and agony. The colossus of Latin civilization was dying more of complications than old age, and neither the military triumphs of the Caesars nor free bread and entertainment in the arena could save this sickly world. Underneath the palaces of Roman senators and patricians a new world grew in catacombs among the slaves, the outcasts and the displaced. The heavy burden of the material world, which the giant of ancient Rome considered the source of life, actually became the source of its death.
The ancient Greek culture was also in decline, having been overshadowed for so long by the victorious march of Roman legions. Sparta and Athens could not supplement the fame of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle. Greeks rather lived more from their past than from present intellectual and moral achievements. Faith in the oracle of Delphi was replaced by the enigma of an unknown god of Athens.
The history of the world, born in Bethlehem and written in its fullness on the Cross of Calvary, inscribed the foundation stone for a new Promised Land and a new Israel. Titus destroyed cold, stony Jerusalem, the place of scribes, pharisees, proud high priests, world travellers, the centre of religious formalism and spiritual blindness, because the law of life had to be fulfilled also in this way. The whole ancient world was shaken to its civilizational, cultural, and spiritual foundations.
Such was the situation faced by St.Paul when he asked the Corinthians: "Where is the wise? where is the scribe? where is the disputer of this world?"
Would this great apostle of Christ ask the same if he lived today? Would he see the rapid disintegration of social structure in which Man has been glorified as the goal and final purpose of life? Would he notice the blind alley out of which men's brains and wits cannot find an exit to the road of life? Would he who was granted light near Damascus recognize today the millions of Sauls who assist, either willingly or by their apathy, the evil men who stoned Christ's apostles and prophets? I believe he would.
We are also his Corinthians, to whom he writes. Like 2000 years ago when the work of men's hands and brains, their systems and ideologies, ethics and philosophies were falling into ruin because they opposed God's purpose, so also today everything built apart from God and based on the glorification of Man and his intellectual and moral anarchy is being shaken to the very foundation.
Dr. Herbert Butterfield, professor of History at Cambridge University, says: "Judgment comes upon... orders and systems. At the bottom it is an inadequacy in human nature itself which comes under judgement... The judgement of history falls heaviest upon those who come to think themselves gods, who fly in the face of Providence and history, who put their trust in man-made systems and worship the work of their own hands, and who say that the strength of their right arm gave them the victory."
This was the cause of the fall of great civilizations and cultures in the past. This is the real cause of fatal cracks in the systems, idealogies and ethics of the present world. The last century was called the century of Hope, because foolish man believed that with his brain and hands he could master the Universe. Now we live in the century of Disillusionment because we see that the superman-to-be is unable to master even himself. "For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the clever" (1 Cor.1:19).
It is often heard, especially from people who have obtained a certain amount of worldly knowledge: "I do not believe in the wisdom of God because I don't believe in Him." Others say, "Give me proof that God exists." I have met teachers who define Man as a composite of biochemical ingredients, and the functions of his soul as mutual interactions of those ingredients. I have met psychologists who urgently need the help of a good psychiatrist, because they claim to do the same for men as the Holy Spirit does. There are scientists who dare to say that apart from blind physical forces there are no moral principles at all. There are nominal Christians who have lost their faith in God because they cannot touch Him as they touch their neighbour or an armchair. St.Paul says the same about his time: "The Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seeks after wisdom" (1 Cor.1:22).
How many people who require a visible sign of God are among Christians today? Thomas' doubt and scepticism are the main cause of nominal Church membership and lukewarm Christian life."Except I see in His hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and thrust my hand into His side, I will not believe" (Jn.20:25). What does our Lord say to the doubtful Thomas of today? "Blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed"(Jn.20:29).
People require a "materialized" God because their mind is occupied with materialistic thinking. It is the same tragedy as that of the Jews who expected in the Messiah a powerful Jewish king who would establish a worldly kingdom and deliver Jerusalem from foreign oppression. Therefore they demanded the liberation of Barabbas the Jewish partisan, and the crucifixion of Jesus because He told them His kingdom is not of this world. A materialistic Christian mind can worship the dead Jesus, but it cannot reach the Risen Christ.
How many "Greek" characters are in the world today, who seek worldly wisdom but refuse the wisdom of God? They deny God because they cannot analyze Him as matter, nor split Him as an atom, not observe His reactions in different temperatures and acids. Physics does not have Him in its laws of nature, medicine cannot search His anatomy, chemistry has no formula for Him, geography cannot find His abode on the map, history knows only men who claimed to be gods, but they are dead. Therefore the wisdom of this world concludes that there is no God. The more worldly wisdom grows, the more its enthusiasts are convinced that God belongs to the realm of illusions and neurotic states of mind, as Sigmund Freud teaches.
"Prove that God exists", says the sceptical mind burdened with many high degrees of the world's wisdom. "Live God and you will have the proof", humbly answers the believing heart. For God is the living God, He is not some laboratory subject. He proves Himself in your life, and then you prove Him through yourself to others. We can either live Him or know nothing of Him. We cannot live God through mere speculation about Him, but only through the revelation of Himself in the fullness of our life: in our spirit, soul and body.
God is not a matter of man's brain, but of his life, and life is much more than brain. Therefore there is a big difference in whether we "study" God or "live" Him. Our worldly knowledge will be enlightened by God's wisdom only if we live Him. And then we know how and to which purpose our intellectual endeavors should be used. Either God takes completely into captivity every cell of the body, every vibration of the heart, every spark of the mind, or we cannot say that our Faith is complete, our love is pure, and our hope is certain.
Unfortunately, this age destroys not only society but also individuals, such that we lose the fullness of life which is the condition for a perception of God. Man lives today as a philosopher, a scientist, a politician, a banker, a shopkeeper, a farmer, a workman, but not as a man. Functions are emphasized and identified with life itself, so personality is more and more depersonalized. Men do not live a full life, they employ mostly that part of it which they need for their survival and for the satisfaction of natural desires.
In the age of science, great stress is laid especially upon intellect, while other parts of personality are neglected. Wisdom of this world has been worshipped as the goal of life, with the human brain as its holy shrine. Eternal spiritual values and ethical principles have had to retreat from the highway of life to secondary or third-rate sideroads. Personality is dangerously outbalanced and therefore ill.
Modern man may be compared to a person nourished with a very precious food but one which only contains one type of vitamins. He is ill because he lacks other vitamins he needs. It would not improve his condition if he continued with his present diet, or used bigger portions of it. It would be worse for him, and could even cause his death. For the restoration of his health he needs the food which he neglected or refused.
The English philosopher Chesterton says that it would be a mistake to think that a mad man lost his brain: he lost everything but his brain. Can we find in this saying some explanation for the cause of the chaotic situation and apocalyptic expectations in our age of "brain"?
An immature son usually thinks that he is wiser than his father, so he follows his foolish ways in spite of his father's advice and warnings. Father is old-fashioned, unpractical, his moral principles are obsolete, he does not understand life and its successes and pleasures. "Rely on yourself", he hears in school; "Take your life in your own hands", says his friend; "I belong to you, take me", says the world to him. So he leaves his father's home, wishing to be his own master. After years of erring, collapsing and disillusionment he seeks a way home. His foolishness finally reveals his father's wisdom.
The prodigal son is not a fictitious person in our Lord's parable. He is you and I. We are rather prodigal sons than sons of God. We are children of a prodigal age, so we have to go through misery, collapse and face catastrophes. How many people realize the necessity to seek a way to our Father's home? Speak about it for example to young men and women who have begun to read the preface of life in their school text books, and you will find that many of them turn their backs, because your advice seems to them foolish and obsolete. They will hear your voice, understand your language, but the wisdom of your advice will not be recognized because "the world by wisdom knew not God" (1 Cor.1:21).
St.Paul said to the Corinthians, "And I, brethren, did not come with excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring to you the testimony of God. For I resolved not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified." (1 Cor.2:1-2). Follow his example and preach Christ crucified in all the corners of this world, and count those who listen to you and who will not. Do not be disheartened if you see that people would rather hear how to increase their wealth than their security in God; that they would prefer advice on how to multiply their worldly pleasure and complacency rather than how to reach Eternity during their earthly existence; that they would trust the wisdom of the world much more than the wisdom of God. If you will recognize their real interests, then you will understand also why they fear nuclear war much more than they fear God.
In them is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah, which says: 'You shall indeed hear but never understand; and you shall indeed see but never perceive: for this people's heart has become calloused, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed; otherwise at any time they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and be converted, and I would heal them. But blessed are your eyes, for they see, and your ears, for they hear. (Matt.13:14-16)
Never put an agnostic in the same category as a sceptic. An agnostic is one who says, `There is more than I know, but I have not found anyone who can tell me about it.' Jesus is never stern with that attitude; but He is stern with the man who objects to a certain way of getting at the truth because he does not like that way. If a man refuses to try the way Jesus Christ puts before him, he ceases from that second to be an honest doubter; he must try it and put Jesus Christ's teaching to the proof. A man cannot say he is an honest intellectual doubter if he refuses one way of getting at the truth; that is mental immorality. Oswald Chambers
Where is the wise? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this world? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?
1 Cor.1:20
When St.Paul wrote these words to Corinthians in the first century of our Christian calendar, the old classical world was at a fatal crossroad. The glory and misery of Rome which put its seal on three continents showed apparent signs of decline and agony. The colossus of Latin civilization was dying more of complications than old age, and neither the military triumphs of the Caesars nor free bread and entertainment in the arena could save this sickly world. Underneath the palaces of Roman senators and patricians a new world grew in catacombs among the slaves, the outcasts and the displaced. The heavy burden of the material world, which the giant of ancient Rome considered the source of life, actually became the source of its death.
The ancient Greek culture was also in decline, having been overshadowed for so long by the victorious march of Roman legions. Sparta and Athens could not supplement the fame of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle. Greeks rather lived more from their past than from present intellectual and moral achievements. Faith in the oracle of Delphi was replaced by the enigma of an unknown god of Athens.
The history of the world, born in Bethlehem and written in its fullness on the Cross of Calvary, inscribed the foundation stone for a new Promised Land and a new Israel. Titus destroyed cold, stony Jerusalem, the place of scribes, pharisees, proud high priests, world travellers, the centre of religious formalism and spiritual blindness, because the law of life had to be fulfilled also in this way. The whole ancient world was shaken to its civilizational, cultural, and spiritual foundations.
Such was the situation faced by St.Paul when he asked the Corinthians: "Where is the wise? where is the scribe? where is the disputer of this world?"
Would this great apostle of Christ ask the same if he lived today? Would he see the rapid disintegration of social structure in which Man has been glorified as the goal and final purpose of life? Would he notice the blind alley out of which men's brains and wits cannot find an exit to the road of life? Would he who was granted light near Damascus recognize today the millions of Sauls who assist, either willingly or by their apathy, the evil men who stoned Christ's apostles and prophets? I believe he would.
We are also his Corinthians, to whom he writes. Like 2000 years ago when the work of men's hands and brains, their systems and ideologies, ethics and philosophies were falling into ruin because they opposed God's purpose, so also today everything built apart from God and based on the glorification of Man and his intellectual and moral anarchy is being shaken to the very foundation.
Dr. Herbert Butterfield, professor of History at Cambridge University, says: "Judgment comes upon... orders and systems. At the bottom it is an inadequacy in human nature itself which comes under judgement... The judgement of history falls heaviest upon those who come to think themselves gods, who fly in the face of Providence and history, who put their trust in man-made systems and worship the work of their own hands, and who say that the strength of their right arm gave them the victory."
This was the cause of the fall of great civilizations and cultures in the past. This is the real cause of fatal cracks in the systems, idealogies and ethics of the present world. The last century was called the century of Hope, because foolish man believed that with his brain and hands he could master the Universe. Now we live in the century of Disillusionment because we see that the superman-to-be is unable to master even himself. "For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the clever" (1 Cor.1:19).
It is often heard, especially from people who have obtained a certain amount of worldly knowledge: "I do not believe in the wisdom of God because I don't believe in Him." Others say, "Give me proof that God exists." I have met teachers who define Man as a composite of biochemical ingredients, and the functions of his soul as mutual interactions of those ingredients. I have met psychologists who urgently need the help of a good psychiatrist, because they claim to do the same for men as the Holy Spirit does. There are scientists who dare to say that apart from blind physical forces there are no moral principles at all. There are nominal Christians who have lost their faith in God because they cannot touch Him as they touch their neighbour or an armchair. St.Paul says the same about his time: "The Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seeks after wisdom" (1 Cor.1:22).
How many people who require a visible sign of God are among Christians today? Thomas' doubt and scepticism are the main cause of nominal Church membership and lukewarm Christian life."Except I see in His hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and thrust my hand into His side, I will not believe" (Jn.20:25). What does our Lord say to the doubtful Thomas of today? "Blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed"(Jn.20:29).
People require a "materialized" God because their mind is occupied with materialistic thinking. It is the same tragedy as that of the Jews who expected in the Messiah a powerful Jewish king who would establish a worldly kingdom and deliver Jerusalem from foreign oppression. Therefore they demanded the liberation of Barabbas the Jewish partisan, and the crucifixion of Jesus because He told them His kingdom is not of this world. A materialistic Christian mind can worship the dead Jesus, but it cannot reach the Risen Christ.
How many "Greek" characters are in the world today, who seek worldly wisdom but refuse the wisdom of God? They deny God because they cannot analyze Him as matter, nor split Him as an atom, not observe His reactions in different temperatures and acids. Physics does not have Him in its laws of nature, medicine cannot search His anatomy, chemistry has no formula for Him, geography cannot find His abode on the map, history knows only men who claimed to be gods, but they are dead. Therefore the wisdom of this world concludes that there is no God. The more worldly wisdom grows, the more its enthusiasts are convinced that God belongs to the realm of illusions and neurotic states of mind, as Sigmund Freud teaches.
"Prove that God exists", says the sceptical mind burdened with many high degrees of the world's wisdom. "Live God and you will have the proof", humbly answers the believing heart. For God is the living God, He is not some laboratory subject. He proves Himself in your life, and then you prove Him through yourself to others. We can either live Him or know nothing of Him. We cannot live God through mere speculation about Him, but only through the revelation of Himself in the fullness of our life: in our spirit, soul and body.
God is not a matter of man's brain, but of his life, and life is much more than brain. Therefore there is a big difference in whether we "study" God or "live" Him. Our worldly knowledge will be enlightened by God's wisdom only if we live Him. And then we know how and to which purpose our intellectual endeavors should be used. Either God takes completely into captivity every cell of the body, every vibration of the heart, every spark of the mind, or we cannot say that our Faith is complete, our love is pure, and our hope is certain.
Unfortunately, this age destroys not only society but also individuals, such that we lose the fullness of life which is the condition for a perception of God. Man lives today as a philosopher, a scientist, a politician, a banker, a shopkeeper, a farmer, a workman, but not as a man. Functions are emphasized and identified with life itself, so personality is more and more depersonalized. Men do not live a full life, they employ mostly that part of it which they need for their survival and for the satisfaction of natural desires.
In the age of science, great stress is laid especially upon intellect, while other parts of personality are neglected. Wisdom of this world has been worshipped as the goal of life, with the human brain as its holy shrine. Eternal spiritual values and ethical principles have had to retreat from the highway of life to secondary or third-rate sideroads. Personality is dangerously outbalanced and therefore ill.
Modern man may be compared to a person nourished with a very precious food but one which only contains one type of vitamins. He is ill because he lacks other vitamins he needs. It would not improve his condition if he continued with his present diet, or used bigger portions of it. It would be worse for him, and could even cause his death. For the restoration of his health he needs the food which he neglected or refused.
The English philosopher Chesterton says that it would be a mistake to think that a mad man lost his brain: he lost everything but his brain. Can we find in this saying some explanation for the cause of the chaotic situation and apocalyptic expectations in our age of "brain"?
An immature son usually thinks that he is wiser than his father, so he follows his foolish ways in spite of his father's advice and warnings. Father is old-fashioned, unpractical, his moral principles are obsolete, he does not understand life and its successes and pleasures. "Rely on yourself", he hears in school; "Take your life in your own hands", says his friend; "I belong to you, take me", says the world to him. So he leaves his father's home, wishing to be his own master. After years of erring, collapsing and disillusionment he seeks a way home. His foolishness finally reveals his father's wisdom.
The prodigal son is not a fictitious person in our Lord's parable. He is you and I. We are rather prodigal sons than sons of God. We are children of a prodigal age, so we have to go through misery, collapse and face catastrophes. How many people realize the necessity to seek a way to our Father's home? Speak about it for example to young men and women who have begun to read the preface of life in their school text books, and you will find that many of them turn their backs, because your advice seems to them foolish and obsolete. They will hear your voice, understand your language, but the wisdom of your advice will not be recognized because "the world by wisdom knew not God" (1 Cor.1:21).
St.Paul said to the Corinthians, "And I, brethren, did not come with excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring to you the testimony of God. For I resolved not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified." (1 Cor.2:1-2). Follow his example and preach Christ crucified in all the corners of this world, and count those who listen to you and who will not. Do not be disheartened if you see that people would rather hear how to increase their wealth than their security in God; that they would prefer advice on how to multiply their worldly pleasure and complacency rather than how to reach Eternity during their earthly existence; that they would trust the wisdom of the world much more than the wisdom of God. If you will recognize their real interests, then you will understand also why they fear nuclear war much more than they fear God.
In them is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah, which says: 'You shall indeed hear but never understand; and you shall indeed see but never perceive: for this people's heart has become calloused, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed; otherwise at any time they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and be converted, and I would heal them. But blessed are your eyes, for they see, and your ears, for they hear. (Matt.13:14-16)
Never put an agnostic in the same category as a sceptic. An agnostic is one who says, `There is more than I know, but I have not found anyone who can tell me about it.' Jesus is never stern with that attitude; but He is stern with the man who objects to a certain way of getting at the truth because he does not like that way. If a man refuses to try the way Jesus Christ puts before him, he ceases from that second to be an honest doubter; he must try it and put Jesus Christ's teaching to the proof. A man cannot say he is an honest intellectual doubter if he refuses one way of getting at the truth; that is mental immorality. Oswald Chambers