Tuesday, January 5, 2010

WISE OR INTELLIGENT?

Tonight I attended my first meeting of the "Socrates Club" here at Palm Creek. We were a group of a dozen or so ordinary folks sharing ideas on the question, "What is intelligence?" I'm not sure anyone left the meeting with more intelligence, but we all had a few more ideas of what intelligence is.

Our discussion reminded me of a passage from Isaiah 29:14, "I will astound these people with wonder upon wonder; the wisdom of the wise will perish, the intelligence of the intelligent will vanish." St. Paul quoted that passage in 1 Corinthians 1:19.

Paul, though a brilliant mind, was not anti-intellectual, but he was against the humanism of his day. I have a feeling that if I remain in the Socrates Club, I will find my Christian faith questioned by some who hinted at their belief in the factuality of Darwinism.

Last week Carol and I and Brian watched an amazing one-hour move, "Our Privileged Planet." In just one hour, astrophysicists, mathematicians and philosophers showed the miraculous position our earth has in relation to the rest of the universe. If our earth were just a tiny bit closer or farther away from the center the universe, complex life could not exist. If our planet were smaller or larger, if the earth's crust were thicker or thinner, or if its atmosphere had a tiny bit more or less of its life-giving gases, humans and complex life could not exist.

Their conclusion was Intelligent Design made things the way they are. And, of course, many of those scientists on "Our Privileged Planet" have been ostracized and even fired from their university faculties for even suggesting Intelligent Design.

Certainly they have been ridiculed publicly and often by the intelligent and wise of the world. Once again it shows that intelligence has little to do with wisdom or faith. (You can get "Our Privileged Planet" through NetFlix or other video rental outlets.)

God maintains our planet with "wonder upon wonder." He has placed us in an amazing moment of time on an amazing planet which occupies an even more amazing place among the millions of other planets and stars of the universe.

What's even more incredible is that same Creator God loves all those who trust Him, and because of faith in Jesus Christ, He will give them eternal life. It doesn't take a genius to trust in Jesus, but it does take faith and humility. And there is nothing but eternity to be gained from such humility.

Wise and intelligent men and women always acknowledge and trust Him,

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