What Does God Mean When He Calls People "Fools"?

"Even when the fool walks on the road, he lacks sense, and he says to everyone that he is a fool." (Eccl 10:3)

"In everything the prudent acts with knowledge, but a fool flaunts his folly." (Prov 13:16)

Now in the citation from Ecclesiastes we see that Solomon says that the fool "says to everyone" that he is a fool. The meaning is not that a fool walks around verbally saying to everyone he bumps into "I am an idiot! Look at me!" BUT he does say that in some way. I would say in his actions and his worldview contradictions. He (the fool) is so oblivious to the utter lunacy of his actions or beliefs that he actually flaunts these things as if they were to be shown off and commended by others.

I have been saying to myself that I need to take my camera with me wherever I go to capture such illustrations, many of the images I want to capture are the bumper stickers I see in parking lots. One cliche next to another, often making for rather ludicrous bed fellows. Take for example these two slogans I saw on a vehicle today:

I can't see how anybody can have both of these stickers on one car and not be touched in the head, or rather one of whom God has labelled a "fool" flaunting their folly. I am not going to in this post give a point by point defense of the dignity of unborn infants to the insipid "My right my body" camp. What I am more focusing on here is the lunacy that befalls individuals when they have rejected God and chosen to write their own morality.

You see the "fool" is man who has rejected the wisdom of others (in the first place God the fountain head of all wisdom is rejected) and chooses autonomy and calls this a sort of freedom. After all having this God and His word over one's life seems stifling and after all nobody has the right to tell me how to live MY life, I have the right to decide what I want in my life. The Spirit of God says this about such a person:

"For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools," (Rom 1:21-22)

Here we see the actually source of folly, unbelief in God. Once men banish God from being Lord in their thinking their thinking actually becomes foolish. An analogy would be like a maple leaf choosing to be disconnected from the tree that made it and sustains it and by itself attempting to produce sap and fill jars of maple syrup for people to enjoy. This is a picture of how man thinks when divorced from God, it is utter futility.

The simple issues for our misguided "progressive" motorist whose vehicle I saw at the library this afternoon, are 1.Where do rights come from? and 2.Why is animal life valuable and to be preserved? And finally the obvious: 3.If animal life is to be valued and preserved where do you get off saying a woman has the "right" to kill her baby? Isn't that a tad inconsistent?

When pressed on all of these questions the person who has rejected God really has no answers. Today the popular answer I have heard from Atheists in regards to this is "I don't feel I need any answers, it is all subjective." Well, if that is the case then there is no real discussion to be had because we are ultimately trapped in our own bubbles of subjectivity and conversation is meaningless.

In contrast when we come to Christ, we not only are saved from the wrath we deserve but also the folly our enmity with God has created, so we have our intellect redeemed as well, and this is what the Scriptures in fact teach:

"They [unbelievers] are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart...[and now exhorting believers] be renewed in the spirit of your minds, " (Eph 4:18,23)

We need to come to Christ, or come under Christ, to have our minds renewed and restored. He needs to be our intellectual foundation for our utterances in the areas of ethics to have any meaning. Now do people who are Christians make blunders like putting a sticker that says "Jesus Saves!" on one side of the bumper and "Assassinate Chavez!" on the other? Yes they do. The difference is they have a foundation for their moral pronouncements and should know better. Also, they probably should spend more time in their Bibles having their minds renewed before they start flapping their lips.

To wrap up, in reality aborting babies and calling it "moral" is a meltdown of ethical sense...I mean it is just so obvious and the "My body!" line is a tragic example of "suppressing the truth in unrighteousness" (Rom 1), we all know that killing that baby is NOT the same thing as cutting one's fingernails or going to the salon.

To put stickers on one's car in support of this barbarity while at the same time have stickers that say "Save the Whales" is a flaunting of foolishness (Prov 13:16) and is an example of announcing to the whole world "I am a fool" which Solomon speaks of (Eccl 10:3).