God did design us to think for ourselves. That’s one reason the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was present in the garden. God simply did not design us to think by ourselves. It is not irrational for very limited, contingent creatures to depend on the guidance of an omniscient, self-existing Creator to know how to live. It is eminently reasonable for us to trust in him with all our heart. That’s wisdom; that’s sanity. What’s irrational is for us to lean on our own understanding. That’s foolishness; that’s madness.

Why does God have such a beef with human wisdom? Listen to this:

I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart. (1 Corinthians 1:19)

Those are fighting words. And through the apostle Paul, he goes even further:

Since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. (1 Corinthians 1:21)

Not only will God not be known to any of us through mere human wisdom, but to know him requires us to believe something that our mere human wisdom considers foolish. Why is God at war with human wisdom? Paul’s answer: “So that no human being might boast in the presence of God” (1 Corinthians 1:29).

Okay, that’s understandable: human boasting is offensive to God, and he wishes to humble it. But what’s the connection between human pride (boasting) and human reasoning (wisdom)? Why does God put them in the same category?

To see this connection, we must go back — way back — and look at what made the gospel necessary in the first place. There we begin to understand why God has engineered our redemption, and much of our sanctification, the way he has. He’s requiring each of us, in our own unique ways, to hand him back the fruit.

What Is God’s ‘No’ Hiding?

Most of us are familiar with “the original sin.” The first man and woman ate the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil — the only tree in the paradisal garden from which God had expressly forbidden them to eat. This was, in fact, the only prohibition we are told they were given. In the beginning, they knew God as a Father of joyful permission, who overwhelmingly said yes to them.

So why did they eat the one forbidden thing? Because, in part, the serpent told them that the God who said yes so much was misleading them about his one no.

Never mind that God, not the serpent, had created the whole glorious world they inhabited by his powerful word. Never mind that God, not the serpent, had provided to them personally life, breath, and everything. Never mind that, up to that point, God, not the serpent, had been a reliable and wonderful guide, and trusting him had resulted in their experience of profound happiness.

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