THEOSISJohn Chrysostom
"The natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit" (1 Cor 2:14). Therefore, before all else, external wisdom must be rejected.
How, you will say, can external wisdom be worthy of rejection? Is it not also a work of God?
Where is this shown? No, God did not create it. You invented it. Here the Apostle calls excessive curiosity and superfluous eloquence wisdom.
If you say that he is speaking here about human reason, then even in that case the fault is yours. You yourself debase it by using it wrongly, to your own harm and in opposition to God.
You demand from it what it does not possess. You boast in it and rise up against God. Therefore God has exposed its powerlessness.
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Bodily strength also is good. But when Cain did not use it as he should, God brought weakness and trembling upon him.
Wine also is good. But when the Jews began to use it immoderately, God completely forbade its use to the priests.
So when you began to use wisdom in opposition to God and ascribed to it a power greater than it has, He turned you away from human confidence by showing its weakness.
The natural man is one who subjects everything to cold reasonings and does not consider higher help necessary for himself. This is madness.
God gave us reason so that it might know and receive what is communicated by God, not so that it might consider itself sufficient for itself.
Eyes are beautiful and useful. But if they wished to see without light, their beauty and their own power would bring them no benefit. They would even cause harm.
So also the soul, if it wishes to see without the Spirit, becomes an obstacle to itself.
How, you will say, did it formerly see by itself? It never saw by itself. It had the creation before it like a book.
When men refused to go by the path commanded by God, they refused to know the Creator from the beauty of visible things. Instead, they handed the scepter of knowledge to reasonings.
Then they fell into weakness and into the abyss of impiety. They admitted a chasm of evils and began to assert that nothing comes from nothing.
They said that everything came from uncreated matter. From this countless heresies were born.
In the strangest absurdities they agreed among themselves. But in what they imagined somewhat soundly, as though in a shadow, they disagreed with one another.
In both cases they proved ridiculous. They almost all asserted and wrote with one voice, and with great zeal, that nothing comes from nothing. Thus the devil entangled them in absurdities.
But on useful matters, in which they seemed to understand something as in a riddle, they disputed among themselves. Such matters include whether the soul is immortal.
They also disputed whether virtue needs nothing external, and whether men become good or evil not by necessity and not by the determination of fate.
Do you see the devil's malice? When he saw men saying something impious, he arranged universal agreement in it.
When he saw them affirming something sound, he stirred them up against one another. Thus the absurd, being affirmed by common agreement, was not destroyed.
The good, being understood in differing ways, was eradicated.
See how the soul is always weak and insufficient in itself. This was not arranged without purpose.
If the soul, while being such, thinks it needs no one and turns away from God, to what madness would it not have come if it were not such?
If, after receiving a mortal body, it wanted to attain too much because of the devil's false promise, "You will be like gods" (Gen 3:5), to what fall would it not have been subject had it received an immortal body at the beginning?
Even after this, through the unclean lips of the Manichees, it called itself unbegotten and derived from the essence of God. From the same sickness, pride, it invented the gods acknowledged by the Gentiles.
For this reason, it seems to me, God made virtue difficult for the soul, so as to bridle it and teach it humility.
That this is true, let us show from the example of the Israelites, reasoning from the smaller to the greater.
When the Israelites lived without distress and enjoyed tranquility, they fell into impiety, not knowing how to use their prosperity.
What then did God do? He gave them many laws to bridle their self-will.
These laws did not lead to virtue. They served for them only as a kind of bridle, preventing them from giving themselves over to idleness.
Listen to what the prophet says about them: "I gave them statutes that were not good." What does "not good" mean? It means not greatly contributing to virtue.
Therefore he adds, "and judgments by which they could not live" (Ezek 20:25).
"The natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit." Rightly so. As no one can see heavenly things with bodily eyes, so neither can the soul by itself understand spiritual things.
Why do I say heavenly things? It cannot even understand everything on earth.
When we look from afar at a square tower, we think it is round. Such a thought is a deception of sight.
In the same way, if someone judges distant things by inference alone, great ridicule follows. He will not merely fail to say what they truly are.
He will consider them to be the opposite of what they really are. Therefore the Apostle adds, "for they are foolishness to him."
This comes not from the nature of the things, but from the weakness of the one who cannot embrace their greatness with the eyes of the soul.
Then he adds the reason: "nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned." That is, what is proclaimed by him requires faith and cannot be grasped by reason.
For its greatness far surpasses our weak reason.
The Greek reads, "ἐγὼ ἔδωκα αὐτοῖς προστάγματα." This means, "I gave them commandments," not, "I allowed them ordinances," as though the phrase referred to pagan customs.