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The Fool

             The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.” They are corrupt, their deeds are vile; there is no one who does good. The Lord looks down from heaven on all mankind to see if there are any who understand, any who seek God. All have turned away, all have become corrupt; there is no one who does good, not even one. (Psalm 14:1-3)

for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, (Romans 3:23)

I have to smile as I begin this post because after I chose the Psalm 14 passage, my mind went immediately to Romans 3:23- it’s not a great leap of intuition. I’m sure your thoughts went there, too. But a few verses before Romans 3:23, Paul quotes Psalm 14. I also have to smile because I have heard people claim that Paul (or Constantine) manufactured what we call Christianity. Just to follow the silly logic, if either of them did, they used the Old Testament for the parts. We knew that, but it’s fun to see it in action.

Now to the passage itself. Sometimes, people will quote the first sentence in order to declare atheists, agnostics, and other non-Christians to be fools. Granted, scripturally, that’s true. But why do they make the statement? Do they think calling someone a fool will convince them to change their minds? Is the goal to shame them? Yes, it is, but is it God’s goal or just the speaker’s way to put the other in his place while elevating the speaker to the heights of wisdom?

Putting the sentence back into context, as Paul does, it’s clear that we have all been, are being, or will be fools. In declaring another to be a fool, chances are good that we’re not loving them as we love ourselves, so we’re being fools if we think God is pleased with the declaration. How often do we act as if there is no God within the rest of our thoughts, statements, and actions? Even those of us who are into understanding, does understanding guide our lives? Or do we just go along with what we want or what feels good? How often do we ignore our own corruption?

And while we all tend to pride ourselves on being good, are we good according to God’s definition of good? Or just our own? Sadly, I suspect we don’t really even measure up to our own, let alone God’s. That’s why we so desperately need grace. 

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