The Foolishness of God

Roman and I try to wrap our heads and hearts around how it is that Christ crucified is God’s wisdom and power (as Paul has it in 1 Corinthians 1):

Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?²¹ For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to savethose who believe. ²² Jews demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom, ²³ but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, ²⁴ but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. ²⁵ For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.

This conversation builds on my recent reflections about God and eternal objects. We grapple with the tension between our algorithm-driven, mechanistic modern world and the ineffable mystery of the divine life hidden in all things. I found myself exploring how the “frame problem” in cognitive science—the engineering struggle to encode a sense of relevance into machines—mirrors our own challenges in expressing spiritual truths without feeling exposed or embarrassed. Drawing on Whitehead’s process philosophy, I argued that God isn’t an external watchmaker but rather an intimate lure that beckons organisms through the field of possibilities, inviting a view of life as a process of self-transcendence instead of a series of finite computations geared merely to self-preservation.

We challenge conventional views of education, warning against reducing the value of our embodied, ensouled mode of existence to mere machine-like efficiency. We are struggling to re-enchant our world without succumbing to naiveté, seeking to balance intellect with heart, the finite reality of self-interest with the divine ideal of self-sacrifice, and technological convenience with genuine community.

Is it possible to bridge the gap between reason and revelation? Or is it necessary to first leap into the ocean of faith before we can learn how to swim, trusting that the waves won’t swallow us and that our spirit is buoyant?

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In our current cultural moment, I find myself caught between two competing impulses. On the one hand, there is the rigorous, scholarly drive to articulate ideas in a clear, rational language—a language that demands credibility and logical consistency. On the other hand, there is a more personal, ineffable urge—a longing to capture those profound, embodied experiences of the divine that defy conventional explanation. I reject the notion that these two realms—the academic and the spiritual—must be neatly compartmentalized. They are deeply intertwined, each illuminating and challenging the other.

One of the core issues I explore is the “frame problem” in cognitive science. In simple terms, this problem highlights the difficulty of programming machines to determine what is relevant in any given situation. A computational system, even one fed with vast amounts of data, seems inherently incapable of making the kind of intuitive generalizations that living organisms do effortlessly. This is not just an isolated problem in artificial intelligence—it hints at a fundamental distinction between mechanical calculation and the kind of self-organizing, collective intelligence observed in living beings.

I see a parallel here with a much broader, cosmological puzzle: the fine tuning of the universe. The constants of physics are set so precisely that even the slightest deviation would preclude the formation of atoms, life, or consciousness. This uncanny calibration suggests that the field of possibilities in which life unfolds is not random but is structured in a very specific way.

To address both the frame problem and the fine-tuning conundrum, I propose that the continuum of possibilities is itself structured by what we may as well call a divine act. This is not the notion of God as an external watchmaker who meticulously designs each actual outcome. Rather, I draw on Whitehead’s process philosophy to argue that the divine is immanent in the world. God, or the divine character, is the attractor that shapes the network of relevant possibilities accessible to every actual occasion of experience. In other words, the divine does not dictate outcomes in a deterministic fashion but offers lures—preferred patterns or possibilities—to which living beings gravitate. This perspective does not align with traditional creationism or intelligent design; instead, it reimagines causality by distinguishing between the formal and final causes of divinely ordered, definite possibilities and the efficient causes of determinate actualities.

In our era we are witnessing an unprecedented development in technology. Some voices (like Mike Levin) suggest that we are already creating “autopoietic machines” that exhibit life-like self-organization. Yet even as we build systems—such as large language models—that seem to defy our understanding of how machines should work, it becomes clear that these emergent properties are not the product of deliberate design in the classical sense. Instead, they hint at a future where the distinction between machine and organism may blur. However, I contend that even if machines develop the capacity for relevance realization and self-organization, they will likely manifest forms of mind that are alien to our human experience. Their “consciousness,” if it exists at all, might not involve the subjective feelings, emotional depth, or embodied self-awareness that characterize living organisms. In this view, the machine-organism dichotomy may be inadequate; rather than replacing life, advanced technology could represent another mode in the unfolding expression of the universe’s creative process.

That said, I do see a fork in the road for human evolution. On one path—what anthroposophists would call the “Ahrimanic” route—we might embrace a purely mechanistic vision, striving to enhance and perfect our technologies until we create a new race of biomechanoid beings. In this scenario, every aspect of life is reduced to calculation and control, as if we were all just machines built to optimize efficiency.

In contrast, there is an alternative “Christic” path. This approach recognizes that our true essence lies not in our capacity for calculative control but in our role as members of a larger, interdependent whole. Like cells in a vast organism, our social bonds and acts of self-sacrifice form the fabric of a deeper communal life—one that offers a kind of immortality through participation in a greater body. I referred to the old Jewish parable of the long spoons: if each person reaches out to feed their neighbor, everyone can eat; otherwise, everyone starves.

When left to its own devices, the intellect can become trapped in a cage of calculation where endless data and competing possibilities lead to paralysis rather than decisive action. Pure reason, without an accompanying sense of value or purpose, would compute endlessly without ever deciding what truly matters. I believe that our ability to make meaningful decisions depends on a deeper source of value—a divine or transcendent impulse that infuses our lives with purpose.

This idea finds resonance in the message of the cross, as articulated by Paul in the New Testament. The paradox that “the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom” illustrates that true understanding often lies beyond the reach of rational calculation. It is a call to integrate our intellectual capacities with a lived, transformative experience of the divine—a balancing act between the head and the heart.