1 Corinthians 1:19, For it is written, “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.”
When we receive faith, all prior wisdom is destroyed and all prior rationality is thwarted. For when we receive faith, we realise our foolishness and see that we understand nothing. Such humility is aggravating to us. Like foolish adolescents, we think we know everything; we always think we’re right. So, when God comes along and shows us not only how wrong we are, but He also doesn’t make any sense, we throw temper tantrums because He doesn’t let us have our way.
We want a God who is predictable and acts as we demand, but God refuses to be predictable and He does not answer to us. So, our wisdom is destroyed and our rationality is thwarted before the all-powerful, unfathomable God. We discover our way is the wrong way. In such a situation, we either continue in our hard heartedness and live the life we’re most comfortable with, or we receive the gift of faith, which “slaughters reason and kills the beast [the Devil] that the whole world and all the creatures cannot kill” (from Lectures on Galatians 1535, Luther’s Works 26:227-228).
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