Spirituality, ‘a spiritual person’ or someone who has ‘the Spirit of God’ is the understanding that I believe Apostle Paul uses to attack worldly wisdom for being spiritual is the only way to have a better knowledge of the wisdom that pertains to God. Those who therefore profess worldly wisdom are ignorant seeing that only the Christian symbol of the Spirit can interrogate and discern the idea of wisdom (Senior, Collins & Getty-Sullivan, 2016). For instance, in 1 Corinthians 2:14-15, Paul implies that a person who is blessed by the Spirit of God has a better insight or knowledge of what pertains to God since that Spirit teaches believers a new way of perceiving things as well as gives them the opportunity to understand themselves better. As mentioned above, people who only possess worldly wisdom can be perceived to be ignorant of what really matters in life or rather, ‘the natural person,’ the one deficient of the Spirit of God is not as wise as the one who is blessed with the Spirit since the later ‘has the mind of Christ.’

Alfred Guzman

In 1 Corinthians, what understanding of Jesus or Christian symbol does Paul use to attack worldly wisdom?

Paul uses Jesus Christ crucified as the symbol to attack worldly wisdom. Paul states in 1 Corinthians 1:18 Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (RSVCE), “18For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God”. As Robert Imperato stated in his book, Portraits of Jesus, “This may be surprising as he did not follow Jesus prior to the crucifixion and participated in the persecution and murder of Christians. When writing to the Corinthians in the letter called 1 Corinthians, he says he came to Corinth knowing nothing but Christ crucified (1 Cor 2:2)” (Imperato 49-50). However, Paul continues saying in verse 27, “but God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise, God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong. 28God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not. (RSVCE)” It is crucial to understand the cross was a torture device, a symbol of death, pain, and worldly Roman power against any who would stand against them. The cross was used for crucifying those considered less than. One might ask why God would do this, well, Paul addresses this in the next verse saying, “29so that no human being might boast in the presence of God” (RSVCE). One could also ask why Paul would make these claims. Again as Robert Imperato says, “He holds up the example of Christ crucified to poke a hole in the inflated egos of those Corinthians who were elevating themselves based on association with particular spiritual teachers (1 Cor. 1:11-17; 3:5-7,18; 4:6+). (Imperato 50)” In 1 Cor 3:1, Paul knows that his audience, “immature Christians who possess the spirit but are enslaved to worldly thinking” (Hahn and Mitch 288). Worldly wisdom equated with intelligence, knowledge, and understanding of earthly things, like rocket science, physics, and biology. Godly wisdom equated with foresight, insight, and a sense of God’s will, to which there are different levels of, likewise, with worldly wisdom. As stated in 1 John 2:12-14, the author speaks to little children, young men, and fathers in the faith that has Godly wisdom. We could look at this like an associate, bachelor’s, along with masters and doctoral degrees in worldly wisdom. Furthermore, Paul explains how this Wisdom of God is imparted unto the spiritual man via the Holy Spirit in 1 Corinthians 2:6-16. Paragraph 216 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church reads, “God’s truth is his wisdom, which commands the whole created order and governs the world. God, who alone made heaven and earth, can alone impart true knowledge of every created thing in relation to himself. (CCC 66)”