Why is it that so often in movies, books, messages and media in general the extreme intelligence of Jesus Christ is not highlighted? His characteristics such as his love, his power and his justice appear so intensely that his intelligence is almost unnoticed.
At most it is said that he has "wisdom" - a word almost supernatural, deep and enigmatic. As if Jesus had access to a source of knowledge, a "divine wisdom" somewhere special than his own intelligence. Perhaps people think the ideal would be to have ready answers to the dilemmas of life. As once I was told: "We wanted Jesus sitting behind a desk, answering all our questions, without having the least work within his parameters of thinking” (Ed René Kivitz). Thinking skilss may require more attitude than we are willing to give. Who do you think would run the risk of breaking paradigms, breaking traditions and perhaps make changes. As Jean Paul Sartre, a famous French philosopher, once said: "Being unhappy is not problem, but has no one to blame. That's why we avoid make choices". So thinking and to decide by himself, it’s too much.
Often "thinking skills" evokes ideas about rebellion, pride, pretense, breaking and fatuity. Talking about this, once a pastor friend of mine, Lamartine Posella, said: "The lack of rationality is everywhere, in churches, businesses, government, institutions, etc... People decried the ability of man to think. They are disappointed with the failure of Enlightenment ideals because of the events of the twentieth century. There were two world wars, the holocaust and the end of idealism. Knowledge and Science has not solved the void of people. The world began to despise reason. That's why you find so many people around to believing in fairies and goblins."
In fact, the man creates nothing. Everything is there, the atom, radio waves, the mathematical equations, all the physics, chemistry, biology. But God did not reveal these things through on tablets of stone, as He did with the Ten Commandments. Even the angels, whose name means messenger, never brought messages of mathematical formulas, he penicillin, or heavenly melodies to be sang in our churches. At most a few shepherds in Bethlehem heard them singing, but unfortunately did not record the song.
There are things so sublime in human ingenuity that sometimes we suspect a direct divine inspiration. Why not? But a basic rule, all that we call civilization is the fruit of the human spirit and initiative.
But it's not through smartness and intelligence that anyone comes to God. "Physics can never make the jump metaphysical" said Gabriel Marcel, another French philosopher. He said: "It would be unreasonable to expect the part covering the whole." The scientific assumptions are just a part of human knowledge and God is beyond them. It seems that a vast majority doesn’t know that.
When Jesus said: "I thank thee, O Father, for hiding these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to the humble." He was not criticizing the intelligence and human knowledge. He criticized the pride and arrogance. Notice: He didn’t say "have revealed to the ignorant," but he said "have revealed to the humble."
The problem is when someone in his own intelligence finds reason to be pride and others in their stupidity and ignorance find reason for fell humble. In the first case is not being smart, is being dumb. In the second case is not being humble, is being proud. The irony is that each one becomes the opposite of what they seeks to be.
Jesus was extremely smart in his dialogues, so different from traditional religious discourse. When asked if the sinful woman should be stoned, his opponents thought that if he would said "no", would be accused of breaking the law and if he would say "yes" would question his goodness, but he surprised everyone by saying, "who has no sins, which cast the first stone". As a friend of mine, Marcelo Alexandre, told me: "Those men could think only in terms of a yes or a no. It’s always expected: yes or no. But he said much more, he said what nobody expected. “In addition to goodness, intelligence, creativity, reasoning were keen undeniably present in the life of Jesus Christ in the life and well away from those who wanted to contradict Him.
Jesus of Nazareth often clashed with the men, not only with evil, but also with their stupidity and insanity, who on Saturday took an ox of a hole, but refused to heal a person on Saturday. He praised the ability of abstraction and reasoning of other men, saying: "You have answered well, love God above all things and your neighbor as yourself is the greatest commandment." Jesus made extraordinary comparisons: "If God so clothes the lilies, how much more clothe you." He made intriguing questions: "If God is God of Abraham so he is God of dead?” He denounced inconsistencies: "How can a blind lead the blind?” He was simply amazing and original ideas: once he had a tax paid with the coin removed from the mouth of a fish that sent Peter fishing. Even his enemies have given up make pitfalls to Him.
Intelligence and integrity go together. I always recognized a deep intellectual honesty in goods Christian writers, as C.S.Lewis or John Sott, by other hand, there I reconized so much ignorance and stupidity in fanatical religious people. It hurts us to see these people posing as representatives of God. It hurts to see traditions; values, beliefs, ideologies, prejudices, philosophies and conveniences generally become more important than the intellectual honesty.
Why people refuse to change mind, attitude, and point of view? Jesus once told the story of the prodigal son: Once upon a time the a son had his share of the inheritance from his father, and went away like a madman, all spent with false friends. One day, abandoned, destitute, taking care of pigs, had a flame of intelligence: "In my father's house employees are treated better than me here. I will arise and go to my father. “He had not a sign in heaven, with letters in neon light, nor angels singing: Come back to father's home. He just had an intelligent thought. He was simply humble, admitted his mistake, he ran the risk of rejection and made a decision. As Sartre would say: "He made a choice".
The father welcomed him with open arms, but his brother, that guy supposedly "right", full of reason, became very angry. In fact, the other son who stayed at home, was not smarter than the prodigal one. Both suffered from the same stupidity that made them feel themselves worthy of the inheritance from his father. One to waste it, another to store up for himself. The lack of integrity was the cause of a stupidity of first one and the lack of love was the cause of the stupidity of second one. It means that lack of integrity, lack of love, draw to stupidity. Integrity, love and intelligence come together. Jesus was awsome in all.
Three things combined. Integrity, love and inteligence. Whenever we think of Jesus Christ as a paradigm of love and integrity, we should think Jesus as paradigm of intelligence as well.
Recognize the intelligence of Jesus Christ means accepting and practicing reasoning and intelligence in our lives. In this sense, to know Jesus Christ as fully as he is, is also living our wholeness. Anything to take away from Jesus, we are also taking from us. How do you see Jesus? Think about it.
(I wrote this paper in Portuguese seven years ago (May, 21 2005), after a chat with my friend Marcelo Alexandre. Today I found it among my papers and I translated to English)
(Artwork Information: Jesus: Bread of Life. Artwork by Julio Molina-Muscara. http://www.drawingsofjesus.com/)
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