Isaiah underscores our intellectual limitation when he wrote what God thinks about our thinking in Isaiah 55:8-9, “My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are my ways your ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts are higher than your thoughts.” This verse, among others, should tame the proclivity to think we are intellectually superior to what God thinks and reveals in the Word of God.
Turning away from Isaiah, let’s take a look at the Apostle Paul. He was a member of the religious intelligentsia; pupil of Gamaliel a renown professor of philosophy and theology. Paul was traveling to Damascus to get permission to further persecute the church. On his way he saw a light and heard a voice from heaven. At that moment Paul was temporarily blinded. This blinding convinced Paul that he had been spiritually and intellectually blind. Paul not only humbled his soul but also his intellect to God. In so much, that it drove him into the desert for three years to pray and study the Word of God for further enlightenment. Paul’s sense of intellectual superiority was upended and replaced with intellectual humility.