I invite the reader to judge the following three sentences:
“Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity – and I’m not completely sure about the universe.”
“In view of the limits of human intelligence, is it not terrible that that human madness is seemingly limitless?”
“Human folly is the only thing that gives us an idea of infinity.”
As harsh as these words sound to our ears, they do not seem entirely intolerable for two reasons. The first is that, being products of human astuteness – more specifically, three famous geniuses from different fields: Einstein, Adenauer and Ernest Renan, in that order – they have the justification of self-evaluation. The second reason is that everyone would apply these assertions to anyone but themselves. After all, there is always some exception…
Is there?
What is madness?
To answer this painful question, we must first answer another: what do we mean here by human stupidity, madness or folly?
Obviously, we do not understand them in this context as a pathological mental state that leads people to act in a disconnected and senseless way that would hinder them from living in society. It would then be a disease for which, in most cases, there is no blame.
The phrases transcribed at the beginning of this article refer to another type of madness, similar to the one defined in the previous paragraph, but much more widespread, because it is apparently innocuous, and much more dangerous, because it is culpable. What madness is this? The kind found in a being that acts contrary to its nature.
The man who is not governed by reason, but only by animal impulses, by the fashions of the time, or by the whims of temperament, is mad
If a zebra were to hunt a lion and a lion let itself be hunted, we would say they were mad. We would also call a tree mad if it grew leaves underground and spread its roots towards the sun. But what would madness be in man? What is it but irrationality? Because if what is his peculiar to him, what distinguishes him from all animals, is reason, then he is mad as long as he does not act in accordance with reason. Like the carnivorous zebra and the cowardly lion, the man who is not governed by reason, but only by animal impulses, by the fashions of the time, by the whims of temperament, etc., is mad.
Do we need examples?
Some day-to-day observations
Two university colleagues, both endowed with remarkable intelligence: one of them studies seriously, becomes a competent professional, and is hired to be manager of a large company; the other prefers to “enjoy his youth,” leads a life of diversion and, at the end of the course, has to resign himself to a mediocre job in the same company. Which of the two acted foolishly? The one who took the advice of reason or the one who obeyed the impulses of sensibility?
Another person serves as a hanger for every fashion that comes and goes, without even asking the precious question that is the hallmark of the human spirit: why? It does not seem out of place to see a certain symptom of madness here…
Is someone who ruins a marriage – and consequently the upbringing of their children – by preferring to acquiesce to their temper rather than to their spouse, obeying reason or passion? Sanity or madness?
To obey machines, to enslave oneself to technology, to pointlessly consume hours that are as long as they are precious in front of a screen, to let that intelligence called artificial multiply to the detriment of natural intelligence that is dwindling from lack of use…
Finally, at the risk of wasting time on observations that are all-too-evident, is it not madness to lose your fortune in a poorly planned venture? And is it not even worse – considering that life is worth much more than wealth – to sink into vices, whether alcohol, lust or many others, which reduce the individual to a human rag and drag him to a premature death?
All these attitudes mean renouncing the precepts of reason; of human nature, in short.
The worst of evils
But the worst of all follies – because it has much more harmful effects and is, in essence, the compounded sum of all the others – has not yet been presented. Or rather it has, but not by name: it is called sin.
In fact, the Angelic Doctor will explain to us, “sin, in human acts, is that which is against the order of reason”1 to the highest degree, thus relegating man to the “slavish state of the beasts.”2 The great human being, the one who is the key to the summit of creation, the bridge that embraces the two worlds, the physical and the immaterial… he is reduced to a mere animal state; rejecting, therefore, his higher nature, the spiritual.
Those who embrace sin renounce what would be their supreme happiness, thus running away from what they seek. For a dish of lentils and half a dozen earthly joys, they buy for themselves an eternal and hopelessly unhappy destiny.
A paradoxical remedy
However, while we live in this world, there is a remedy for the evil of sin. And we are not referring specifically to Confession and the other Sacraments, to prayer, to penance… In fact, all these resources are part of a single treatment.
Paradoxically, the folly of sin can only be cured by the folly – oh blessed folly – that brought God down to earth, that animates the saints and that inspires true heroes: the folly of the Cross, preached by St. Paul (cf. 1 Cor 1:18-2:16).
The remedy for the madness of sin was personified by “Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles”
Does this healthy madness consist, like the other one we are talking about, in acting against our nature? No, not in denying it, but in refining it: “grace does not destroy nature but perfects it.”3 Through it, man leaves his merely material nature to launch himself into the universe of the spiritual, the invisible, the divine; he abandons the instincts he shares with irrational beings to live by the sacred impulses of faith; he often even renounces the ties of blood to become part of God’s family. If through sin man becomes animalized, through holiness he becomes divinized.
The remedy for the madness of sin is personified in Wisdom Incarnate, in “Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles” (1 Cor 1:23), and those who are configured to Him are healed by the wisdom of the Cross.
* * *
The fateful question posed by the three sentences that introduced the article remains: is human stupidity really infinite, and can humanity be divided into those who are insane and those who are not?
Have your say, readers, the debate is open. ◊
Notes
1 Cf. ST. THOMAS AQUINAS. Summa Theologiæ. II-II, q.153, a.2.
2 Cf. Idem, q.64, a.2, ad 3.
3 Idem, I, q.1, a.8, ad 2.
