True knowledge and understanding is a belief system that is completely in agreement with itself. No doctrines that say one thing here, and another over there; an excellent example is a story told by Robert A. Heinlein…

“There is an old, old story about a theologian who was asked to reconcile the doctrine of divine mercy with the doctrine of infant damnation. ‘the Almighty,’ he explained, ‘finds it necessary to do things in His official and public capacity which in His private and personal capacity He deplores.”

That is a beautiful attempt at harmonizing contradictory beliefs. Completely wrong, and absolutely stupid, but beautiful nonetheless. What this man was faced with was a God who he believes was loving and merciful, and yet whom he also believes condemns unborn babies to burn in hell for eternity. These beliefs are absolutely contradictory, because one is right and one is wrong.

And so in the hopes of proving that these opposites agree, this man makes foolish statements which make it clear to everyone that he has no clue what he’s talking about.

This man could never be wise, because his own beliefs contradict one another; and the more they contradict, the more foolish he becomes. You see, there are two extremes of wisdom. Both are true wisdom, and both are very powerful. And both are the result of a coherent, harmonious system of beliefs. James contrasts them thusly:

James 3:15, 17 This wisdom descendeth not from above, but is earthly, sensual, devilish… But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then…

You already know the difference, so I won’t get into the details of the difference; suffice it to say, there is a good wisdom from God, and a bad wisdom that is “devilish.” So God’s wisdom, and Satan’s wisdom. Another example of the two compared is in 1 Corinthians 1:19-21, and another I’ll quote here…

Luke 16:8 And the lord commended the unjust steward, because he had done wisely: for the children of this world are in their generation wiser than the children of light.

Why is that? Why are Satan’s followers often wiser than the children of light? I’ll answer that before I’m through; For now, I’ll just point out that they are wiser – but clearly not in the same direction. Wiser in the “devilish” way, not in God’s way. Still, their total wisdom is greater. Why?

Ezekiel 28:3 Behold, thou art wiser than Daniel; there is no secret that they can hide from thee:

Satan, although completely evil, is still wiser than Daniel – one of the wisest and most righteous men ever. As I said up front, you cannot be wise without a belief system that agrees WITH ITSELF. It doesn’t matter if it agrees with GOD. Perhaps it’s best to illustrate it this way;

All steel is magnetic. That is, all steel attracts other steel. But ordinarily, this attraction is not felt. The reason is that the atoms of iron are all pointing in random directions. To some, north is this way, to some it’s that way – so their magnetic attraction is fighting with itself at every point. In most steel, they come in groups of atoms pointing a certain direction, like the picture below on the left.

But if the steel is exposed to a strong magnetic field, these atoms tend to align themselves to point toward that field; then if the steel is struck or heated, so the atoms can move easier, most or all of the atoms move to point in the same direction, and the steel is “magnetized.”

But it always WAS magnetized; the problem was, that it was fighting internally so that no real work could be done outside the magnet, it was all being wasted inside. With beliefs it’s no different. If, when you talk to an atheist and he asks you how a loving God can condemn Chinese babies to hell, your answer had better make sense; if it’s some nonsense about how “God is big” or “God can do what He wants,” then the atheist will know that you are a fool – which in fact you are.

But if you get those beliefs harmonized – if you throw out the wrong one, and understand that Chinese babies are NOT going to hell for crimes they never committed – then you have an answer for that atheist. He’ll be taken back, and you’ll have proved that, in that point, you have wisdom. Your beliefs complement one another, reinforce one another, and are stronger for it.

But this works the same in an evil way. If you’re a thief, you’ll be more successful if murder means nothing to you, either. You’ll get away, you’ll leave no witnesses behind to testify, and so on. But if you draw the line at murder, or stealing from orphanages, then this arbitrary line you’ve drawn hems you in; it keeps you from options which might be quite profitable.

Or if you’re a soldier and your job is to kill the enemy, then you should kill the enemy. But if you have qualms about shooting him in the back, or executing prisoners, or shooting women or children, or bombing hospitals, you won’t be the efficient killing machine you might otherwise be.

If you’re going to kill the enemy, kill him; if you’re going to love him, love him; either way is wisdom. One is devilish, one is Godlike, but both are internally consistent. Both make sense, within their own belief structure. But if you try to ride the fence, the enemy will kill you while you’re debating the issue with yourself! If you attempt to both kill him and love him, you’re a fool. Because it’s not possible to do both – they cancel each other out. But these are only physical applications. And my point is spiritual.

1 Kings 18:21 And Elijah came unto all the people, and said, How long halt ye BETWEEN TWO OPINIONS? if the LORD be God, follow him: but if Baal, then follow him. And the people answered him not a word.

Israel’s problem wasn’t that they served Baal. Everyone else on Earth served Baal. Israel’s problem was that they wanted to serve God AND Baal. They wanted to serve God with Baal’s methods; put idols in the temple of God. Name their children “El” and “Yah” and then sacrifice them to Molech.

2 Kings 17:41 So these nations feared the LORD, and served their graven images, both their children, and their children’s children: as did their fathers, so do they unto this day.

These nations FEARED God – AND served graven images! But you can’t do that! God HATES graven images, commandment #2, and so if you fear Him, you won’t have graven images! But they, as people have always done, called themselves the people of God – and then ignored what God said.

And lest you think this doesn’t go on today, people still want to slap God’s name on Satan’s festival and call it “Christmas” and “Easter.” On the one hand, they believe paganism is wrong; that only Christianity is the true religion. On the other hand, they observe festivals commanded BY pagans, FOR pagans, and hated by God. These are TWO opinions held by most of Christianity, which contradict each other and yet which are held with equal fervor!

This isn’t intended to be a list of the contradictions in modern religion, but I have to mention a few to illustrate my point; for instance, they believe idolatry is wrong, yet all own crosses and pictures of Jesus. They believe that God commanded a day of rest, then keep Sunday as Satan commanded instead of Saturday as God commanded. And in thousands of other ways they call Christ “Lord” and yet don’t do what He said.

“Anyone who can worship a trinity and insist that his religion is a monotheism can believe anything… just give him time to rationalize it.” (Robert A. Heinlein)

Heinlein was a good example of an intelligent atheist who saw the contradictions in modern Christianity, and saw modern Christians as fools. And yes, anyone who believes those things I mentioned above is a fool – perhaps an ignorant fool, but nonetheless someone who holds contradictory opinions and believes both.

And so to that atheist who hears those ludicrous attempts to reconcile irreconcilable concepts, it gives him an excuse to reject the whole religion; and he would be right in doing so!

“One man’s religion is another man’s belly laugh.” (Heinlein again).

The children of this world are often wiser because they serve a single master, and a single belief system. And the better they serve that master, the wiser they are. Atheists are as a rule more rational than your typical churchgoer because they hold fewer contradictory truths! And so what they say makes more sense and fits better with itself!

It doesn’t make them right – but it does make them wiser. But why does God say that those people are often wiser even than “the children of light?” Because we serve two masters. Like it or not. We shouldn’t, but we all do.

Romans 7:23 But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.

Galatians 5:17 For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would.

We have inside of us an incorrigible carnal nature. One that thinks only of itself. But we also have the nature of God in us; Christ’s spirit. These are two masters who vie for our obeisance. They hold two contrary viewpoints. Now if we serve our nature faithfully, disregarding God totally, we are wise; if we disregard our nature and serve God impeccably, we are also wise. But if we try and follow both, we are to some extent foolish.

We will not defeat our carnal nature in this lifetime. It will die with our physical body, not before. But we can and must learn how to control it so it has no visible effect on our actions nor is permitted to reign even in our thoughts. It can be cowed, but not conquered.

But as most of us lack perfection, we tend to obey God some percentage and give in to what feels good another (hopefully smaller) percentage. And that makes us fools – in exact proportion to whom we obey. And so there is a spectrum of wisdom; good wisdom vs. evil wisdom.

God’s wisdom makes sense. It doesn’t have any ridiculous doctrines like sprinkling at baptism or using some sacred name. It is perfect wisdom. It works. But Satan’s wisdom also makes perfect sense, for it is 180 degrees opposed to God. A perfect opposite. In God’s universe, greed is bad, because God believes in giving and greed is contrary to giving.

But Satan believes in getting. And he believes greed is good. Which makes sense, for if “getting” is good, then greed would also be good! And so would stealing, and even murder if necessary! It all makes sense within that viewpoint.

It’s rather like an anti-theology. Whatever God says, Satan says the exact opposite – and so while it might sound weird to us, the beliefs are internally consistent! And therefore, WISE. And the closer his servants are to him, the wiser THEY are in turn; because the more their way makes sense, and so the better they exist in their universe!

Luke 11:26 Then goeth he, and taketh to him seven other spirits more wicked than himself; and they enter in, and dwell there: and the last state of that man is worse than the first.

These spirits are MORE wicked; BETTER at being evil. More consistent in their rebellion. Of course, this applies with people as well; the higher-ups in the Catholic church are as close to Satan as any group of people is, and their doctrines are more ridiculous in light of the Bible than any other – and yet they managed to rule most of Europe for almost 1500 years. They expend great effort trying to harmonize their conflicting beliefs, and they are only weakened by a loose pretense of believing the Bible. If it weren’t for that they would be unstoppable; but there is a dark king coming who won’t have that weakness…

Daniel 11:36-37 And the king shall do according to his will; and he shall exalt himself, and magnify himself above every god, and shall speak marvellous things against the God of gods, and shall prosper till the indignation be accomplished: for that that is determined shall be done. Neither shall he regard the God of his fathers, nor the desire of women, nor regard any god: for he shall magnify himself above all.

The Pope believes this, but still pretends to follow the Bible most of the time! And so he is WEAKER than the end-time “man of sin” who simply rejects God completely, and doesn’t tie himself down to ANY god!

But all those things apply equally to true wisdom; for if you follow God single-heartedly, and truly understand His philosophy and integrate ALL of your understanding about prophecy and obedience and faith and love into ONE direction – get all your magnets aligned to God’s magnetic north, so to speak – then you will be WISE.

James 1:6-8 But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed. For let not that man think that he shall receive any thing of the Lord. A double minded man is unstable in all his ways.

If you’re double minded – if you believe that we must obey the law, but then believe that the law cannot be obeyed; or that we must pray to God for healing, but not expect God to give an answer; or that Jesus was tempted like we are, but then say that God (and therefore, Jesus) cannot be tempted – again, the list would fill many pages – if you believe those contradictory concepts as most people do, you will be UNSTABLE. Unwise. For your belief will no sooner tell you to pray to God in faith, than it will tell you that you can’t expect God to answer you. And so you will be “halting” between two opinions; wavering like a wave of the sea. Fighting yourself in your own beliefs and “opposing yourself” (2 Timothy 2:25).

James 4:8 Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double minded.

Pick a side! Get off the fence! If Baal is God, then by all means stop this silly pretense at Christianity and become a Buddhist! But if you’re going to call the God of the Bible your God, then DO WHAT HE SAYS. If you’re going to serve Satan, serve him and be done with it – God will have an easier time dealing with you that way, than if you try to appease everyone.

Revelation 3:15-16 I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot. So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth.

This is a prophecy of NOW! And you needn’t look farther than your own church or even your own mind to see duplicity in it – analogies that break down, beliefs that contradict other scriptures, actions that are different from your words; in short, hypocrisy.

Wisdom is a spectrum. There is wisdom at Satan’s end and there is wisdom at God’s end – and a vast spectrum of fools in the middle, growing more foolish as they try more fully to harmonize two belief systems that can never be harmonized. For an internally consistent system of beliefs is the key to wisdom.

Satan has internal consistency. All evil, all the time. God, too, has internal consistency – and as you approach each of these extremes, you become more and more brilliant. Brilliantly evil or brilliantly good is moot; the point is, that someone who rides the fence and tries to obey both actually winds up obeying neither; and when one belief tells him to do one thing, he scarcely begins it than another belief tells him to stop; so this cognitive dissonance makes him a fool.

That man does not realize, as Russell Trall put it, that “the truth is never between two extremes, it is always one extreme or the other.”