1 Corinthians 1:21

For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God We have here a contrast drawn between God's wisdom and that of man. Man's wisdom could but inquire and argue. God's wisdom had decreed that by such means man should only learn his weakness.

it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching Rather, with the Rhemish version, by the foolishness ofthe preachings, i.e. of the gospel. The word translated preachingshould rather be rendered what is preached. It is called foolishness (1) because -those who were perishing" thought it so; (2) because it required no high intellectual gift, but simple faith in a crucified and risen Lord. This abnegation by man of his natural powers was the first step in the road to salvation. But we are not to suppose that after man had thus surrendered those powers to God in a spirit of childlike faith, he was not to receive them back regenerated and transfigured.