Disputatio contra insipientem, qui dixit in corde suo: Non est Deus (Psal. xiii).
The Fool's Dilemma: Wise or Foolish?
Bernard confronts the fool who denies God, pressing him to admit that wisdom cannot arise from foolishness and must come from Wisdom itself.
Tell me — whoever you are, foolish enough to have said in your heart, "There is no God" — do you really think anyone is wise?✦ Maybe yourself? Fine, let's say so — and yet, wise as you are, can't you also become foolish? Or if you're foolish — to the point that you can't become wise either? If you deny either of these, I'd say you're not so much foolish as no longer truly alive. So then — if you've been foolish enough to perish, do you suppose wisdom perishes too? But it's possible to be wise as well. From where, I ask — if not from wisdom itself?
Wisdom Cannot Perish with the Foolish
Even if all humans and angels become foolish, wisdom endures in itself and remains the source from which any creature becomes wise.
So wisdom will still exist, even while you are foolish. "It will exist," you say, "but only in a wise person." But is there anyone who can't be foolish? If then all people become foolish, wisdom will still exist; otherwise they could never become wise again. But in the angels, you say. But the very fact that they can be foolish by nature alone points to that vast multitude of foolish angels, who indeed are equal to the rest in nature but unequal in grace. Therefore no creature is wise by its own power. From where, then, if not from Wisdom itself? And where does the foolish person find it, so as to become wise again?
Can the Fool Make Himself Wise?
Bernard dismantles the fool's claim that he can produce wisdom through his own effort, showing the absurdity of a fool manufacturing wisdom.
If the fool finds it, then wisdom certainly exists — wisdom that can be found by a fool so that he may become wise. Otherwise, how is that which does not exist found, unless it first begins to exist? No, you say — I don't find it that way. Rather, by meditating and by practicing, I make myself wise. So you make your own wisdom, then? Why shouldn't I have made it? I had presented you as a fool — and look, you've become so wise that you even have what it takes to make wisdom itself. Or is this too small a thing — to be wise: to make another wise? But even if someone should say that a fool can make another wise — who, on hearing that, wouldn't laugh? So where does wisdom come from for a fool?
No Created Wisdom Can Make Another Wise
Tracing the chain of wise teachers back to its source, Bernard shows that no creature — human or angel — can be the origin of wisdom, which must therefore be uncreated.
Perhaps by some wise person at all. And where does his own wisdom come from? Or did he make himself wise? But before he made himself wise, what was he except a fool? The absurd conclusion just stated will therefore follow: that a fool made someone wise. Even if you were to say that an angel can make someone wise — where does the angel's own wisdom come from? And even if he made himself wise, the absurd conclusion just stated still follows. It remains, then, that the wisdom which makes others wise is not something made.
Wisdom Transfers Herself into Holy Souls
Drawing on light and darkness imagery from Scripture, Bernard teaches that true Wisdom — Christ the Light — indwells holy souls, and challenges the fool to examine his own existence.
Wisdom herself cannot act foolishly, because wisdom cannot be foolishness, just as death cannot be life — although Christ's death is our life — and light cannot be darkness, although we were once darkness, now we are light in the Lord.✦✦ For John was not the light, but came to bear witness to the light.✦ He was the true light that enlightens every man coming into this world.✦ 1). Wisdom herself is what transfers herself into holy souls, so that they too may become wise. Is this not enough for you, O fool? I ask again: do you even know that you exist? Who, you say, would be ignorant of that?
The Gift of Being: You Did Not Make Yourself
Bernard presses the fool to recognize that his very existence is a received gift, not something he produced, since he was nothing before he was made.
Clearly, not even a scholar. Were you always? Then where did you receive it, so that you could be? Or did you make yourself? But how, since you didn't yet exist, could you have made anything so great?1 Then where did your being come from? Or from someone else? And he himself — from where?
From Essence and Wisdom to the Eternal God
Bernard concludes that both being and wisdom are uncreated, and calls the transgressor to return to his heart, where the triad of being, knowing, and willing reveals the image of God.
Surely not from an angel? And the angel — from where? It follows, then, that essence is not something made — that essence from which all other things have their being — just as wisdom is not something made, that wisdom from which all other things have their capacity for wisdom.2 So let such knowing be silent in you, and such being: let what truly knows and truly is speak to you in your own heart, and you will no longer say in your heart, 'There is no God' — clearly perceiving it in itself, and that you yourself could not even exist, you who would say in your heart, 'There is no God,' unless God also existed.✦34 Again I ask: do you want yourself both to exist and to be wise? I think you don't refuse. Join these three: being, knowing, willing. Return, then, transgressor, to your heart.
Return to Your Heart and Turn to the Lord
In the chapter's closing exhortation, Bernard invites the reader to contemplate the unity of being, knowing, and willing within, and to turn wholly to the eternal God.
Consider how great their unity is, and how great their equality. And when you've found that these three are in you, yet don't come from you, consider the eternal will, and don't say in your heart, 'There is no God.' Rather, remembering this, turn to the Lord your God, with every end of the earth.✦✦
Read the original Latin
Dic inquam, quicunque es adeo insipiens, ut dixeris in corde tuo: Non est Deus, aliquemne putas sapientem? Forte teipsum. Ita sit: tamen tamen sapiens, ut fieri non possis et insipiens? Aut si insipiens, eo usque, ut non possis fieri et sapiens? Si quid horum abnuas: jam non te desipere, sed potius non vivere dixerim. Ergo, si tu desipueris, perire aestimas sapientiam? Sed fieri potest et sapiens. Aliunde, quaeso, quam a sapientia?
Erit ergo, et te desipiente, sapientia: Erit, inquis, sed in homine sapiente. Sed quis est homo, qui non possit desipere? Si ergo omnes homines desipiant, erit nihilominus sapientia; alioquin non possent denuo sapere. Sed in angelis, inquis. Sed et ipsos posse natura duntaxat desipere, indicat illa insipientium angelorum tanta multitudo; quibus quidem cum caeteris par natura, sed impar gratia. Nulla ergo creatura ex se sapiens. Unde ergo, nisi a sapientia? Et illam ubi invenit insipiens, ut denuo sapiat?
Si eam invenit, est utique sapientia, quae inveniatur ab insipiente, ut sit sapiens, alioquin quomodo invenitur, quod non est, nisi prius coeperit esse? Non, inquis, eam ita invenio; sed meditando, et exercendo facio meipsum sapientem. Ergo facis sapientiam tuam? Quare non fecerim? Ego te proposueram insipientem, et ecce adeo factus es sapiens, ut et sufficias facere sapientiam. An hoc est parum sapere, sapientem facere? Sed, et si quis dicat stultum facere posse sapientem, quis audiens non ridebit? Unde ergo sapientia stulto?
forte a quolibet homine sapiente. Et ipse unde sapiens? An ipse se fecit sapientem? Sed antequam se faceret sapientem, quid erat nisi insipiens? Praedicta igitur sequetur abusio, ut insipiens fecerit sapientem. Si et angelum dixeris posse facere sapientem: et ipse unde sapiens? Si et ipse se fecit sapientem, praedicta nihilominus sequetur abusio. Restat ergo ut non sit facta sapientia, quae caeteros faciat sapientes.
Ipsa non potest desipere, quia sapientia non potest esse insipientia, sicut nec mors vita, quamvis mors Christi nostra sit vita: sicut lux tenebrae, quamvis fuerimus aliquando tenebrae, nunc autem lux in Domino. Nam nec Joannes erat lux, sed ut testimonium perhiberet de lumine. Erat enim lux vera, quae illuminat omnem hominem venientem in hunc mundum (Joan. 1). Ipsa est sapientia, quae in animas sanctas se transfert, ut et ipsae sint sapientes. Parumne hoc tibi, o insipiens? Quaero iterum, utrum scias te esse. Quis, inquis, hoc ignoret?
Plane nec academicus. Semperne fuisti? Unde ergo accepisti, ut esses? An teipsum fecisti? Sed quomodo qui non eras aliquid, facere potuisti tam magnum aliquid? Unde ergo tibi esse? An ab alio homine? Et ipse unde?
nunquid ab angelo? Et angelus unde? Restat ergo ut non sit facta essentia, a qua caetera omnia habent esse, sicut nec facta est sapientia, unde caetera omnia habent sapere. Sileat ergo tibi sic et sic sapere, sic et sic esse: loquatur tibi in corde ipsum sapere et ipsum esse, et jam non dices in corde tuo: Non est Deus, in ipso plane perspiciens nec posse saltem te esse, qui diceres in corde tuo, Non est Deus, nisi esset et Deus. Iterum quaero, utrum velis te esse et sapere? Puto quia non abnuis. Junge haec tria, esse, sapere, velle. Redi ergo praevaricator ad cor.
Considera in his tribus quanta unitas, quanta sit aequalitas. Et cum inveneris haec tria in te esse, et a te non esse, cogita aeternam voluntatem, et ne dicas in corde tuo, Non est Deus, sed potius reminiscens convertere ad Dominum Deum tuum, cum omni fine terrae.
Scripture echoes
- ↩Ps.13.1;Ps.15.1 — To the choirmaster. A Psalm of David. Ps.15.1 — A Psalm of David. LORD, who may sojourn in your tent? Who may dwell on your holy hill?
- ↩2Cor.6.14 — Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness?
- ↩Eph.5.8 — For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord; walk as children of light.
- ↩John.1.8 — He himself was not the light, but came to bear witness to the light.
- ↩John.1.9 — The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world.
- ↩Ps.13.1;Ps.15.1 — To the choirmaster. A Psalm of David. Ps.15.1 — A Psalm of David. LORD, who may sojourn in your tent? Who may dwell on your holy hill?
- ↩Ps.13.1;Ps.15.1 — To the choirmaster. A Psalm of David. Ps.15.1 — A Psalm of David. LORD, who may sojourn in your tent? Who may dwell on your holy hill?
- ↩Deut.6.5;Matt.22.37 — And you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. Matt.22.37 — And he said to him, 'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.'
Notes
- 1 ↩The Latin 'qui' is grammatically uncertain here; taken as an intensifying/interrogative adverb parallel to 'quomodo', yielding 'how, since you were not yet anything'. Alternative reading possible.
- 2 ↩Essentia and sapientia are treated here as uncreated, self-subsisting realities — a metaphysical argument for God's existence. The translation preserves this philosophical register.
- 3 ↩The repeated 'sic et sic' (such and such) gestures at the limited, derivative nature of human knowing and being as opposed to the divine. The translation renders this as 'such knowing/being' and 'truly knows/truly is' to capture the contrast.
- 4 ↩'Non est Deus' echoes Psalm 13:1 (Vulgate) / Psalm 14:1 — 'The fool says in his heart, There is no God.' Final resolution deferred to tx-08 Moses stage.
Speculum caritatis (The Mirror of Charity) companion
Reorder one love at a time, daily
Use the study map with the free Chosen Portion app's daily readings to work through Aelred at a sustainable pace.
Aelred wrote the Mirror as a rule for daily interior discipline in community, and Chosen Portion carries that discipline forward as a short ordered reading each day.
- All 3 books and 102 chapters mapped into 4 weekly themes with page-level pointers
- Aelred's choice-motion-fruit test, turned into a one-page self-examination worksheet
- 16 discussion questions ready for personal journaling or a 4-session small group