Worldly wisdom and foolishness

Meaning

The wise of this world call God’s saving Word foolishness, and the world condemns and banishes it as heresy. The preceding unit identifies the rejected object as Christ, the Father’s eternal Word, comparing this rejection with the multitude’s contempt for the earthly Stone’s matter. The narrator deplores these judgments: neither foolishness nor heresy is his endorsed verdict upon Christ or the Word. Through such hostility the true believers are tried and proved. The English preserves the source of the accusation with “called foolishness ... by the wise of this world.” The paragraph then turns to the many names of the earthly Stone and the scriptural names of divine light. The phrase attacks a hostile claim to wisdom, not every form of learning or natural inquiry.