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1.5.1. Dna frustración más; la Facultad de Física y Química de la Prinrera República (1873)
“Contradiction”
Consider another example where attention to context helps. Proverbs 26:4–5 says:
Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest you be like him yourself.
Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own eyes.
The critic may claim that this is a contradiction. The Bible has an error, he says. He claims that verse 4a, “Answer not a fool according to his folly,”
and verse 5a, “Answer a fool according to his folly,” directly contradict each other, and at most one can be true.1
At first glance the critic’s claims may appear to make sense. If ever there was a contradiction, surely the most blatant contradiction happens when two expres-sions directly oppose each other. One expression has “answer not” and the other has “answer.” In effect, “do not” stands over against “do.” It is a direct opposition.
1 Both v. 4 and v. 5 have imperatival form. They are directives rather than assertions (see discussion of speech acts in Vern S. Poythress, In the Beginning Was the Word: Language—A God-Centered Approach [Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2009], appendix H). The words true and false apply to directives in a more indirect way than they apply to assertions. Directives nevertheless have factual implications and presuppositions, and these may be true or false. The imperative, “Answer not a fool according to his folly . . .” implies the affirmation that we are obliged not to answer a fool according to his folly.
Answering the Critic through Context
But the critic’s objection fails to reckon with context. It treats the two paral-lel clauses in verses 4a and 5a as if they were decontextualized generalities, independent of one another and with exactly opposite meanings.
So let us proceed to reckon with context. In fact, these two proverbs stand right next to one another. The parallelistic match between verse 4a and verse 5a is all the more striking precisely because the two verses come right next to each other. This contextual nearness is significant. The author wants us to notice and feel the tension between the two verses. He draws our attention to it.
Not only the context but the dynamics of communication make a dif-ference. The author wants to achieve something by giving us this pair of proverbs. He is not just mystifying readers or closing down communication.
So what does he intend to achieve? One clue comes from the larger context of the book of Proverbs. The proverbs are short, pithy sayings that express some truth about life in a compressed form. The compressed form invites further reflection. Not all the meaning will necessarily be on the surface.
The reader is invited to think—to think about God’s ways, to think about the nature of life, to think about how to deal wisely with other people, to learn also from observing human life. Grammatically speaking, each proverb is self-contained. But in meaning, it is not self-contained. It asks for reflection.
On the surface, it may be somewhat mysterious. It may lead us to pose the question, “Just what does this mean?” In the case of the pair of proverbs in Proverbs 26:4–5, the pairing is part of the mystery to be expected in Proverbs, a mystery that calls on us to meditate.
Thus, an attention to context can help us realize that the apparent contra-diction between the two verses has a positive purpose. It stirs us to reflection.
And proverbs promise to have some valuable meaning if we are patient in reflection and in teasing out meaning in a sensitive way, a way that begins with “the fear of the Lord” (Prov. 1:7).
Seeking Positive Meaning
So what about these two proverbs? If we seek meaning, we should do so with trust that God is in harmony with himself. The two proverbs promise to be in harmony if we can coax out their meaning through reflection. We are finite, and we might not succeed. But we can try. How do we go about it?
We can start on our way by thinking about the contrast between wisdom and folly. That contrast runs all the way through the book of Proverbs. It becomes particularly prominent in Proverbs 8–9, which personifies the
con-155 Understanding an Alleged “Contradiction”
trast by depicting wisdom and folly as two female figures. The personification makes vivid the choices that confront each of us, and also the distinction between two ways of life—the way of wisdom and the way of folly, which we can also describe as the way of following God versus the way of following one’s own devices.
The fool, accordingly, is not merely someone who makes a single, isolated, accidental mistake in life. The fool is a person characterized by folly. He has a distinctive manner of life and a distinctive way of thinking and talking, all of which differ from the way that a righteous person pursues when he walks in God’s ways. These reflections form some of the contextual background in Proverbs with which a sensitive reader can approach the tantalizing tension in Proverbs 26:4–5.
So what about verse 4, “Answer not a fool according to his folly”? What does that mean? We have to take it in context. It is not a complete sentence.
The full sentence runs,
Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest you be like him yourself.
The fundamental principle is that context is significant. The context of the full sentence affects the meaning of the first clause. Moreover, we also have to think about the personal contexts that arise in actual communication.
When a wise person is thinking how to answer a fool, he takes account of the fact that the person he is addressing is a fool. He ponders how best to frame an answer so that the fool might possibly be shaken out of folly rather than confirmed in it. God has given language in harmony with himself, and the contextual principle expresses this harmony.
Part of the point is that any response to the fool must avoid falling into the pattern of thinking and acting that characterizes the fool. Reflecting on life helps us to see that this is a genuine danger. If we know a little about a fool, we may realize that much of what we could say out of wisdom will be lost on him. So then we think, “I have to meet him on his own terms, speak his language as it were.” But in the process we may unwittingly adopt some of his folly for ourselves.
Another interpretation of the same verse would suggest that verse 4 and verse 5 are meant to be understood as applying to two distinct situations.
Verses 4 and 5 together would then imply that in some situations you should not answer a fool, and in other situations you should. The two verses would still be consistent because neither would be intended to be a completely universal principle.
I think that this alternate interpretation has some truth in it. It is true that a wise person takes into account the specific character of the situation. Not all fools are the same, and they are not always in the same mood, and we meet them in differing circumstances. But if that is all that we say, it still does not do full justice to the specificity of verses 4 and 5, and the clauses beginning with “lest.” These clauses contain some specific indications as to what the dangers are. By laying out the dangers, they indirectly provide some guid-ance as to when and in what situations a particular tactic or response might be wise. Thus, we must continue to pay attention to the clauses with “lest.”
To begin with, the clause in verse 4 focuses on the effects on “you,” that is, the speaker: “lest you be like him yourself.” Verse 5 focuses on the effects on “he/him,” that is, the fool, the hearer: “lest he be wise in his own eyes.”
Wisdom counsels us to pay attention to effects on both sides. What we say should be morally positive both with respect to ourselves and with respect to a fool that we address. That may be difficult, but it is necessary.
The danger in verse 4, “lest you become like him yourself,” leads poten-tially to more than one dimension of danger. There is more than one way of becoming like a fool. We could become like him by adopting some of his assumptions in order to talk to him in a way that he would welcome. We may concede things that we should not concede. We could also become like him by adopting a style of speaking that is disrespectful or is constantly joking and never serious. We could become like him by having motives that are selfish and uncaring. A fool is sometimes not easy to love and therefore may tempt us to be unloving or self-serving when we respond. And a difficult situation like talking to a fool also tempts us to adopt a substandard view of what love means. Does love just mean “being nice” and always nonconfrontational and affirming? That is not genuine love because it does not seek in a wise way to help the fool out of his folly and to challenge his unwise ways.
Are all these dangers actual implications of verse 4? Verse 4 does not spell out all the possible ways in which we might become like a fool. That is not how proverbs work. They are pithy, as we observed. They invite reflection. We have to think about what the implications might be, rather than demanding that they be spelled out before we will take the trouble. Our meditation on the verses should take into account what we already know about God’s ways.
Now consider verse 5.
Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own eyes.
157 Understanding an Alleged “Contradiction”
What are its meaning and implications? What danger does it point out in the clause “. . . lest he be wise in his own eyes”? Here the focus is on the effect on the fool. If we choose merely to keep silent in response to a fool’s voice, he may think that he has triumphed and that no one dares to challenge him.
He may then be confirmed in the feeling that he is “wise in his own eyes.”
Or if we respond to him with something wise, but it makes no sense to him, he may again feel superior. His being confirmed in feeling superior does not help him. The principle of loving one’s neighbor invites us to try to find a way to do him good, rather than confirming him in his folly.
Of course only God can change people’s hearts. That principle is also part of the greater context for reflecting on Proverbs. We must not blame ourselves if we cannot immediately undo the folly in every single fool. But we can pray for help from God and ask him to give us words that he may use to break through the hardness of heart in the fool. We may be able to respond with something that may challenge the fool in a way that he himself can begin to grasp, and thereby at least leave him uneasy. Jesus’s responses to foolishness among the Pharisees offer instructive examples (Matt. 23:17;
Luke 11:40).2 We may be able to challenge folly not merely by the content of what we say, but also by the tone.
In any case, we should respond in a way that takes into account “his folly,”
not only folly as a generality, but the particular form that folly takes in this particular person. We fit what we say to who he is and what will best chal-lenge him and thereby contribute to his welfare. In so doing, we are actually answering “according to his folly,” that is, in tune with the particular form of
“his folly.” His folly has become for us a context with which we interact, in imitation of the wise interaction of God with all the contexts that he meets.
When we reflect on the two verses in this way, we can see that they are in fact in harmony. Each is complementary to the other. Both express one side of what it means to love your neighbor when your neighbor proves to be a fool. One focuses more on “you,” the other more on “him.” Loving takes into account the character of the neighbor, but does not adopt or approve his sins.3
2 See also Derek Kidner, Proverbs: An Introduction and Commentary (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1964), 162, who points to the challenge Paul had in addressing Corinthian foolishness in 2 Cor. 11:16 and 12:11.
3 Richard L. Pratt undertakes a creative development of the implications of Prov. 26:4–5 for apologetics in Every Thought Captive: A Study Manual for the Defense of Christian Truth (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1979), 81–132.