Bible Reading: Wisdom 9:13-18

Wisdom 9:13-18
For what man knows God's counsel, or who can conceive what the Lord intends?
For the deliberations of mortals are timid, and unsure are our plans.
For the corruptible body burdens the soul and the earthen shelter weighs down the mind that has many concerns.
And scarce do we guess the things on earth, and what is within our grasp we find with difficulty; but when things are in heaven, who can search them out?
Or who ever knew your counsel, except you had given Wisdom and sent your holy spirit from on high?
And thus were the paths of those on earth made straight, and men learned what was your pleasure, and were saved by Wisdom.

***
This passage explains most clearly why humans cannot divine, predict, forecast or even understand what God plans or will do. The pious Jew who wrote the Book of Wisdom explains that the mere problem of having a body, which lives and dies, means that humans cannot fathom God's intentions or plans because humans always see things through the filter of their own limited lives and ultimate death. Thus humans project their worries and temporal concerns upon any question or divination that they attempt about God's intentions or the timing of his will to take action.

The author also points out rather pithily that humans barely understand the workings of natural things on earth, to say nothing of trying to understand how God perceives and arranges things from the viewpoint of heaven. The author reminds the reader that if God did not send wisdom in the form of the Holy Spirit and other divine guidance (such as the Prophets) then humans could never have hope of understanding anything about God at all. People are saved by treasuring the knowledge that God sends and using it to order their own lives.