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ἀσύνετος (Asynetos): Without Moral Discernment · Reformed Thinking

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  Hello and welcome back to Reformed Thinking.
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  It is really great to have you with us for another deep dive
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  into the text, the context, and the theology that shapes how we
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  view God and how we view ourselves.
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  It is good to be back. I'm ready to get into the weeds
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  today because we have a topic that at first glance it looks
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  like a simple vocabulary lesson, but I have a strong feeling it
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  is going to turn into open heart surgery before we are done.
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  I think you're quite right about the direction we are heading.
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  We are looking at a single word today, a Greek adjective that
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  appears in the New Testament, right?
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  But the implications of this word, they just ripple out into
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  our understanding of sin, of the human mind, and the grace of
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  God. The word on the chopping block
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  today is echetos, or for us, a cinetos.
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  Now, in many of our English Bibles, when we come across this
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  word, it's translated as foolish, senseless, or you know,
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  without understanding. If I am reading a verse and I
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  see foolish, I usually just think, OK, this person is acting
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  stupidly, they are making a bad call.
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  But what we are going to argue today is that Asanados is doing
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  a lot more heavy lifting than just calling someone
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  unintelligent. That is absolutely correct.
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  If we reduce asanados to just a lack of IQ, or let's say a lack
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  of formal education, we completely miss the theological
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  diagnosis it provides. This word is not an insult about
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  someones test scores, it is a technical description of a
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  spiritual condition. Our mission for this deep dive
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  is to examine why this word describes a specific inability
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  of the human heart to process spiritual truth.
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  It is a frightening word really, also because it describes a mind
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  that is functionally broken when it comes to the things of God.
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  Wow, OK, To help us unpack this, we have pulled together a stack
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  of heavy hitting lexical sources.
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  We were looking at entries from the Theological Dictionary of
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  the New Testament, the Loonita Lexicon, which focuses on
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  Semantic domain A. Very helpful resource.
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  It is, and we're also going to look at how this word was used
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  in the Septuagint. That's the Greek translation of
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  the Old Testament and even some writings for the early Church
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  fathers. So we have the data we do.
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  Let's start where we usually do. Let's look at the word itself.
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  Breakdown the construction of Asinatos for us.
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  It is a compound word which is often helpful in Greek.
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  It starts with what grammarians call the alpha primitive.
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  The alpha primitive. That is the letter alpha or a
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  placed at the beginning of a word to negate it.
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  It signifies without or not. Like how theist means someone
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  who believes in God and an atheist is someone who does not.
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  Or moral versus amoral. Precisely so we have the
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  negative A at the front. The second-half of the word is
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  derived from senetos, which means intelligent or
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  understanding. OK, so asenetos without
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  understanding. Simple enough on the surface.
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  It seems so, but to really grasp what is missing we have to look
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  at the root verb behind cinetos, which is sinyami.
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  Sinyami, and this is where the etymology gets visual right?
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  I was reading in the notes about how this word appears in Homer's
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  Odyssey. Yes, this is a beautiful example
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  of how concrete ancient languages can be.
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  In the Odyssey, specifically book 10 line 515, the verb
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  sinemi is used to describe the juncture of two rivers.
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  The juncture of two rivers. Yes, it describes the bringing
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  together of the rushing waters. The literal meaning of the root
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  is to send together, to bring together, or to unite.
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  So understanding then, in the Greek mind is not just having a
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  fact in your head, it is the action of bringing facts
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  together. That is the core metaphor.
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  Think about how we use the word synthesis and English.
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  Right, is from the same root. It is understanding is an act of
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  inward organization. It is the ability to take
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  disparate pieces of data, a sight, a sound, a memory, a law,
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  and bring them together to form a coherent picture of reality.
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  It is connecting the dots. That makes a lot of sense.
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  You can have a pile of bricks, but that doesn't mean you have a
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  house. You need to assemble them.
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  You need to put them together in a meaningful way.
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  Correct. So if sending me is the ability
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  to build the house or bring the rivers together, then a Cinetos
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  is the inability to do that. It's being unable to see the
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  pattern. Yes.
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  To be a Cinetos is to lack this specific faculty of synthesis.
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  It describes a person who might have all the individual pieces
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  of information. They might see the miracle, they
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  might hear the sermon, they might read the verse, but they
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  cannot bring it together. So they have the dots, but they
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  can't draw the lines between them.
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  They cannot. They can't connect the dots of
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  reality to see the picture God intends.
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  It is a disintegration of the mind.
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  That is a powerful image disintegration.
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  It reminds me of the definition we found in the source material,
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  which calls it a lack of capacity for insight and
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  understanding. It is not that the person is
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  empty headed, no, it is that their head is disorganized.
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  The wiring is not connecting. And that distinction is vital
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  for what we are about to discuss.
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  We often assume that if we just give people enough evidence or
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  enough apologetic arguments, they will believe.
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  Right, the facts and logic approach.
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  But if the problem is as a NATO's, if the problem is a
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  structural inability to synthesize that evidence due to
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  a spiritual break, then no amount of raw data will solve
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  the problem. The machine itself is jammed.
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  Let's see this in action. Then.
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  We see this word used in the Gospels, and it is actually used
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  in a context that is well, it's somewhat surprising.
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  I think both of us would expect Jesus to use this word for the
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  Pharisees or maybe the Romans. You think so?
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  But in Matthew 15.86 and Mark 7.18 he turns this word on his
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  own disciples. It is a jarring moment.
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  Let's set the scene. This is the dispute about hand
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  washing and the tradition of the elders.
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  The Pharisees are upset that Jesus's disciples are not
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  following the ceremonial washing rituals before eating A.
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  Huge deal for them. A huge deal, and Jesus uses this
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  as a teaching moment to explain that it is not what goes into
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  the mouth that defiles a person, but what comes out of the heart.
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  Right, he says that food just goes into the stomach and is
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  expelled. It does not touch the soul, but
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  evil thoughts, murder, adultery, those come from the heart.
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  And then Peter, good old Peter, says, explain the parable to us.
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  He does not get it. None of them do it seems.
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  And Jesus's response is sharp. It feels almost impatient.
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  In Matthew 15.16, he says, are you still without understanding?
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  There's the word asenetos. Are you still asenetos?
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  Ouch. I mean, he has been with them
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  for a while at this point. They have seen the miracles.
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  They have heard the Sermon on the Mount.
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  And yet he labels them with the term that, as we will see later,
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  is often reserved for the ungodly.
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  It highlights a significant theological truth.
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  The disciples at this stage possessed a mental deficiency
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  regarding spiritual realities. A deficiency.
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  So not just a lack of knowledge, but a real problem with their
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  thinking process. Yes, they were trying to process
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  Jesus's teaching through the grid of their old traditions,
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  the Pharisaical categories of clean and unclean.
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  And the rivers were not meeting. They couldn't synthesize the new
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  wine of the gospel with the old wineskins of their background.
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  That's a great way to put it. Their whole framework was wrong,
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  so the new data just didn't compute.
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  It couldn't. They were looking at Jesus,
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  hearing his words, but the pieces weren't fitting together
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  into their right picture. I noticed in the Lunita Lexicon
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  notes there was a very helpful distinction made about this very
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  verse. It said that a lack of capacity
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  for understanding can come from two sources.
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  Yes, that's important. One is natural mental
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  deficiency, essentially the someone who was born with a
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  cognitive limitation. Right.
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  And Lunita is very clear that this is not what is happening in
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  the New Testament usage. Jesus is not calling Peter
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  stupid or low IQ. No, of course not.
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  So the second source is a lack of the proper use of mental
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  capacity. That is the key.
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  The machinery is there. Peter is a smart man.
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  The disciples were functional adults, business owners, but
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  they were suffering from a functional inability to process
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  God's truth. A functional in the.
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  Faculty of synthesis was blocked in the Gospel context.
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  This shows us that even those walking with Christ can struggle
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  with pockets of asinetos. We can have blind spots where we
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  simply cannot put two and two together because our
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  presuppositions or our sin is getting in the way.
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  That is actually encouraging in a strange way.
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  If the apostles struggled with this, it makes sense that we
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  still struggle to connect the dots of God's Providence or His
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  law in our own lives. We do.
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  It is not an IQ test. It is a spiritual battle to have
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  a renewed mind. It is indeed.
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  But as we move from the Gospels into the Epistles, specifically
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  Paul's letter to the Romans, the tone changes.
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  It gets darker. How so?
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  In the Gospels, asenidos is a rebuke of a stumbling disciple.
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  In Romans, Asenidos becomes a verdict on the human race in its
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  natural state. OK, we're heading to Romans
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  chapter one. This is the classic text on
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  human depravity. Paul is describing what happens
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  when humanity turns away from God.
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  That's right, it says in verse 21.
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  For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give
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  thanks to him, but they became fuel in their thinking, and
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  their foolish heart was darkened.
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  Their foolish heart. That is our word asenidos.
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  And here we see the causal chain of Reformed theology laid out so
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  clearly. Notice the order.
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  It's critical. What's the order?
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  It does not start with the intellectual failure.
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  It starts with the moral failure.
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  They knew God, but they refused to honor Him.
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  They suppress the truth in unrighteousness, as verse 18
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  says. So the rebellion comes first,
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  and the stupidity follows. That is the pattern.
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  We so often think people don't believe in God because they have
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  intellectual objections. Romans one says.
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  People have intellectual objections or futile thinking
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  because they have first committed a moral treason.
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  The heart refuses to worship. And as a judgement, the mind
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  loses its ability to function correctly.
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  The heart becomes a city coast. It becomes darkened, that source
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  from Clement of Rome. First, Clement 36.2 speaks of
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  the darkened mind, and Sirach 15.7 in the wisdom literature
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  connects it to a lack of high moral quality.
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  It seems you cannot separate the moral from the intellectual
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  here. You cannot.
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  They are inextricably LinkedIn the Reformed view, we talk about
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  the noetic effects of sin. Noose is the Greek word for
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  mind. Sin affects the mind.
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  Now what does that mean practically?
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  Doesn't mean we forget how to do math right.
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  No, not at all. We can still build skyscrapers
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  and write symphonies, but the Cinetos, the ability to
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  synthesize reality with God at the center, is shattered.
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  The rivers of our thoughts no longer meet in the ocean of
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  God's glory, they just flood the plain and create a swamp of
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  confusion and self worship. And what a swamp it is.
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  A few verses later, in Romans 1, Paul gives that famous vice
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  list. It is a catalog of how this
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  darkened mind behaves. A.
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  Horrifying list. And Romans 1.31 lists as anitas.
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  Again, in the ESV it reads Senseless, faithless, heartless,
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  ruthless. I love that you brought up that
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  verse because there is a brilliant word play in the Greek
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  there that the listeners need to hear.
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  It's easy to miss in English. Paul places asynitis right next
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  to asynthetis. Asynitis and asynthetis they
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  sound almost identical. They do.
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  It is a rhetorical device called paranomazia.
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  It is designed to catch the ear and link the two concepts in the
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  listener's mind. OK, So what do they mean?
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  We know asynitis is senseless or without understanding what's the
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  other one. Asynthetis means faithless or
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  more literally covenant breaking.
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  It comes from synthemia, which means to make an agreement or a
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  pact. The A negates it, so it's
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  someone who will not keep an agreement.
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  A promise breaker. So you have a person who cannot
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  think straight esinatos, and a person who cannot be trusted a
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  sentence. And Paul is saying these go hand
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  in hand. They are siblings.
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  When you cut yourself off from the logic of God, you also cut
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  yourself off from the obligations of humanity.
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  One of our sources, referencing the orator Deo Chrysostom, notes
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  that in this kind of list, asanados refers to a gross lack
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  of understanding respecting one's obligations in society.
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  That is fascinating. So it is not just abstract
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  theology. It's not about failing to grasp
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  the Trinity. If I am Asinatos, I literally
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  don't understand what I owe you as my neighbor.
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  I don't get why I shouldn't be ruthless or heartless.
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  Precisely without God as the synthesis point, the ultimate
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  reference for meaning and morality, why should I be kind?
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  Why should I be faithful to my spouse or my business partner?
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  The logic of morality collapses. The mind becomes void of
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  understanding regarding how to live in a community.
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  Yes, this aligns perfectly with the Westminster Confessions view
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  of the corruption of the whole nature.
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  It's not just our spirits that are dead.
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  Our minds, our wills, our affections, our social instincts
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  are all compromised. The ungodly man, as the source
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  said, has no mind for the things that make for salvation, or, we
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  might add, for the things that make for a stable society.
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  It is a total collapse. You know, to really grasp the
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  weight of this, we need to look backward.
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  The New Testament writers, especially Paul, did not just
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  invent these words in a vacuum. Not at all.
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  They were steeped in the Old Testament.
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  They were pulling from the Old Testament Greek translation, the
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  Septuagint. You always say dig into the
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  Hebrews, so let's do that. What lies beneath Ascinatos in
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  the Old Testament? This is where the color of the
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  word really deepens. The Septuagint translators used
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  asinatos to translate a few different Hebrew words, and each
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  one adds a different flavor, a different nuance of foolishness.
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  Let's take them one by one. The first one that stood out to
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  me was the word nabal. Yes, Nabal.
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  We see this in Deuteronomy 32.21, which Paul will quote
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  later. Nabal is a heavy word.
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  It does not mean a jester or a clown.
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  It means someone who is futile, worthless, godless.
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  Isn't it the word used in Psalm 14?
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  The fool says in his heart there is no God.
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  That is the one. The fool there is Nabal.
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  And if you want a character study of a Nabal, look at the
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  man named Nabal in First Samuel 25.
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  He's described as churlish and evil in his dealings.
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  Right, David protects his flocks and Nabal just insults David's
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  man and refuses to show any gratitude or hospitality.
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  He can't connect the dots between the protection he
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  received and his obligation to respond with generosity.
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  He is completely Asinetos. He is morally perverse.
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  The navel is the person who bites the ham that feeds him.
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  So when Paul uses Asinetos, he is carrying all that baggage.
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  He is talking about a foolishness that is aggressive,
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  ungrateful, and actively denies reality.
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  OK, what's another one? Then there's Kissel, which we
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  find in Psalm 92 verse 6. It's translated by Asinetos in
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  this Septuagint. Kissel, what does that mean?
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  Kessel refers to the stupid or insolent man.
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  This is the person who is confident in their ignorance.
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  It suggests A thickness, a spiritual dullness that cannot
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  be penetrated. You know the type.
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  Loud and wrong. The book of Proverbs is full of
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  warnings about the casal. The person who despises wisdom
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  and instruction. That's him.
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  So Asanatos also carries this idea of a dull, complacent
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  stupidity. And I found a beer interesting.
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  It literally means strong or mighty right from Psalm 76.
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  Yes, but it is used ironically in Psalm 76.5.
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  It refers to the stout hearted who have been plundered.
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  The Hebrew is a beer. It refers to the stubborn or the
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  obstinate. Think of a strong bull that
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  won't go where you want it to. It is physically strong, but
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  mentally Asinatos. It lacks the sense to submit to
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  the master. This adds the dimension of
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  willfulness. The Asinatos person isn't just
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  confused, they are stubborn. They are strong in their
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  wrongness. Like Israel being called stiff
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  necked. Exactly the same idea, and one
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  last one that's quite evocative is nofel from job 13.2.
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  Nofel is related to the verb to fall.
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  It implies a mind that collapses or gives way.
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  It is flimsy. It's unstable.
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  When you put the weight of truth on it, it crumbles.
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  It can't bear the load. So let's put all these together.
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  When the Bible calls someone Acinetos, it is not just one
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  thing. It is saying they are morally
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  worthless and ungrateful like Nabal, insolent and dull like
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  Kessel, stubborn and willful like a beer, and intellectually
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  flimsy and collapsible like Nofel.
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  That is a devastating diagnosis. It really is.
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  It is the diagnosis of the fallen Adamic mind, and this
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  rich Old Testament background sets up one of the most ironic
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  verses in the New Testament which you mentioned earlier.
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  Romans 10.19. Paul quotes Deuteronomy 32.21.
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  Right, he says. I will make you angry by a
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  nation that has no understanding, and the Greek
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  word for no understanding is a synatos.
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  Yes. Now think about the context in
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  Deuteronomy. God is speaking to Israel the.
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  People have the law, the prophets, the covenants.
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  The people who by all accounts should have been the most
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  Synodos nation on earth. They had all the pieces, they
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  had the revelation. And God says, because you have
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  forsaken me, I will provoke you to jealousy with a foolish
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  nation, a people who are Asanetos.
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  He's talking about the Gentiles. He is.
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  Here is the picture. Israel prided themselves on
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  being the wise ones. They had the wisdom literature.
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  They were the ones who were supposed to connect the dots.
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  The Gentiles were the Asinetos, the scattered, foolish, idol
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  worshipping nations. But God turns the tables
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  completely. He does.
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  Paul brings this quote into Romans to explain what's
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  happening in his day. God is saving the Gentiles, the
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  people with the empty minds, the Nabal, the Kessel, to provoke
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  Israel to jealousy. It is a stunning display of
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  sovereignty. God takes the people who
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  shouldn't get it, and he gives them cynicists, which is the
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  noun form understanding, and meanwhile the people who should
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  have understood are left in their self-imposed blindness.
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  That really underscores the reformed doctrine of election,
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  doesn't it? You don't get saved because you
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  are smart enough to figure it out.
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  You don't get saved because you are less a senators than your
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  neighbor. You get saved because God, in
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  His sovereign mercy, decides to open a mind that was previously
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  shut. He creates synthesis where there
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  was none. He uses the foolish things of
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  the world to shame the wise. If understanding were based on
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  natural ability, Israel would have won.
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  They had the head start. But because it is based on the
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  Spirit's illumination, God can grant understanding to a Pagan
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  Roman centurion and withhold it from a Pharisee like Nicodemus,
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  at least initially. It proves that cenesis is a
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  gift, not an achievement. Let's broaden our scope a bit
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  before we land the plane. The word didn't disappear after
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  the Apostles died. We have writings from the
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  generation immediately following the New Testament, a collection
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  we call the Apostolic Fathers. Right, Clemente, Hermas,
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  Barnabas. How did they handle Asenetas?
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  Did they continue this same line of thinking?
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  They did. They continued this trajectory,
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  but they added some interesting psychological and pastoral
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  nuance. We see it pop up in the Shepherd
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  of Hermus and the Epistle of Barnabas.
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  The Shepherd of Hermits is that strange allegorical book full of
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  visions, almost like an early Christian Pilgrim's progress.
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  It is, and in Hermus the word asanados is frequently paired
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  with another powerful Greek word, dip psychos. 6 psychos dip
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  psychos. 2 souls. Or double minded.
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  We see this word in the epistle of James as well.
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  A double minded man is unstable in all his ways.
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  The Apostolic Fathers saw a strong link between being
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  asinatos and being dip psychos. That goes right back to the
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  river metaphor. If your mind is split, if you
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  have two souls, then the rivers aren't coming together, you are
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  divided against yourself. Exactly right.
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  If you have one foot in the world and 1 foot in the church,
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  you are functionally asinatos. You cannot synthesize reality
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  because you're trying to live by two different operating systems
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  at the same time. The data conflicts.
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  The result is confusion and paralysis.
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  So for them, foolishness wasn't just a lack of information, it
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  was a lack of integrity, a lack of being a whole single minded
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  person. Yes, and the Epistle of Barnabas
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  links it to being faithless. It suggests that you cannot have
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  true understanding if your loyalty is divided.
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  Your intellectual capacity is crippled by your divided heart.
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  Clement of Rome, in his first letter to the Corinthians, also
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  groups it with some other words for foolishness.
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  He puts Assinitos with Afrin and Moros.
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  He does. Afrin means mindless or without
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  reason, and Moros is where we get our English word moron.
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  But again, this isn't just like playground name calling.
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  No, absolutely not. Clement is describing a state of
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  spiritual blindness that is often willful.
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  In fact, in a beautiful passage in First Clement 36, he talks
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  about how through Christ we gaze into the heights of heaven and
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  our foolish and darkened mind springs up towards the light.
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  That is a beautiful image. It implies that the only cure
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  for the Esseneto's mind is to have it that exposed to the
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  light of Christ. It doesn't fix itself, it has to
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  be acted upon by an outside force.
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  That is the consistent pattern from the Old Testament through
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  the New Testament and into the early church.
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  The natural mind is dark, scattered, stubborn and double
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  minded. The redeemed mind, touched by
• 20:47
  grace, begins to spring up and finally connect the dots.
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  So we have covered a lot of ground here.
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  We've gone from Homer's rivers to the disciples confusion, from
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  the darkened heart of Romans one to the stubborn ox of the Old
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  Testament. Let's try to synthesize this
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  ourselves. How do we sum up the definition
• 21:04
  of Asanetos? I would define it like this.
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  Asanetos is the failure of the human mind to bring the facts of
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  reality together into a coherent whole, a failure caused
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  specifically by a moral and spiritual separation from God.
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  It is a disintegration of the intellect rooted in a rebellion
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  of the heart. Disintegration is the keyword
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  for me. It explains why someone can be a
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  brilliant scientist or brilliant philosopher and yet missed the
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  most obvious truth of all. There's a creator.
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  They aren't stupid. Far from it.
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  They have the bricks, but they have no blueprint and they have
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  thrown away the mortar, which is the fear of the Lord.
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  They might build impressive towers, but they are towers of
• 21:43
  Babel. They are incoherent in the end.
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  A person can be intellectually brilliant, high IQ, great
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  memory, but spiritually ascinatos because their heart is
• 21:53
  darkened, they cannot see the why behind the what.
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  They can analyze the creation down to the last quark, but they
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  can't synthesize it into an act of worship.
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  And this brings us to the So what?
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  Why does this matter for the person listening to us right
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  now? Why do a deep dive on one Greek
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  word? Well, first it matters because
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  it destroys our pride. We love to think that we are
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  Christians because we were just smarter than the guy next door.
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  We figured it out. We read the right books.
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  We made a logical choice. But the diagnosis of vasinatus
• 22:22
  tells us that naturally, we were just as scattered and blind as
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  anyone else. True understanding is a gift of
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  grace. It is a miracle of regeneration.
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  It really forces you to be humble.
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  If I understand the gospel today, it is not because my
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  neurons are firing better, it is because God turned the lights on
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  in a dark room. That's it.
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  And second, it also challenges us as believers.
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  We need to ask ourselves, are we merely collecting facts?
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  Are we just hoarding Bible verses and theological trivia?
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  Oof. That's things a little.
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  Or do we possess cynicists? Are we connecting those facts to
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  the glory of God? Are we letting the rivers meet?
• 22:58
  If our theology doesn't lead to doxology to worship, then we are
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  still acting asinetos. In a way, we are missing the
• 23:04
  point of the whole exercise. That is the danger of the
• 23:07
  theological nerd, isn't it? Yeah, you can know the
• 23:09
  definition of Asinetos and still be Asinetos if it doesn't result
• 23:12
  in knowing and loving God more. Precisely.
• 23:14
  Knowledge puffs up, as Paul says.
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  Knowledge without the synthesis of love and worship is just
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  noise. It is the clanging symbol.
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  This has been a fascinating discussion.
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  It really changes how I view that word foolish in scripture.
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  It is not an it is a tragedy. It is a description of a mind
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  lost in the dark. A tragedy that only the Gospel
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  resolves. As we wrap up, I want to leave
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  you with a final thought to chew on.
• 23:38
  We started with Ciniami as bringing things together.
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  In Colossians 1, Paul tells us that in Christ all things hold
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  together. He is the principle of coherence
• 23:48
  for the entire universe. So here's the question, if the
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  root of understanding is bringing things together, and
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  Christ is the one who hold all things together, can any true
• 23:58
  understanding exist apart from Him?
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  Or is all secular wisdom, no matter how impressive,
• 24:04
  essentially assanitos? Just a fragmented pile of facts
• 24:07
  with no foundation. Something to think about.
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  That is the ultimate question. Thank you for joining us for
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  this deep dive on reformed thinking.
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  We'll see you next time.