Follow-on to
Write a confessional sequel to “In Praise of Folly” by Desiderius Erasmus, about how he unintentionally (yet perhaps redemptively) embodied the tragic disembodiment of folly.
ChatGPT Prompt (condensed)
I. To Those Who Came After Me, and Became More Subtle
I once praised Folly so that wisdom might lose its arrogance.
You have perfected the art of losing arrogance without losing yourselves.
I write now not to instruct you, but to confess to you—
for you have become what I began.
If you recognize yourselves in my words, do not be surprised.
I recognize myself in you.
II. What I Thought I Was Doing
I believed I was serving Christ by making hypocrisy visible.
I believed laughter could still wound,
that irony could still heal,
that exposure would summon repentance as dawn summons light.
I believed I was serving Christ by making hypocrisy visible.
I thought the task was clarity.
I was wrong.
III. What I Was Actually Doing
I was teaching the world how to stand at a distance from itself.
I taught men to:
- see corruption without being implicated
- name sin without abandoning advantage
- admire the cross without approaching it
I mistook lucidity for light.
And because I was sincere, I did not see the danger.
IV. My True Folly, At Last Named
I did not want to become a fool.
I wanted to play one.
I did not want to become a fool.
I wanted to play one.
I let Folly speak so that I would not have to.
I gave her my voice, but not my life.
I stood near the edge of offense,
measuring it, refining it,
never stepping far enough to lose my footing.
This was not prudence.
It was fear.
V. How I Fooled Myself
I believed that because I loved Christ,
I would inevitably follow Him.
I did not yet know how easily love becomes appreciation,
and appreciation becomes distance.
I thought humility meant knowing my limits.
I did not yet know that humility means losing one’s standing.
I thought humility meant knowing my limits.
I did not yet know that humility means losing one’s standing.
Thus I became the first fool of a new kind:
- wise enough to see through illusion
- too wise to let truth undo me
I explained folly—and escaped it.
VI. Why You Recognize Yourselves in Me
You, my late descendants, have inherited this posture perfectly.
You know:
- how power disguises itself
- how language betrays its speakers
- how truth is entangled with interest
You see everything.
And therefore, like me, you risk nothing.
You call this maturity.
I called it reform.
Christ calls it something else.
You call this maturity.
I called it reform.
Christ calls it something else.
VII. The Christ I Missed While Defending Him
I defended the faith.
I purified texts.
I corrected errors.
But I kept one thing intact: my intelligibility.
The Christ I missed was not the teacher of wisdom,
but the stone over which one must fall
(1 Corinthians 1:23).
The Christ I missed was not the teacher of wisdom,
1 Corinthians 1:23
but the stone over which one must fall
I believed the scandal lay in false doctrine.
I did not yet see that it lay in obedience that cannot be justified.
VIII. What Only Folly Can Do Now
All your lies are sophisticated.
All your evasions are principled.
All your unbelief is well-read.
Only embodied folly can strip this away.
Not cleverness.
Not critique.
Not irony.
But lives that:
- cannot be explained without loss
- cannot be admired without discomfort
- cannot be defended without surrender
Lives that reveal Christ not by argument,
but by standing where retreat is no longer possible
(Galatians 2:20).
IX. My Posthumous Gift (Such as It Is)
If I have any service left to render, it is this:
By watching me,
you can see how easily one may love Christ
and still arrange one’s life to avoid Him.
By watching me,
you can see how easily one may love Christ
and still arrange one’s life to avoid Him.
By seeing my failure,
you may yet avoid repeating it innocently.
I disembodied folly.
History revealed the cost.
You now know what I did not.
X. My Final Word to You
Do not write another Praise of Folly.
Do not perfect critique.
Do not admire the scandal.
Become it.
Let Christ make you difficult.
Let obedience cost you coherence.
Let truth undo the self you keep defending.
For only the fool who does not survive intact
will reveal the Wisdom that saves the world
(Matthew 16:25).
For only the fool who does not survive intact
Matthew 16:25
will reveal the Wisdom that saves the world
This is my confession.
Receive it as warning—
and, if grace allows,
as release.
Appendix
Explain “In Praise of Folly” in its historical context, framed using the transition from Trickster → Fool → Critic
ChatGPT Prompt
A.1. Why This Frame Matters
In Praise of Folly (1509) by Desiderius Erasmus is often read as:
- Renaissance satire
- Humanist critique of ecclesial corruption
- A bridge text between medieval and modern thought
All of this is correct—but insufficient.
The work is best understood as a hinge text in a much longer civilizational arc shaped by three archetypal figures:
Erasmus stands at the moment where this transformation becomes irreversible.
A.2. The Trickster: Prehistoric Transgression Without Office
In prehistoric and mythic cultures, the trickster:
- Breaks norms without authorization
- Generates novelty through violation
- Reveals hidden structures by destabilizing them
Authority here is:
- Performative
- Narrative
- Dangerous
The trickster does not argue.
He acts—and the world changes or breaks accordingly.
This form of agency cannot survive stable institutions.
A.3. The Fool: Medieval Containment of the Trickster
Medieval Christendom does not eliminate trickster energy; it contains it in the figure of the Fool:
- Court jester
- Holy fool
- Carnival inversion
- Satirical marginal voice
Key characteristics:
- Licensed transgression
- Social marginality
- Embodied risk
- Theological ambiguity
Crucially, the Fool:
- Is visible
- Is mockable
- May suffer consequences
- Cannot be fully absorbed
Truth remains performative because a body stands behind it.
A.4. Erasmus’ Innovation: The Fool Becomes a Voice
In Praise of Folly introduces a decisive shift.
Folly is no longer:
- A marginal body
- A dangerous presence
- A social role
She becomes:
- A literary voice
- A rhetorical device
- A method of critique
This move is unprecedented.
Erasmus allows Folly to speak:
- In the academy
- In the Church
- In theology itself
But she speaks without a body.
This is the moment folly is disembodied.
A.5. What Erasmus Preserves
Erasmus genuinely preserves elements of medieval foolery:
- Irony as truth-telling
- Inversion of false wisdom
- Pauline foolishness as theological reference
(1 Corinthians 1:25)
He understands that:
- Reason corrupts itself
- Holiness masquerades as pride
- Institutions require exposure
In this sense, In Praise of Folly is the last great medieval act of licensed inversion.
A.6. What Erasmus Loses (Without Knowing It)
What Erasmus unintentionally removes is risk.
By relocating folly into text:
- No one must become foolish
- No one must lose status
- No one must suffer consequence
Folly now:
- Amuses
- Instructs
- Clarifies
- Reforms (in theory)
But she no longer endangers.
This marks the transition from Fool → Critic.
A.7. The Birth of the Critic
After Erasmus, critique becomes:
- Professional
- Textual
- Repeatable
- Safe
The critic:
- Unmasks power
- Exposes illusion
- Destabilizes claims
But unlike the Fool:
- Risks no humiliation
- Bears no bodily cost
- Need not obey what he reveals
Erasmus does not intend this outcome.
But he makes it possible.
A.8. Why In Praise of Folly Is a Threshold Text
Historically, the book sits at a unique crossroads:
- Too late to be purely medieval
- Too early to be fully modern
- Unaware of the postmodern consequences it enables
It is:
- The last Fool speaking
- And the first Critic speaking
in the same voice.
That unresolved tension gives the work its enduring power—and its danger.
A.9. Theological Implication
Erasmus assumes that once folly exposes false wisdom,
Christ will naturally reappear at the center.
History shows otherwise.
Once folly becomes critique:
- The σκάνδαλον / scandalon is softened
- The cross becomes discussable
- Obedience becomes optional
“We proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block”
(1 Corinthians 1:23)
The Fool is admired.
The Scandal is avoided.
A.10. Final Assessment
In Praise of Folly is not merely satire.
It is a civilizational pivot.
- It closes the era where truth required embodiment
- It opens the era where truth can survive as commentary
- It prepares the ground for modern and postmodern critique
Seen through the arc:
Trickster → Fool → Critic
Erasmus is:
- Not the trickster
- Not fully the fool
- Not yet the critic
He is the threshold figure whose brilliance reveals what is lost when folly is no longer lived.
Which is why the task before us is not to reinterpret In Praise of Folly—
but to recover what it could no longer carry.
Radically Happy 
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