Against Heresies: Book II
Chapter 26: "Knowledge makes one arrogant, but love builds one up."
It is therefore better and more beneficial to belong to the simple and uneducated group and to reach closeness to God through love, than to imagine ourselves as learned and skillful, only to be found among those who are blasphemous against their own God by creating another God as the Father. For this reason, Paul exclaimed, “Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.” He did not mean to criticize a true knowledge of God, for then he would be accusing himself; rather, he knew that some, inflated by the pretense of knowledge, fall away from the love of God and mistakenly see themselves as perfect, claiming an imperfect Creator.
To put an end to the pride that results from this kind of knowledge, Paul says, “Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.” There can be no greater pride than thinking that someone is better and more perfect than the One who made and shaped him, gave him the breath of life, and brought him into existence.
Therefore, it is better, as I said, for someone to have no knowledge at all about why any single thing in creation was made, but to believe in God and remain in His love.
It's preferable to avoid being puffed up by such knowledge and losing that love, which is the life of man, and to seek no other knowledge except that of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who was crucified for us, rather than by engaging in subtle questions and hair-splitting expressions fall into impiety.
2. How would it be if someone, gradually becoming overconfident from such attempts, decided to investigate the number of hairs on each person's head simply because the Lord said, "even the hairs of your head are all numbered," and tried to figure out why one person has a certain number and another has a different number? Not everyone has the same number of hairs, as there are thousands upon thousands of variations since some have larger and others smaller heads, some have thick hair, others thin, and some barely any hair at all. Then, if those who think they have discovered the number of hairs tried to use that to praise their own group, or if someone, because of the Gospel expression, "Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? And not one of them falls to the ground without your Father's will," began to count the number of sparrows caught each day, whether around the world or in a specific area, and questioned why so many were captured yesterday, the day before, and today, and then tried to connect the number of sparrows to their particular theory, wouldn't they be completely misleading themselves and driving those who agreed with them into insanity, since people are always eager to be seen as having discovered something more extraordinary than their teachers?
But if anyone should ask us whether God knows every number of all the things that have been made and are being made, and whether each one has, according to His providence, received its specific amount, and we agree that this is true, acknowledging that not a single thing in the past, present, or future escapes God's knowledge, but through His providence each one has obtained its nature, rank, number, and specific quantity, and that nothing is made in vain or by accident, but with great purpose and profound knowledge, and that it was an admirable and truly divine intellect that could differentiate and bring forth the right causes of such a system: if, I say, anyone were to gain our agreement on this and then try to count the grains of sand and pebbles of the earth, as well as the waves of the sea and the stars of heaven, and attempt to figure out the reasons for the numbers he believes he has found, wouldn't his work be in vain? Wouldn't such a person be rightly called mad and irrational by anyone with common sense? And the more he occupies himself with these questions, and imagines himself to know more than others, claiming they are unskilled, ignorant, and simple-minded because they don't engage in his useless labor, the more he is truly insane and foolish, as if struck by a thunderbolt, since he does not consider himself in any way lesser than God.
By relying on the knowledge he believes he has discovered, he challenges God Himself and elevates his own opinion above the greatness of the Creator.