In De Civitate Dei 11.25, Augustine makes an observation which, while obvious in some ways, is a profound corrective to man’s basic tendency to look for wisdom everywhere but the true source. He notes first that if we were self-deriving, then so would our wisdom. But we are not, for we are created.
Now if our nature derived from ourselves we should clearly have produced our own wisdom; we should not be at pains to acquire it by training, which means learning it from some other source … But as it is, our nature has God as its author; and so without a doubt we must have him as our teacher, if we are to attain true wisdom.
God is the author of our nature and must, therefore, be our teacher.
