Chapter 2: Examination of Intellect

1. The Object of Sheed’s Book
   • Our Atrophied Intellects
     • “The object of this book is to suggest the way for those whose intellects have not till now done any serious exploring – and note that serious exploring is not a quick job: the doctrines treated in this book cannot be rushed through, they must be worked through” (30-3).
     • “An intellect, of course, everybody has: intellect is not the property only of exceptionally gifted people; it is a piece of standard human equipment, like a nose” (30-3).
     • We are born with strong intellects:
       • “Language skills begin to develop in newborn babies within forty-eight hours of their birth. . . . these skills ‘progress with such lightning-like speed during the first years of life that most 6-year-olds are more competent in their native tongue than an adult who tries to master the same language’” (Dubay, “Evidential Power of Beauty,” 236).
     • Unfortunately, most of us have allowed our intellects to atrophy so they have not the strength to do their proper work. Our task is to make them fit once again (30-3).
2. Intellect and Imagination
   • The Intellect’s Weakness
     • “The intellect hates to function at all, at any rate beyond the point where functioning begins to require effort” (31-2).
     • As a result either no thinking gets done, or the imagination jumps in to “help out” the intellect’s thinking process (31-2).
     • The problem with this is that “the imagination plays a role in the mind’s affairs [that is] totally out of proportion to its merits” (31-2).
     • Consequently, “there is nothing to be done with the intellect until imagination has been put firmly in its place. And this is extraordinarily difficult” (31-2).
   • The Imagination
     • The imagination is the picture-making tool of the intellect (31-3).
     • Its scope is limited: “What the senses cannot experience, the imagination cannot make pictures of” (32-1).
     • Hence, its picture making ability is necessarily limited to the world of matter, and that as perceived by the senses (34-3):
       • Note that this “picture making” ability should be considered in the general sense so as to include input from all five senses.
     • The imagination has a valuable role to play in our thinking process, but only as a subordinate partner to the intellect (32-1).
3. The Imagination’s Usurpation of the Intellect’s Role
   • Imagination Impacts on the Will and the Intellect
     • The imagination can have a powerful effect on the will but our concern here is with the imagination’s effect on the intellect.
       • An example of the former: “The will may have decided firmly for sobriety or chastity: the imagination conjures up the picture of a glass of beer or a girl and the will finds its decision wavering and breaking” (32-2).
     • The imagination’s effect upon the intellect occurs in three ways:
       • It distracts the intellect.
       • It acts as a censor to what the intellect accepts as being true.
       • It presents to the intellect finite images as substitutes for non-material concepts.
   • The Imagination Distracts the Intellect
     • Considering the first way the imagination hinders the intellect is by distraction. The distractive power of the imagination is so common that it hardly needs to be mentioned. For example:
       • One may set out to spend some time thinking about a particular matter only to find that after an hour has passed he has spent the last fifty-nine minutes “watching imagination’s pictures flash across the mind and the abstract thinking is still [left to be done] (32-3).
       • The imagination’s hindrance of the intellect is especially noticeable when one is trying to pray (e.g., the rosary, or attendance at Mass).
     • This is not the worst way in which the imagination hinders the intellect, because we are aware of it and can take steps to overcome this tendency. The other two ways are not so easily detected (32-3).
   • The Imagination Acts as Censor
     • The second and third ways in which the imagination hinders the intellect are subtle and, thus, more damaging. We will first look at how the imagination acts as a censor to what the intellect accepts as being true.
     • We tend to use the words unimaginable and inconceivable to mean the same thing. However, there is a significant difference in the meanings of the two words (33-1, 34-3).
     • Note: Sheed first uses the concept of “spirit” to show the difference between these two words. There is a problem here in that “spirit” is a new and unfamiliar concept. Therefore, in the lecture I’m skipping over 33-2 through 34-2, so as to use more familiar concepts to explain the difference between the two words. The concept of “spirit” will be covered in a later chapter. A summary of the skipped section follows below:
       • Spirit (from sections 33-2 through 34-2).
         • Activity: The being that knows and loves (33-3)
         • Nature: “The being which has its own nature so firmly in its grasp that it can never become some other thing” (33-3)
           • Note that this is not true of any material being
         • The reason for spirit’s tenacity of being: spirit has no parts (33-3)
         • That which has parts (material things):
           • Must occupy space
           • That which has parts can be taken apart (34-1)
         • Spirit, having no parts:
           • Occupies no space
           • Cannot be taken apart.
     • The word “unimaginable” is the imagination’s word of rejection.
       • Pictures can only be made of material things. Thus, the imagination, which is a picture-making tool, cannot speak to us about that which is non-material.
       • To say that something is unimaginable is simply to say that the imagination cannot make a picture of it (34-3).
       • For example: justice is unimaginable; hence, the imagination can censor the fact that there is such a thing as justice by saying that justice is unimaginable.
         • Thus, we are led to conclude that there is no such thing as justice, or that justice means something less than its true meaning.
     • The word “inconceivable is the intellect’s word of rejection. That which is inconceivable contains an inner contradiction (35-1). For example:
       • The idea of a “square circle” violates the principles by which a linear figure is either a square or a circle, for a circle can have no straight lines and a square can have no curved lines.
         • To speak of a square circle is to speak of straight lines that are curved or curved lines that are straight. Both are contradictions in terms.
       • The case is similar for the concept of a four-sided triangle.
         • To speak of a four-sided triangle is to speak of a three-sided figure having four sides. Again, the concept is a contradiction in terms (35-1).
     • Scripture says that “all things are possible with God” (Mk 10:27).
       • Can God make a square circle? No, because idea is a contradiction in terms.
       • Then how are we to understand Mark 10:27?
         • First, note that an object defined by contradictory terms is not anything. It is nothing (35-1).
         • Second, consider St. Luke’s parallel statement to Mark 10:27: “For with God nothing will be impossible” (Lk 1:37).
         • Consequently, by giving a “slightly different emphasis” to Scripture (i.e., Lk 1:37), a four-sided triangle is “impossible” for God to make because it is “no thing,” that is, not a thing, nothing.
           • “Therefore, as God, although He has infinite power, cannot make a thing to be not made (for this would imply that two contradictories are true at the same time), so likewise He cannot make anything to be absolutely infinite” (Summa I, q. 7, a. 2; I, q. 25, a.3).
     • It follows from all of the above that “the first test of any statement concerning spiritual reality is . . . [whether] it stands up to the examination of the intellect. . . . The imagination can say nothing about it” (35-2)
   • The Imagination Presents Substitutions to the Intellect
     • If one happens to be a Catholic, the imagination’s attempt to censor divinely revealed truths is blocked by the persistent, insistent and consistent teaching of the Church.
     • But this is where the “imagination does its subtlest piece of sabotage” by attempting to “help” the intellect by way of substitution (36-1, 36-2).
     • The substitution is essentially an analogy, and analogies have their place in helping us to better see and understand concepts.
       • Scripture is full of analogies. For example, in the twelfth chapter of Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus uses seven different analogies to speak of the Kingdom of Heaven.
     • The problem with analogies is that while they can be “useful . . . as illustrations of God’s dealings with us, they shed no light whatever upon the innermost being of God” (36-2).
     • Consider the triangle as an image of the Blessed Trinity:
       • We find in the triangle the numbers three and one (three sides, one triangle), and we find in God the numbers three and one (three persons, one nature), but the similarity ends there.
         • The reality of the divine three in one is infinitely beyond the geometric three in one.
         • At the heart of God’s revelation that He is three persons in one nature lies the reality of an eternal procession of persons. The triangle tells us nothing about this mystery.
       • “The excuse for [analogies of this sort] is that they help us to see the doctrine. But they do not. They only help us to swallow the doctrine” (36-2).
       • Read 37-2: “Thinking is very hard . . . ”
4. Mystery and the Intellect
   • Types of Mystery
     • When we speak of mystery in the theological sense, we are not speaking of a literary genre, whether it be fiction or non-fiction.
     • Likewise, we are not speaking of aspects of the material universe that are unknown to us. Such matters are finite realities; hence, we are capable of understanding them, even though they are not currently understood.
       • Some examples are the nature of gravity, the makeup of the fundamental particles of matter and the speed of light in a vacuum being the maximum speed any object can travel.
     • Theological mysteries concern supernatural realities. These realities can only be known if God reveals them, and they can never be understood.
       • Our minds (intellects) are finite, and, thus, cannot wholly contain all that can be known of God, who is infinite. This is the fact about us that creates what we call supernatural mysteries (37-3)
   • Mystery vs. Ignorance
     • One might ask why we should bother with mysteries if they are beyond our understanding. In order to address the question, we need to make a distinction between ignorance and mystery.
       • Ignorance is simply a lack of knowledge. It can be eliminated by study.
         • One could, in complete ignorance of a particular foreign language, go on to study the language and master it.
       • A mystery, on the other hand, is something that the mind can know partially but can never know completely (37-3).
         • No matter how much one knows about a particular mystery, that which remains unknown is infinite in quantity.
     • “A mystery . . . is an invitation to the mind. For it means that there is an inexhaustible well of Truth from which the mind may drink and drink again in the certainty that the well will never run dry” (38-1).
       • This tells us something about the next life. God reveals Himself to those in heaven (“we shall see him as he is” – 1 Jn 3:2), but this revelation can never be complete because He is infinite and we are finite.
       • Consequently, God can go on revealing Himself to us endlessly but He will never be fully known by us. Heaven will not be the dull place that some people think it will be.
5. The Tension Found in Mystery
   • Contradiction and Irreconcilability
     • There is a tension at the heart of every mystery. The tension is due to an apparent contradiction between two elements of the mystery (38-2).
       • For example, we cannot see how there can be Three Persons in one God. Why are there not three Gods if three persons, or how can there be three persons if just one God?
         • This seems to be a contradiction with no possibility of reconciliation, for three cannot be one.
       • Similarly, if Jesus is God, which means He is infinite, how can He also be man, since man is necessarily finite?
         • This seems to be a contradiction, for that which is infinite cannot be finite.
     • Though mystery appears to contain an inner contradiction, “we cannot absolutely prove that there is contradiction, or exclude the possibility that there might be reconciliation at some point beyond our gaze” (38-2).
   • The “Leap of Faith” Approach to Mystery
     • Normally, we would reject propositions that appear to be irreconcilable, but not when they are revealed by God. Hence, the Christian intellect must find a way to deal with mystery (38-3).
     • There are basically four approaches to mystery, one of which is correct.
       • Sheed speaks of three ways of approaching the reconciliation of the elements of mystery, but he precedes those three ways with another way of approaching mystery that does not consider a reconciliation of the mystery’s elements.
     • The first approach is to accept the mystery as a matter of faith, and then leave it alone. In this approach, there is no thought given to the reconciliation of the “opposing” elements of the mystery (39-1). This is the “leap of faith” approach.
       • “This degree of intellectual unconcern makes for a quiet life but not for any growth in the knowledge of God” (39-1).
       • The leap of faith approach has nothing to do with the virtue of faith, for the virtue of faith requires compelling evidence of that which is proposed to us, so that, having received the gift of faith, we can be certain of the truth contained in the mystery.
   • Three Approaches to Reconciling a Mystery’s Tension
     • There are three approaches in which some attempt is made to address the opposing elements of a mystery. The first in this group of approaches is to emphasize one element, while acknowledging, but ignoring, the other element (39-2).
       • The mind gets no light from the ignored aspect of the mystery, and diminished light from the aspect adverted to, for the doctrine has been made into two elements, whereas the “living reality” is, in itself, a single reality (39-2).
         • An example is the modern tendency to emphasize the humanity of Jesus while ignoring His divinity.
     • The second approach is to accept both elements while graying them down to minimize the difference (39-3)
       • This approach does away with the tension, but it also does away with the mystery.
       • An example of this occurs when one accepts both the divinity and humanity of Jesus, but makes the humanity too divine and the divinity too human (40-1).
         • This was essentially the approach of the heretic Arius in the fourth century. The Nicene Creed was composed to express the mystery properly and so defeat the heresy.
     • The third approach is to “accept both elements, and accept them both at white heat without bothering too much about whether one can see the reconciliation” (40-2)
       • For example, with respect to the Incarnation, we fully accept that Jesus has a human nature and everything that means (suffering, the need to work, and all the hardships of life, etc.).
       • At the same time, we fully accept that He is the Son of God and everything that means (knowledge of all things, power over all things, etc.).
       • In this way, we fully accept the two apparently irreconcilable elements, and we also fully accept the tension of being unable to reconcile the two elements, knowing that the revelation must be true “because of the authority of God himself who reveals them, who can neither deceive nor be deceived” (CCC 156).
6. Owning the Mystery
   • Making the Mystery Our Own
     • If we accept both elements of a mystery at white heat and learn to bask in each element, a reconciliation of sorts takes place in us “and a moment comes when we recognize that we are living mentally in the presence not of two truths but of one” (40-2).
       • For example, it is true that Jesus is God and that He is man, but the mystery is not that He is divine and it is not that He is man. Rather, the mystery is that He is both God and man.
     • There is a profound reason for this “reconciliation of sorts.” It comes about because a similar tension exists between the two apparently irreconcilable elements of a mystery pervades our life (40-3). Some examples follow below.
       • Life and death: Life is conditioned by death.
         • An animal dies that man may eat it and live.
         • A seed has to fall to the ground and die in order to produce its fruit (Jn 12:24).
         • Man dies to himself that he may live in God (Lk 9:23).
       • Freedom and obedience: Freedom comes through obedience, both in the natural order and in the supernatural order.
         • In the natural order, if we are “obedient” to the law of gravity, we will be free of the grave injury or death that would come about by ignoring the law of gravity.
         • In the supernatural order: “If you continue in my word [i.e., live according to His commandments – see Jn 15:10], you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free” (Jn 8:31-32).
       • Nothingness and omnipotence: “We are best expressed as nothingness worked upon by omnipotence, the two most ultimate of all opposites” (41-1).
         • The tension of this mystery is at the very core of our being, yet we have no real grasp of either nothingness or omnipotence.
       • Body and soul: As human beings we are composed of a matter/spirit union and it is something we experience. Yet we experience it as a single being rather than as a duality of beings, and we are unable to see the reconciliation of these two opposites (41-2).
     • We need to learn to live in the presence of mystery with a whole-hearted acceptance of the dualities that pervade our lives. St. Augustine’s “rule of life” provides an example:
       • “Pray as if everything depended on God; work as if everything depended on you” (41-2).
   • The Splendor of Mystery
     • “That there should be mystery in our knowledge of God . . . is plain common sense . . . [for if we] could totally comprehend God then God would have to be no larger than [our] own minds, and so not large at all” (42-1).
     • Nevertheless, a curious thing happens when a Christian is challenged in regard to the apparent contradictions contained in mystery.
       • For example, the challenger might ask: “If God knew last Tuesday what you are going to do next Tuesday, what becomes of your free will?”
         • There appears to be a contradiction between God’s foreknowledge of our actions and our being able to freely choose those actions.
       • The curious thing is that when challenged like this, the ill-prepared Christian is “driven to wonder whether there can be a God after all” (42-1).
     • A proper response to mystery enables us to avoid that “curious thing.”
       • We should recognize that “there is something marvelously inviting to the mind in [its knowledge of] an infinite being of whom we can know something, but whom we cannot wholly know; in the knowledge of whom we can grow, yet the truth of whose being we can never exhaust; we shall never have to throw God away like a solved crossword puzzle. And all this is contained in the concept of mystery” (42-2).
       • Regarding the question raised by the challenger:
         • From Revelation we know that man has a free will and that God knows all things; hence, both must be true.
       • We should use our minds and think about the mystery and gain from it whatever knowledge about God we can gain (42-3)
       • We should pray for more knowledge of the mystery, and use the knowledge gained to deepen our prayer (43-1)
       • We should ask God about the mystery, not to challenge Him, but to beg Him for more light (43-2).
         • “Mary said to the angel, ‘How shall this be since I do not know man?’” (Lk 1:34).
     • What we can expect from our pursuit of mystery
       • As the mind acts upon God and God acts upon the mind, the intensity of the small circle of light, by which we understand something of the mystery, will grow stronger, and it will “[grow] in us by our sheer enjoyment of the light we have” (43-2).
       • “The way of life for the mind is to live in the light [of mystery] and revel in the light and grow in the light in all tranquility” (43-2).
   • Keeping the Intellect Cleansed
     • Though we pursue mystery in all tranquility there is, nevertheless, immeasurable labor that accompanies the pursuit (44-1).
     • “There is . . . real pain for the mind as it brings its almost atrophied muscles into action without the comforting crutch of imagination. . . . [which] is forever creeping up on us, betraying us without our knowing it” (44-1).
     • The effort becomes easier as the habit grows, but the cleansing of the intellect remains an ongoing task (44-1).
     • As the intellect’s muscles grow, it begins to enjoy using them “but the imagination is always lurking in the background . . . ‘The price of freedom is eternal vigilance’” (44-1).