The Feeling Intellect: Finding God Is Impossible Unless He Reveals Himself

By John Mark Reynolds
Scriptorium Daily

Bottom Line: The intellect cannot be divorced from feelings or emotion. The highest intellectual activity will be motivated by the highest emotions to see God, but cannot find God without His revealing Himself. Religion without revelation cannot see God. Knowing is sterile unless God gives it meaning and passion.
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Dead, but sane?

Passionate, but crazy?

These often seem like the two options in life. Think clearly and live like a machine or be poetic and lose the ordered intellect.

Christians refuse either and her greatest poets (like Dante) have demanded a passion that ends in a vision of God that is fantastic and geometric.

The Christian poets and philosophers have always declared the two are united in heaven without confusion.
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Great Christians such as Thomas, Dante, Luther, and C.S. Lewis may have disagreed on how the mystery was to be precisely understood, but they agreed that when it was correctly understood it would be precisely true and passionately beautiful. In fact, they could disagree in theology, philosophy, and hymnody precisely because they agreed that Christianity was a revelation of God to man that empowered a passionate intellect!

This is a terrific power to unleash in mankind and the disunity that sometimes occurs amongst the divines is less shocking than there startling unity on so much.

What humanity needs is a ‘feeling intellect’ and the proper place for that feeling intellect to be directed. This property of the soul is a way to motivate the mind and order the passions of individual persons.
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Reason is not just a “logic machine” that can control the lower passions. What motivates the desire for logic? What motivates the passion for geometric precision or scientific understanding?

This is the feeling intellect about which William’s writes so effectively. For Williams this property is not confined to individual men, but is also a greater cosmic reality. This recognition begins, however, with the activation of a logical passion or a passionate precision in the feeling intellect.
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Plato has suggested three parts to the human soul: a multi-form beast (erotic passions), a lion (higher passions), and a ’small man.’ It is the man, who contains the intellect, that should govern the rest, but this is difficult. Fortunately, he has one advantage: as a mini-me (!) he contains all the parts of my soul and so knows the way these parts should be ordered.

This model-man placed by Plato inside the head is rightly ordered with passions and emotions that are directed by reason. In a well ordered soul, the ‘model man’ in the head can govern the greater man in the body because it understands each part of the nature of the whole. It is a paradigm for the greater man.

The intellect in this picture is not just ‘reason,’ but an intellect with passion (a small amount!) at its immediate disposal.

What does the whole man do? He seeks, as is suggested in Timaeus , for “right ordering” (justice) in the cosmos. Man, if rightly ordered, looks for the Feeling Intellect in the whole. He knows and loves it having seen an image of it in himself, but there the problem arises.
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Unlike Plato, the Christian has the advantage of the God who is our proper End having revealed himself to mankind. As Williams writes the quest for the cosmic Feeling Intellect without the Revelation of God in Christ Jesus is as likely to end in demon worship as anything even remotely good.

In commenting on Williams, Lewis adds (Arthurian Torso, pp. 118-119) that acknowledging the mere reality of the Feeling Intellect is not enough to save mankind. The vision of the Feeling Intellect can be turned to evil as well as good: ending in an Infernal Vision as well as the Beautific.

It can worship the sign instead of the One to whom the sign points. This is the arrogant student (Lord have mercy!) who worships the creature rather than the Creator, the poem rather than the Poet, and the art rather that the Artist.

This arrogance is heard whenever mankind cries out for culture for culture’s sake. Even great men, great Christians, can fall into this wicked idolatry.
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Great poetry and great music do reach the feeling intellect. They are able to inspire it and then the high passions motivate the intellect to see the Good, True, and Beautiful. This seems good, but it is worldly wisdom that can only destroy and not bring true salvation.

In that quest, man cannot succeed, but God has mercy on fallen man and reaches down to Him. God who is known to be unknown reveals Himself.

At that point the temptation for men who reject this revelation is to turn to the worship of pure “soul” or intellectual activity. The poet can love his poetry, the artist his art, and the musician his music. This seems better, but it will equally fail. Now the man is loving that stirs and frames love and not the object of that love.

Culture is not the answer. It too is a false god if it is sought for its own sake. It can stir the small feeling intellect in a man to reach out to the Divine, but it cannot find a sure resting place.

It is easy to go the wrong way if man simply looks for the known Unknown in his own wisdom. Even great poetry, art, or music at best only wakes us up from our sleep and shows us that we are lost. Only God can guide us back to Himself from this dark place.

Christianity is a revelation from God to man. It is the Way God provides from the dark wood for man’s small feeling intellect to find the great objective fact of the cosmic Mind. In the person of Jesus Christ, God then reveals Himself to man in a way man can love, the Feeling Intellect empowering man’s feeling intellect to find its proper end. (more)

Counseling with Boethius

By Greg Peters
Scriptorium Daily

Could it be that when counseling pastorally that I too could (or should) bring Lady Philosophy into the session? Have my past efforts at pastoral counseling been too simplistic? Did I really bring long-term consolation to those whom I counseled? It is tempting to sit with grieving Christian parents who may have miscarried early in a pregnancy assuring them that “God has a plan for all events in our lives, including the tragedies.” The statement is theologically correct, but pastorally insensitive. Though the couple may be saying, “why did God do this to us?,” they are likely asking a deeper question, “why do my friends who aren’t serving God having healthy children while I am unable to bring a child to birth?” A robust theological discussion of God’s agency in all of life’s events would be the last thing that this couple probably wants to hear. Rather, like Boethius they may find consolation in hearing that true living comes from participation in God. Though the impious may seem happy, true happiness is only found in God. These are the truths that Lady Philosophy was able to help Boethius see and understand, thus changing his perspective on why he was imprisoned and why he would ultimately be martyred. It brought him much-needed consolation. For me, Boethius’ Consolation of Philosophy is a reminder that only Truth brings lasting consolation. Anything else will only be a Band-Aid on a gushing wound. My desire as a pastoral counselor must be to bring true consolation. Thus, my role is akin to that of Lady Philosophy — I have the words of wisdom, I must impart them in such a way as to bring deep and abiding consolation. (more)

John Wesley’s Mom Whoops Aristotle

By Fred Sanders
Scriptorium Daily

Aristotle supposes the world to have been eternal, that is, streamed by connatural result and emanation from God, as the light from the sun, and that there was no instant of duration assignable of God’s existence in which the world didn’t also actually coexist.

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This error seems grounded on a true notion of the eternal infinite goodness of God, which he truly supposes must eternally be communicating good to something or other, and it was his want of the knowledge of revealed religion that probably led him into it.

Aristotle, other words, was half right. It’s true that God is infinitely good, and that his goodness is of a kind to be giving itself away to others. But that doesn’t mean that God always needed to have a world around to give his goodness to. Aristotle’s problem, Susanna argued, was that he had never heard of the Trinity.

For had he ever heard of that great article of our Christian faith concerning the Holy Trinity, he had then perceived the almighty Goodness eternally communicating being and all the fullness of the Godhead to the divine Logos, his uncreated Word, between whose existence and that of the Father there is not one moment assignable. As likewise the eternal Spirit, streaming from the Father and Son by connatural result and emanation as light from the sun…

The little old world doesn’t have to bear the burden of being God’s eternal recipient of self-giving goodness. The eternal Son has eternally existed alongside the Father, receiving eternally and fully the goodness of God the Father. Had Aristotle known this, he could have kept his correct notion of God as self-giving goodness, without being forced into the error of thinking the world was God’s eternal partner.

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Consider the infinite boundless goodness of the ever blessed Trinity, adore the stupendous mystery of divine love! That God the Father, Son and Holy Ghost should all concur in the work of man’s redemption! What but pure goodness could move or excite God, who is perfect essential blessedness! That cannot possibly receive any accession of perfection or happiness from his creatures. What, I say, but love, but goodness, but infinite incomprehensible love and goodness could move him to provide such a remedy for the fatal lapse of his sinful unworthy creatures? (Works p. 225)

Her starting point was a joyful certainty that God was not needy, but absolutely self-sufficing. He created the world not because he needed an outlet for his love, and certainly not because his blessedness was cramped and needed more objects in order to increase:

Then consider what that blessed Being is to us –A creator, he made us of nothing; we are the effect of infinite power, wisdom and goodness! He had no need of us, being perfectly happy in the contemplation of his own perfections; therefore not to increase but communicate his happiness and glory did he give us being. (Works p. 304, dated 1709)

The doctrine of the Trinity is a complex matter, and a variety of things might come to mind when you think of the doctrine. Most Christians, sadly, immediately think of the tension between the three and the one, and start casting about for analogies for it. For Susanna Wesley, apparently the first thought that leaped to mind when the subject of the Trinity came up was, instead, the absolute self-sufficiency of God as a triune fellowship of love. Closely linked to that divine aseity, however, was the unexacted, unaccountable freedom of his generosity in creating and redeeming us.

We know there is but one living and true God, though revealed to us under three characters –that of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. In God the Father we live, move, and have our natural being; in God the Son, as Redeemer of mankind, we have our spiritual being since the fall; and by the operation of his Holy Spirit the work of grace is begun and carried on in the soul; and there is no other name given under heaven by which men can be saved, but that of the Lord Jesus. (more)

Fairness, Chocolate Cake and Neurosurgery

By Paul Spears
Scriptorium Daily

That’s not fair! When you live in a house with children you come to realize that the concept of fair/unfair is the lens through which they view most of the world. For example, when there is only one piece of chocolate cake in the house and two children you have a problem. Some parents have one child cut the cake into two pieces, and have the other child pick the slice they want. When a child is dividing a slice of cake into two pieces they work with the precision of neurosurgeon cutting a tumor from the brain. They realize that one slip of the knife could doom any chance of getting an equal share of cake.
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As children mature we expect that they will outgrow this incorrect view of the world. We anticipate that they will rise above the pettiness that is part of adolescence. What we discover is that adults still have a view of the world that is largely driven an incorrect view of fairness.

Today, fairness is not thought of in terms of an overarching concept of justice, but in terms of equality. Mostly, fairness turns out to be understood in light of quantifiable methods—that is to say something is “fair” is to say that both parties have received equal amounts of a physical good. Fairness is no longer seen as a conceptual thing that falls under the purview of a transcendent ethic. Fairness is more often understood as an economic concept that has to do with the equal (measurable) distribution of property (wealth).

What is most insidious about this modern demand for fairness is that often it is just a front for our own envy and jealousy. Envy happens when we are unable to celebrate the successes of others, and often wish they were not successful at all. Jealousy wants what others have.

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What society has tacitly adopted is a view of the world that is fundamentally empiricist—that is we have come to believe that evidence of the good life (happiness) is found in physical things. If happiness is truly found through our possessions it is only follows that when we lack the proper amount and types of possessions we will become discontented.

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It is our duty as adults to model contentment and happiness to the next generation. We need to be aware of the insidious nature of our consumer culture that attempts to create a false desire for goods we don’t need. It is the pursuit of this false form of happiness that creates a life that is empty and seemingly unfair. For humanity to be truly happy God must be the object of our pursuit and service. To pursue anything else is to enslave ourselves to a system that only leads to envy, jealousy and discontentment. (more)

Could we just have the news fit to print?

By John Mark Reynolds
Scriptorium Daily

A once great paper printed “all the news fit to print.” We seem determined to print all the news whether it is fit to print or not.

Of course, the ready rejoinder is, “Who will decided what is fit to print?”

For a free society, I believe this should be left up to the individual, but (to paraphrase Aristotle and quote Spiderman I) with “great power comes great responsibility.” On the Internet, we now can all print or say what we see fit, but that places all the greater burden on us not to act to debase our culture.

The fact that I can say a thing does not mean it would be good for everyone to hear it. The fact that some tantalizing piece of gossip would attract large numbers of people (because they too have low and fallen desires) does not mean I should speak it.

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We are in a global War on Terror, at the start of a presidential race, and facing economic troubles. I understand the public interest, but at some point merely catering to public interest is failing a public trust.

Putting something into print, even here on the Internet, is a position of power. Of course, some of us have more power than others (having more readers) and so have a duty to those readers not to appeal to what is base in them, but to what is noble.

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Are brave soldiers really dying around the world for your freedom of speech so that you can use that precious liberty to tell potty jokes?

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Finally it is uncharitable to express glee in the fall of men. If Bin Laden himself were to die tomorrow, then a Christian would be glad for an end to his evil actions, but sorry for the almost certain damnation of his soul.

What is served in taking public pleasure out of wicked deeds?

Why must we take joy in the sorrowful fall of any man? What purpose is served in our (apparent) relish over the details after the initial point has been made? (more)

Only People in Glass Houses Can Throw Stones So They Had Better Be Careful

By John Mark Reynolds
Scriptorium Daily

Like a lot of folk wisdom this is true, but easy to abuse if it is viewed as the “final word” on the subject.
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Since everyone lives in a glass house, nobody is going to want to “stone” anyone . . . ever.

And if stoning sinners were the only option for dealing with sin, all of us not now in the Taliban would agree that starting any rock throwing is a bad idea.

As it is often (mis-) used, the saying suggests that any criticism of a person’s morals is “stoning” them . . . as if there is no difference between public condemnation of bad morals and the death penalty.

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Assuming there are only stones and “glass houses” around . . . then it might be sensible to throw stones quickly at some neighbor who is already destroying houses before he gets to ours.

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All of us fall short of high standards. If we want to avoid any trace of “hypocrisy” as it is now defined, then we might avoid high standards altogether in any area where failure is likely.
There are areas where public moralizing is safe, but only for sins nobody much wants to commit.

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We have quietly given up on loving our neighbor. If we say that we should, then it is too easy to show areas where we do not. Better to just ignore our neighbor and hope the government will start a program to deal with what neighbors used to do.

The new “good Samaritan” is the government bureaucrat.

Americans reward ambitions, even failed ambitions, in business, but often sneer at them in morality.

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This might be a good rule if they effects on our souls or bodies did not stick around. Fat hurts our bodies, even if we get new clothes and sexual sin scars our souls even if we get the societal approval we crave.

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Being immoderate about pleasures is a sin and God hates it. It is bad for us physically and spiritually as a kind of bonus of badness. (Of course, the two problems are entirely related!).

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First, anyone tempted to public moralizing should admit it if he struggles with the sin. If he doesn’t struggle with the specific manifestation of the problem, then he should be honest about any related struggles. Gluttons should admit that their gluttony is not so different from a gamblers use of money in some ways. This admission need not be detailed, but is important.

However society will have to accept that many of us hate sin because we have personally seen the harm it can do. It is no hypocrisy for a former drug abuser to oppose drug abuse.

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Second, Christianity is a religion of love. Our goal in “public moralizing” is to uphold God’s standards, commend the reasonable life, and bring others to the truths we have found. We must avoid, when we can, “final judgments” that do not allow for healing, hope, and restoration.

We use every tool we can to help men and women avoid pain in this life and hell in the life to come.

Finally, we have to accept the fact that not everybody will agree with our standards. We have reached them through our best use of reason and experience, but others will disagree. In a free society that is their right and someone’s morality will prevail. If we prevail we should leave as much room as possible for dissent.

Public morality must be upheld, but in the least coercive manner possible. (more)

Can God Make a Rock So Big He Can't Lift It?

By Gregory Koukl
Stand to Reason

This is known as a pseudo-question. It’s like asking, “Can God win an arm wrestling match against Himself?” or, “If God beat Himself up, who would win?” or, “Can God’s power defeat His own power?”

The question is nonsense because it treats God as if He were two instead of one. The phrase “stronger than” can only be used when two subjects are in view, for example, Bill is stronger than Bob, my left arm is stronger than my right arm, etc. Since God is only one, and since He has no parts, it makes no sense to ask if He is stronger than Himself. That’s why this is a pseudo-question. It proves nothing about any deficiency in God because the question itself is incoherent.

This pits one aspect of God’s ability against another--in this case, His creative ability against His ability to lift. The goal is to show that there are some things God can’t do, thus undermining the Christian concept of an omnipotent Creator. This illustration, however, miscasts the biblical notion of omnipotence, and is therefore guilty of the straw man fallacy.

Omnipotence doesn’t mean that God can do anything. The concept of omnipotence has to do with power, not ability per se. In fact, there are many things God can’t do. He can’t make square circles. He can’t create a morally free creature who couldn’t choose evil. He can’t instantly create a sixty-year-old man (not one that looks sixty, but one that is sixty). None of these, though, have to do with power. Instead, they are logically contradictory, and therefore contrary to God’s rational nature. The “Can God make a rock so big He can’t lift it?” challenge is no threat to Christian theism.