Purity of Intellect
Mark Shea has an interesting article where he says:
In the same way, when applied to the life of the mind, the Christian insight identifies purity with the union of mind and truth, not with a mind too full of fear of commitment to have contact with any truth at all. To be sure, the Christian intellect is called to “keep an open mind” until the facts are ascertained. But as Chesterton observes, the point of an open mind, like an open mouth, is to bite down on something solid. That means that the exercise of reason ultimately depends on an act of faith. Indeed, the very possibility of any mental act going forward rests, ultimately, on an unprovable article of faith: the faith that our acts of intellect will actually correspond to the structure of the world. All the sciences rest on this faith. We believe that we may understand. And, in believing, we discover again that purity of intellect, like purity of body, results in fruitfulness, not sterility.
I find this interesting when applied to tradition. Because examining our tradition involves questioning this very thing. That is asking whether “our acts of intellect will actually correspond to the structure of the world”. As a Reformed person I had been trained to think within that tradition. I had gotten pretty good at it. I had absolute faith that my thinking corresponded with the truth about God. It was required. I could not engage in reason unless I accepted that my thoughts lines up with reality. Even when I changed my mind I had to believe that my new way of thinking lined up with reality. It was not fun to meet people with different mindsets. They made clear one problem. I didn’t really have any reason for thinking my way of reasoning was right and somebody else’s was wrong.
As a Catholic the issue does not go away. What happens is you choose a tradition for a reason rather than just falling into a tradition or perhaps choosing one that feels right to you. What is really amazing is that God provides a tradition you can trust. So the choice becomes easy. It is a choice between one of many human traditions and the only Sacred Tradition. Actually it still isn’t easy. Changing traditions is never easy. But it allows you to have confidence that the next thing your mind closes on will be true. That your faith in reason is really a faith in God. That He allows your mind to work along lines that correspond with His mind. That makes being Catholic so much more exciting. The beauty is deep. The love intense. The truth is profound. Everything about it has the fingerprints of God. That is awesome and scary but it is where I want to be.
