“Theologians call faith a sure but obscure habit (habitus) of the soul;” obscure, because “it brings us to believe divinely revealed truths that transcend every natural light and infinitely exceed all human understanding. As a result, the excessive light of faith bestowed on a soul is darkness for it; a brighter light will eclipse and suppress a dimmer one.” “So the light of faith suppresses and overwhelms that of the intellect through its abundance. For the intellect, by its own power, extends only to natural knowledge.”1 It can meanwhile become capable of receiving supernatural knowledge when God wishes to raise it to do so. On its own the intellect can only gain knowledge in the natural way, that is, by means of the senses which present an object to it.
Stein, Edith. The Science of the Cross (The Collected Works of Edith Stein Vol. 6) (Kindle Location 1252). ICS Publications. Kindle Edition.