The fine lines between knowledge and true wisdom

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Robert_Sock

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Reading books may lead to a headache of endless knowledge, but it takes Contemplative Prayer to gain true wisdom!

On 6 December, 1273, he laid aside his pen and would write no more. That day he experienced an unusually long ecstasy during Mass; what was revealed to him we can only surmise from his reply to Father Reginald, who urged him to continue his writings: “I can do no more. Such secrets have been revealed to me that all I have written now appears to be of little value.”
-Saint Thomas Aquinas

The Imitation of Christ makes a statement that Christ can impart more wisdom in 10 minutes than a scholar can gain in 10 years of study at a fine university. This is similar, I think, to the enlightenment of St. Thomas Aquinas.
 
Robert_Sock said:
Reading books may lead to a headache of endless knowledge, but it takes Contemplative Prayer to gain true wisdom!

On 6 December, 1273, he laid aside his pen and would write no more. That day he experienced an unusually long ecstasy during Mass; what was revealed to him we can only surmise from his reply to Father Reginald, who urged him to continue his writings: “I can do no more. Such secrets have been revealed to me that all I have written now appears to be of little value.”
-Saint Thomas Aquinas

The Imitation of Christ makes a statement that Christ can impart more wisdom in 10 minutes than a scholar can gain in 10 years of study at a fine university. This is similar, I think, to the enlightenment of St. Thomas Aquinas.
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Yes, “head knowledge” is not the same as direct, intuitive knowledge. Or the certain knowledge that God may grant. But Aquinas’s works were still considered valuable by the Church, obviously, And I believe they amounted to a labor that God was deeply involved in. Aquinas was simply given a revelation. It may’ve only lasted a 10th of a second, but it completely overwhelmed and surpassed in perfection any knowledge he may’ve garnered during his study and philosophizing.
 
Experiential knowledge requires the head but also the entire self; methinks that is the necessary step to wisdom.

ICXC NIKA
 
fhansen said:
Yes, “head knowledge” is not the same as direct, intuitive knowledge. Or the certain knowledge that God may grant. But Aquinas’s works were still considered valuable by the Church, obviously, And I believe they amounted to a labor that God was deeply involved in. Aquinas was simply given a revelation. It may’ve only lasted a 10th of a second, but it completely overwhelmed and surpassed in perfection any knowledge he may’ve garnered during his study and philosophizing.
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Yes I agree with that.👍

paduard
 
Robert_Sock said:
Reading books may lead to a headache of endless knowledge, but it takes Contemplative Prayer to gain true wisdom!

On 6 December, 1273, he laid aside his pen and would write no more. That day he experienced an unusually long ecstasy during Mass; what was revealed to him we can only surmise from his reply to Father Reginald, who urged him to continue his writings: “I can do no more. Such secrets have been revealed to me that all I have written now appears to be of little value.”
-Saint Thomas Aquinas

The Imitation of Christ makes a statement that Christ can impart more wisdom in 10 minutes than a scholar can gain in 10 years of study at a fine university. This is similar, I think, to the enlightenment of St. Thomas Aquinas.
Click to expand...
I think God still expects us to put ion the hard yards rather than bum around waiting for an epiphany that may never come.

Perhaps it came to Aquinas precisely because he laboured so hard to find the truth with the poor tools he had at hand?
 
Blue_Horizon said:
I think God still expects us to put ion the hard yards rather than bum around waiting for an epiphany that may never come.

Perhaps it came to Aquinas precisely because he laboured so hard to find the truth with the poor tools he had at hand?
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“Poor tools”?

He had a trained human head. In the wisdom/knowledge business, that and faith are all you need.

ICXC NIKA
 
All wisdom is knowledge. Little knowledge is wisdom.
 
GEddie said:
“Poor tools”?

He had a trained human head. In the wisdom/knowledge business, that and faith are all you need.

ICXC NIKA
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God transcends all creatures. We must therefore continually purify our language of everything in it that is limited, image-bound or imperfect, if we are not to confuse our image of God–“the inexpressible, the incomprehensible, the invisible, the ungraspable”–with our human representations.Our human words always fall short of the mystery of God.

Our human concepts and statements about God fall far short of the reality… the wise especially know this and regularly admit their ignorance.
Yet their followers praise the fullness of their master’s knowledge.

A strange contradiction to be sure.
 
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