67. With its specific character as a discipline charged with giving an account of faith (cf. 1 Pet 3:15), the concern of fundamental theology will be to justify and expound the relationship between faith and philosophical thought. Recalling the teaching of Saint Paul (cf. Rom 1:19-20), the First Vatican Council pointed to the existence of truths which are naturally, and thus philosophically, knowable; and an acceptance of God's Revelation necessarily presupposes knowledge of these truths. In studying Revelation and its credibility, as well as the corresponding act of faith, fundamental theology should show how, in the light of the knowledge conferred by faith, there emerge certain truths which reason, from its own independent enquiry, already perceives. Revelation endows these truths with their fullest meaning, directing them towards the richness of the revealed mystery in which they find their ultimate purpose. Consider, for example, the natural knowledge of God, the possibility of distinguishing divine Revelation from other phenomena or the recognition of its credibility, the capacity of human language to speak in a true and meaningful way even of things which transcend all human experience. From all these truths, the mind is led to acknowledge the existence of a truly propaedeutic path to faith, one which can lead to the acceptance of Revelation without in any way compromising the principles and autonomy of the mind itself.90
How to Create a Mind: The Secret of Human Thought Revealed epub
That effort, that superhuman consciousness are not necessarilyapparent to the reader. There is no mystery in human creation. Willperforms this miracle. But at least there is no true creation withouta secret. To be sure, a succession of works can be but a series ofapproximations of the same thought. But it is possible to conceiveof another type of creator proceeding by juxtaposition. Their worksmay seem to be devoid of interrelations. To a certain degree, theyare contradictory.
The Perfect Savior said to them: "I want you to know that Sophia, the Mother of the Universe and the consort, desired by herself to bring these to existence without her male (consort). But by the will of the Father of the Universe, that his unimaginable goodness might be revealed, he created that curtain between the immortals and those that came afterward, that the consequence might follow ... [BG 118:] ... every aeon and chaos - that the defect of the female might , and it might come about that Error would contend with her. And these became the curtain of spirit. From aeons above the emanations of Light, as I have said already, a drop from Light and Spirit came down to the lower regions of Almighty in chaos, that their molded forms might appear from that drop, for it is a judgment on him, Arch-Begetter, who is called 'Yaldabaoth'. That drop revealed their molded forms through the breath, as a living soul. It was withered and it slumbered in the ignorance of the soul. When it became hot from the breath of the Great Light of the Male, and it took thought, (then) names were received by all who are in the world of chaos, and all things that are in it through that Immortal One, when the breath blew into him. But when this came about by the will of Mother Sophia - so that Immortal Man might piece together the garments there for a judgment on the robbers - then welcomed the blowing of that breath; but since he was soul-like, he was not able to take that power for himself until the number of chaos should be complete, (that is,) when the time determined by the great angel is complete.
When I began to look into this matter I was shocked to find suchdifferent Christians as Milton, Johnson and Thomas Aquinas takingheavenly glory quite frankly in the sense of fame or good report. Butnot fame conferred by our fellow creatures--fame with God, approval or (Imight say) "appreciation" by God. And then, when I had thought it over,I saw that this view was scriptural; nothing can eliminate from theparable the divine accolade, "Well done, thou good and faithfulservant." With that, a good deal of what I had been thinking all my lifefell down like a house of cards. I suddenly remembered that no one canenter heaven except as a child; and nothing is so obvious in a child--notin a conceited child, but in a good child--as its great and undisguisedpleasure in being praised. Not only in a child, either, but even in adog or a horse. Apparently what I had mistaken for humility had, allthese years, prevented me from understanding what is in fact thehumblest, the most childlike, the most creaturely of pleasures--nay, thespecific pleasure of the inferior: the pleasure of a beast before men, achild before its father, a pupil before his teacher, a creature beforeits Creator. I am not forgetting how horribly this most innocent desireis parodied in our human ambitions, or how very quickly, in my ownexperience, the lawful pleasure of praise from those whom it was my dutyto please turns into the deadly poison of self-admiration. But I thoughtI could detect a moment--a very, very short moment--before this happened,during which the satisfaction of having pleased those whom I rightlyloved and rightly feared was pure. And that is enough to raise ourthoughts to what may happen when the redeemed soul, beyond all hope andnearly beyond belief, learns at last that she has pleased Him whom shewas created to please. There will be no room for vanity then. She willbe free from the miserable illusion that it is her doing. With no taintof what we should now call self-approval she will most innocentlyrejoice in the thing that God has made her to be, and the moment whichheals her old inferiority complex for ever will also drown her pridedeeper than Prospero's book. Perfect humility dispenses with modesty. IfGod is satisfied with the work, the work may be satisfied with itself;"it is not for her to bandy compliments with her Sovereign". I canimagine someone saying that he dislikes my idea of heaven as a placewhere we are patted on the back. But proud misunderstanding is behindthat dislike. In the end that Face which is the delight or the terror ofthe universe must be turned upon each of us either with one expressionor with the other, either conferring glory inexpressible or inflictingshame that can never be cured or disguised. I read in a periodical theother day that the fundamental thing is how we think of God. By GodHimself, it is not! How God thinks of us is not only more important, butinfinitely more important. Indeed, how we think of Him is of noimportance except in so far as it is related to how He thinks of us. Itis written that we shall "stand before" Him, shall appear, shall beinspected. The promise of glory is the promise, almost incredible andonly possible by the work of Christ, that some of us, that any of us whoreally chooses, shall actually survive that examination, shall findapproval, shall please God. To please God . . . to be a real ingredientin the divine happiness . . . to be loved by God, not merely pitied, butdelighted in as an artist delights in his work or a father in a son--itseems impossible, a weight or burden of glory which our thoughts canhardly sustain. But so it is.
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