Divine intelligence

“ To grasp the reality and order of being in its Science, you must begin by reckoning God as the divine Principle Divine synonyms of all that really is. Spirit, Life, Truth, Love, combine as one, — and are the Scriptural names for God. All substance, intelligence, wisdom, being, immortality, cause, and effect belong to God. These are His attributes, the eternal manifestations of the infinite divine Principle, Love. No wisdom is wise but His wisdom; no truth is true, no love is lovely, no life is Life is but the divine; no good is, but the good God bestows. ”

“ Also, as we have seen (ante-Lesson III) , not only is the Immanent Spirit the Divine Power, but that spirit carries with it into the immensity of space which it pervades, at least certain attributes of the Divine Intelligence from whom it proceeds, and becomes the inspiration to intelligence in men, and the atmosphere of wisdom, holiness, truth, and of love. ”

“ It is agreed among all Catholic theologians: 1. That created intelligence can, by the explication of its own constitutive principles, attain to the knowledge of God as causa altissima; or, that God is, per se, the ultimate object of reason. 2. That there is a mode of the relation of intelligence to its ultimate object, or to God, a permanent state of the intuition of {153} God, by a created spirit, called the intuitive, beatific vision of the divine essence, which can be attained only by a supernatural elevation and illumination of the intelligence. ”

“ When understanding changes the standpoints of life and intelligence from a material to a spiritual basis, we shall Standpoints changed gain the reality of Life, the control of Soul over sense, and we shall perceive Christianity, or Truth, in its divine Principle. This must be the climax before harmonious and immortal man is obtained and his capabilities revealed. It is highly important — in view of the immense work to be accomplished before this recognition of divine Science can come — to turn our thoughts towards divine Principle, that finite belief may be prepared to relinquish its error. ”

“ We must learn that God is infinitely more than a person, or finite form, can contain; that God is a divine Whole, and All, an all-pervading intelligence and Love, a divine, infinite Principle; and that Christianity is a divine Science. This newly awakened consciousness is wholly spiritual; it emanates from Soul instead of body, and is the new birth begun in Christian Science. ”

“ And, assuredly, the God of all goodness, in all that pertains to divine things, has not only manifested by the light of faith those truths which human intelligence could not attain of itself, but others, also, not altogether unattainable by reason, that by the help of divine authority they may be made known to all at once and without any admixture of error. ”

“ For there is an intellect, namely, the Divine, which is Its own act of intelligence, so that in God the understanding of His intelligence, and the understanding of His Essence, are one and the same act, because His Essence is His act of understanding. ”

“ If, then, one may argue, the intelligences we know as men possess this atmosphere of personal influence extending beyond the personal self, how much more angels, arch-angels, and the higher Intelligences who have taken on, or participated in, the Divine Nature and entered into their exaltation and glory with other innumerable Divine Intelligences whom we call Gods—with how much more reason may we expect that these may have such spiritual influence proceeding forth from their presence? ”

“ Intelligence and piety must acknowledge it to arise from some new activity of the Divine mercy, and thus to a spiritual manifestation of the Lord. But what is the purpose of the superior state which the natural mind has attained to, and in which it is still advancing? Is it merely for transitory purposes, that man may for a few years enjoy natural intelligence in the natural world? ”

“ Man can be raised therefore from natural knowledge into spiritual intelligence and on into celestial wisdom. From the two, intelligence and wisdom, he can look to the Lord, be conjoined with Him, and thereby live to eternity. ”

“ It is true that I have heard that the soul, in order to put itself in the ultimate degree of divine things, descends into the mortal body, and from this goes up again to the divine degrees, which are three degrees of intelligence. ”

“ And as, in order that these two extremes may be united — namely, the soul and Divine Wisdom — it will be necessary for them to attain to agreement, by means of a certain mutual resemblance, hence it follows that the soul must be pure and simple, neither bounded by, nor attached to, any particular kind of intelligence, nor modified by any limitation of form, species and image. As God comes not within any image or form, neither is contained within any particular kind of intelligence, so the soul, in order to reach God, [7] must likewise come within no distinct form or kind of intelligence. ”

“ This act consists radically and essentially in the immediate contemplation of the divine essence. Created intelligence, therefore, elevated to the hypostatic union, contemplates the essence of God directly, without any intervening medium, by the immediate intuition or beatific vision of God. ”

“ In the laws and phenomena of matter and force he finds conclusive evidence of a Supreme controlling Spirit, and in the phenomena of life and intelligence he sees proof "that our own being has to some degree the spiritual essence of the Divine nature." ”

“ I. God is supreme Being, the only Life, Substance, and Soul, the only Intelligence of the universe, including The deific supremacy. man. Eye hath neither seen God, nor His likeness. Neither God nor the perfect man can be discerned by the human senses. The individuality of Spirit is unknown, and thus a knowledge of it is left either to human conjecture or the revelation of Divine Science. ”

“ And no being possesses intelligence, in any degree, that he has not received from the God of heaven, or, in other words, from the Fountain of all intelligence, whether he acknowledges his God in it or not. ”

“ It asks for a wisdom above its own, to instruct us in the great truths of our being, our relations to God, our duties, and our destiny. It feels that divine wisdom alone is competent to declare what the divine will is. ”

“ Seeing the logical force of this, he quibbles thus: "We do not say that God has intelligence, but that God is wisdom in form and love in essence, and therefore the infinite source of all intelligence." ”

“ A theistic theological belief may agree with physics and anatomy that reason and will are properly classified as mind, located in the brain; also, that the functions of these faculties depend on conditions of matter, or brain, for their proper exercise. But reason and will are human; God is divine. ”

“ No analogy exists between the vague hypotheses of Pantheism, Gnosticism, Spiritualism, or Infidelity, and the demonstrable truths of Christian Science; and I find the so-called power, will, or reason of the human mind, to be opposed to the Divine Mind, expressed through Science. In Truth, and its marvellous ability to reveal God, there is nothing supernatural, for this is its normal function. ”

“ It only needs the prism of this Science to divide the rays of Truth, and bring out the entire hues of Deity, which scholastic theology has hidden. The lens of Science magnifies the divine power to human sight; and we then see the supremacy of Spirit and the nothingness of matter. ”

“ And practice will increase the application which has knowledge for its end. With reason, therefore, the apostle has called the wisdom of God "manifold," and which has manifested its power "in many departments and in many modes" [40] —by art, by knowledge, by faith, by prophecy—for our benefit. "For all wisdom is from the Lord, and is with Him for ever," as says the Wisdom of Jesus. [41]
"For if thou call on wisdom and knowledge with a loud voice, and seek it as treasures of silver, and eagerly track it out, thou shalt understand godliness and find divine knowledge." ”

“ But how to find God here, and feelingly to converse with Him, and being affected with the sense of the Divine glory shining out upon the creation, how to pass out of the sensible world into the intellectual, is not so effectually taught by that philosophy which professed it most, as by true religion. That which knits and unites God and the soul together can best teach it how to ascend and descend upon those golden links that unite, as it were, the world to God. ”

“ To endeavor to understand the Divine Knowledge is as though we endeavored to be God himself, so that our perception should be as his.... It is absolutely impossible for us to attain this kind of perception. ”

“ God created all in the kingdom of Mind, when He expressed in man the infinite idea, forever developing itself, broadening and rising higher and higher from a boundless source. We know no more of man's personality, as the true divine image and likeness, than we know of God's. ”

“ As we have long ago pointed out, what we propose as our subject is not the discipline which obtains in each sect, but that which is really philosophy, strictly systematic Wisdom, which furnishes acquaintance with the things which pertain to life. And we define Wisdom to be certain knowledge, being a sure and irrefragable apprehension of things divine and human, comprehending the present, past, and future, which the Lord hath taught us, both by His advent and by the prophets. ”

“ To realize the existence of this mighty God is but to dread his omnipotent strength, unless we can see him possessed of benevolence and goodness corresponding to his power. Of this fact we are also fully assured by the same evidence which proves his existence, power and wisdom. ”

“ We may as well do this, as discern divine and supernatural things by natural and human reason. God has endued us with different faculties, suitable and proportionable to the different objects that engage them. We discover sensible things by our senses, rational things by our reason, things intellectual by understanding, but divine and cœlestial things he has reserved for the exercise of our faith, which is a kind of divine and superior sense in the soul. ”

“ An incontestable point in Divine Science is, that because God is All, a realization of this fact dispels even the sense or consciousness of sin, and brings us nearer to God, bringing out the highest phenomena of the All-Mind. ”

“ Now, these triumphs of science have not redounded merely to the empty glory of their hero, but they have been solid contributions also to the benefit of man and to the glory of God.
What other argument for the existence of God has done more for theism than the argument from design? In the admirable harmonies and adaptations of the world, the natural theologian finds the most convincing illustrations of a Supreme Intelligence anterior to the universe. ”

“ We deny, however, that there is any exigency in created nature for the supernatural good. The difficulty above stated, that God is necessarily the supreme object of the created intellect and the created will, we answer as follows. Intellect, by nature, seeks God, according to its own mode and measure. The operation of the will is determined by the intellect. Nil volitum nisi prius cognitum. The divine intellect, which is the divine essence considered as intelligent subject, is in adequation with the divine essence considered as intelligible object. ”

“ Divine Metaphysics, as revealed to my understanding, What God is. shows me that all is Mind, and that Mind is God, omnipotence, omnipresence, omniscience, — alias all power, all presence, all Science. Hence all is in reality the manifestation of Mind.
All our merely human theories are destitute of Science. The true understanding of God is eternal. It robs the grave of victory. It takes away sin, and the delusion that there are other gods, other powers, such as disease, sin, and death, superior or contrary to the one omnipotent Good. ”

“ Deceived by their increased but still very imperfect knowledge and limited mastery of the brute forces of nature, men imagine that they have discovered the secrets of Divine Wisdom, and do not hesitate, in their own thoughts, to put human prudence in the place of the Divine. ”

“ When sufficiently advanced in Science to be in harmony with the truth of being, men become seers and prophets involuntarily, controlled not by demons, spirits, or demigods, but by the one Spirit. It is the prerogative of the ever-present, divine Mind, and of thought which is in rapport with this Mind, to know the past, the present, and the future. ”

“ The time has come for this finite notion, of the body as God, to give place to a diviner sense of Mind and its manifestation, in the better understanding that Science gives of the Supreme Being, or Divine Principle, named, in the Scriptures, Life, Truth, Love. Interpreting God as a personal Saviour, instead of the saving Principle, we shall continue to seek salvation through pardon and not through reform, and resort to matter instead of Spirit to heal the sick. ”

“ Thus religion, beginning as a slight and partial acknowledgment of powers superior to man, tends with the growth of knowledge to deepen into a confession of man’s entire and absolute dependence on the divine ”

“ The triumphs of Christian Science are recorded in the destruction of error and evil, from which are propagated the dismal beliefs of sin, sickness, and death.
The divine Principle of the universe must interpret the universe. God is the divine Principle of all that represents God the Principle of all Him and of all that really exists. ”

“ Secondly, the intellect stands towards God, not indeed as knowing God as He is, but in its own way, i.e. understanding manifoldly and separately what in God is one: and in this way our intellect can understand the Divine goodness and wisdom, and the like, which are called essential attributes, without understanding Paternity or Filiation, which are called Personalities. And hence if we abstract Personality by our intellect, we may still understand the Nature assuming. ”