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Saturday, July 17, 2010

Logic is Finite


I just read these this morning. A great balance of what it means to feed the mind and the soul:
"Every logical position ... will eventually lead into trouble, and heresy, and chaos. Every logical position is fully consistent, but coherence arises from the human mind, not God's. The human mind is finite and cannot grasp eternity, and therefore the finite mind sees the infinite as not graspable coherently. If we could grasp it all coherently, without contradiction, we would be God. The person who insists on being logical to the end winds up in a mess. I am not saying that we should not be rational. I am not anti-intellectual. I am saying that the intellect by itself is helpless to arrive at total truth.
... Kenneth L. Pike (1912-2001), Stir, Change, Create, p. 44

"Prayer without study is like a soul without a body," the rabbis say. St. Benedict clearly felt the same way... It is necessary to understand the Scriputures before it is possible to pray them. It is essential to be steeped in the Scriptures before it is possible to exude them... the idea of groundedness in the spiritual life should make us stop and think. We're all busy. We're all overscheduled. We're all trying to deal with people and projects that consume us. We're all spiritually thirsty. And, we're all responsible for filling the mind with rich ideas in order to leaven the soul. Prayer, contemplation and spiritual adulthood don't happen by themselves. We have to work at them.

... Joan Chittister, The Rule of Benedict, p. 115

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