inelegance - and at first I thought you were just not a very good speller

 How does one overcome the tendency to rely to heavily on the intellect?  prayer, ask for what you do not have and patience - holding one's tongue { not very good at it myself }

Most importantly how does one grow in true wisdom? And true humility.    I think again the answer is prayer. Knock and He will open...

I believe it was St Francis of Assissi who said, "preach the Gospel always and use words when necessary."

Remember, the Sun is always shining!

Dear Ipioch, The answer I would recommend is to allow your intellect to lead you to wisdom. Intellect is merely the workings of your brain. If you use your brain as you do any other part of your body for which it was intended, you will allow your brain to reflexively search for wisdom. Remember God created your brain as well as your heart. The way intellect is exercised in religion is through what the Pope defined as faith and reason. We have faith in what God has told us and we strive to have a reason for everything we do. Reason is where the intellect can help decipher what is reasonable. In humility, reasonable behavior is humble, so you need your intellect to reject what is not humble. Your heart will long for wisdom and love. Love is the greatest goal of wisdom and so reasonably, intellect cannot love, only your heart can love and Christ said, "Faith, hope and love abide, and the greatest of these is love"  And so in conclusion, love is wisdom. As Saint Paul says, "Love lifts us up above the law" and as Christ said, "Love covers a multitude of sin". Fear of punishment is not the same as love.

Intellect is simply put your memory and your search. If you know the answer then you draw it from your memory and if you do not know the answer, then you search with your intellect and allow your heart to tell your intellect what is the correct answer according to reason and faith.

Prayer is for calling the Holy Spirit to gain understanding which is not the same as intellect. Intellect can process and store in memory the understanding which comes from the Holy Spirit yet it is the heart that embraces understanding with love. 

In the Holy Love of God I am your brother in Christ and my name is Royal

The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge,
       but fools despise wisdom and discipline. Proverbs 1:7

I was for a long time afraid of God and the punishment I deserve. It took a long time to understand that first I need to love God and because of this love I will fear offending Him. I am a work in prgress.

Today's youth exhibit this lack of fear in regards to any authority whether it be parental, academic or civil. They lack discipline and sacrifice.

I offer that we need fasting in conjunction with prayer. One needs to be disciplined to be open to discipline. I am often astonished at the amount of time Jesus spent in prayer. I am still trying to learn that lesson. Where was Jesus before the temple story and before He started His public ministry? Why, He was fasting and praying;wouldn't you with such an undertaking in front of you? Or would we...?

When Joseph and Mary had done everything required by the Law of the Lord, they returned to Galilee to their own town of Nazareth. And the child grew and became strong; he was filled with wisdom, and the grace of God was upon him.

 Then he went down to Nazareth with them and was obedient to them. But his mother treasured all these things in her heart. And Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men. Lk 2:39-40,51-52

After reading these verses there is other things to be pondered: His parents did everything required, Jesus was obedient{disciplined}...

Remember, the Sun is always shining!

Thanks for the good comments everyone !!

Gk - i think the soul also has a capacity and necessity for emotion and or affectivity.  Think about happiness, love, devotion etc .. are 'feelings' so it seems necessary the soul be able to have a type of feeling. 

David - thanks for the spelling correction.  As it happens the two topics ( poor spelling and intelligence) are actual interrelated.  Most people who have dyslexia also have above 200 IQ's.

Royal - I do not think the intellect can bring a person to wisdom , not in and of itself.  The reason being is that intelligence is the ability to store , retrieve and analyze data.  Wisdom is the ability and desire to comprehend the meaning of events and live rightly in reality.

An intelligent person can know what they are doing is wrong and be unwise enough to do it anyway.  Satan is a million times more intelligent then anyone in this forum , but he has not a drop of wisdom because wisdom is a virtue , of which the devils have none.

lpioch - I know what you mean about children.  My wife and I have been recently blessed with our first child.  So much to learn :)

childlikeness is an expression of absolute trust.

Tarheel - thanks for your words. Prayer is key ... because wisdom is a virtue and virtue is a gift from God.  Also, I thin wisdom must be learned by experience so contact with the source of all wisdom would seem essential to become more wise.  I agree being able to quote something does not equate to understanding it.  Satan himself demonstrates he can and does quote scripture. 

What a great discussion. 

I have recently been listening to Babsie Bleasdell and her lecture called Refurbishing the Soul available on EWTN.  She reminds us that the soul is made up of 3 things: our understanding, our memory and our will.  Therefore the soul is not our spirit but three real attributes that guide us through life.  Our soul is our being, our reality and it is this soul that we live close to or far from God with.

I have realized that understanding is not equal to intelligence.  It has more to do with wisdom or the lack there of.  Memory is not intelligence either.  And our will barely has anything to do with intelligence.

fishman,

I, like you, fail miserably in guiding myself to a right relationship with God and the world.  So with you I ask: where and how can we grow in wisdom and humility?  Do our souls go where souls are called to go?  Not via pride and intelligence alone ...

GK - God is good!

some nice thoughts there.

detrich von hildebrand claims humility is the highest of all human virtues.

He calls it a human virtue because it is one we can work for ... as opposed to a divine virtue ( such as love ) , which it is impossible to progress in without grace.  Humility is the pre-disposition to recieving grace.

royal - i think you and i are mostly in agreement but we are using slightly different meanings for our terms. 

I think you are confusing the faculty called the intellect ( which can be a means to approach God ) with the general quality of being ( intelligent ) , which can be defined as having a strong intellectual capacity.  

For instance, by all accounts Stephen hawking and Albert Einstein were/ are very intelligent men.  hawking however is an atheist and Einstein a sudo deist so neither of them can be said to be wise men and their great intelligence failed to lead them to truth.

So where as I would agree the intellect can be a great aid too and is a necessary part of ones salvation ( as is the heart ).  My intent in asking the question was to consider the ways that being highly intelligent can interfere with ones journey towards God.

For instance a very intelligent person is better and making up justifications for their sins, then a simple person is. 

This kind of think is true for any natural gift, because any strength we posses can become a temptation to pride for us.  Any gift given a man can be used for or against God.

Ben Franklin put it this way “ a learned blockhead is twice the blockhead of an unlearned one”

"Are you trying to prove you IQ is above 200?" 

I'm not trying to prove anything , I don't believe very strongly in IQ test ( I won't boar you with mine either ). My poor spelling is in part due to dyslexia.  I run almost everything through a spell checker.  Have you noticed most of my misspellings are correctly spelled words in the wrong context? Spell checkers don't find that unfortunately , nor do grammar checkers necessarily.  Anyway the two are interrelated so I though it an amusing observation given the context. And meant nothing more then that by the statement.

 I miss the point of hawking home page.

Does it say something useful to the discussion? He is well known as both an atheist and a 'genus'.

Adolf Hitler also had a very high IQ, for sake of this discussion he makes just as good and example as hawkings. 

My point is a high IQ is no great advantage to sanctification, and in some circumstance might prove a disadvantage. Weather it is a brain based or soul based functionality is irrelevant to the discussion in that context, because we are discussing the quality of intellgence not it's orgins.

 Greater possession of Wisdom, the virtue, however, provides a direct advantage in becoming more holy.

So my initial question might be rephrased in part to read: I am interested in how one can more wisely inform their intellect and avoid the pitfalls associated commonly with academia and intellectual pride.

Ok...had to laugh at this one:

So my initial question might be rephrased in part to read: I am interested in how one can more wisely inform their intellect and avoid the pitfalls associated commonly with academia and intellectual pride.

Spoken like a true intellectual!

:-)

*dodging tomatoes*

"Just want to add..."

Nothing could be more natural on a CE forum than to suppose that by "wisdom" is meant sacred wisdom. 

There is besides, believe it or not, human wisdom about the sacred.

Working towards human wisdom about the sacred can help one move to the point where the program LPiosch has sketched is recognized as a reasonable approach in which one ought to invest.

One nugget of human wisdom I have in mind is the dictum of the Greeks:

"Man, know thyself."

Another is:

"Is not is not not is."  (I leave you to punctuate that.)

Another:

When the student is ready, a Master (i.e. a teacher) will appear

These are not just aphorisms and cute sayings.  Reflecting on this sort of folk wisdom, and relating it to the accounts in the Gospels can lead one to realize that human wisdom can gain meaningful insights but will always be limited by the humanity of the practice.  Hence, one realizes where true wisdom lies & what must be the means to attain it.

One must always remember: "The road to Hell is paved with good intentions" and so one must follow-up in a dedicated way, nor in a perfunctory one, in the pursuit.

Some do not require this path.  Some can move directly to the pursuit of the higher wisdom.  But, I think, not all.

Oh, and don't overlook the book of Proverbs.

Regards,

Old Sigma (Cradle Catholic [Latin rite] & generally inveterate amateur)

Both Sherlock and Perry Mason were into the same sort of thing, but for Holmes it was just a matter of personal conviction.  Mason had to convince the judge.

Does this post strike anyone as a non sequitur?

Regards,

Old Sigma (Cradle Catholic [Latin rite] & generally inveterate amateur)

pouliot

re: how do I know

I don't know, it takes a while my brother

Remember, the Sun is always shining!

Dear Noel, I am so happy that you are beginning to see through the deceit of Americans who profess Catholic faith. As I already informed you, America is predominately Protestant and so even the Catholic culture of faith is interspersed with Protestant grains of choking weed. That is why I am so on the alert to anything that evens smells like Protestant mindset. I did not mean to offend your holiness, nor your faith and reason. I am simply gunshy of American religious smart talk.

I have not been to Ireland in my life. My wife went there several years ago and described it as though she were in heaven.

We need your prayers Noel for America to survive as I foresee a terrible fate for this country. Pope John Paul 11 described America as the culture of death and so it is.

We all would benefit from your interjections of truth and the gift of understanding [from the Holy Spirit]

May God bless you, Noel in Jesus Holy Name

In the Holy Love of God I am your brother in Christ and my name is Royal