Post 142.
God made us as logical creatures, as well as material, social, creative, and spiritual creatures. May I never have the hubris to say, when talking of my material reality, that it is my animal self in a way that implies it is less than other aspects of myself. God created the material as well as the immaterial. A dog is no less created by and beloved of God than the Pythagorean theorem. One material and one immaterial. No. This is a Platonic ordering of reality. Nonetheless, one ought not swing the pendulum too far in the other way, and reduce all to material—mind to brain, mathematics to the number of objects, music to soundwaves—and claim living the intellectual life is some sort of hubris.
The intellectual life can indeed become hubris, if taken from a Platonic stance of ordering; things below forms of things, material below ideal. But from a scriptural perspective, there is no necessity of such hierarchy. Each are beloved creations of God. Both are also the right of everybody, regardless of job, class, race, intellectual ability, or sex. Every human has a need to wrestle, to their ability, with intellectual questions. There is, then, a humble intellectual life that can be lived by everybody. Whether or not witty folk can easily grasp those things wrestled with by those who are less quick is irrelevant to the question. Stay in your lane. Wrestle with your own problems. If you have a way to help, help. But don’t judge. The medieval hierarchy—nobility above aristocrats; above clergy; above soldiers and guildsmen; who are above peasants—appropriates too much space in our hearts today, long after our cultures have made a mockery of nobles, aristocrats, and clergy. Let us drop the hierarchical thinking and return to those grace filled needs of the human, which are not only material, but also intellectual, artistic, and spiritual.
DS
Link to image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Intellect,_statue_by_Josef_Ma%C5%99atka.jpg
God made us as logical creatures, as well as material, social, creative, and spiritual creatures. May I never have the hubris to say, when talking of my material reality, that it is my animal self in a way that implies it is less than other aspects of myself. God created the material as well as the immaterial. A dog is no less created by and beloved of God than the Pythagorean theorem. One material and one immaterial. No. This is a Platonic ordering of reality. Nonetheless, one ought not swing the pendulum too far in the other way, and reduce all to material—mind to brain, mathematics to the number of objects, music to soundwaves—and claim living the intellectual life is some sort of hubris.
The intellectual life can indeed become hubris, if taken from a Platonic stance of ordering; things below forms of things, material below ideal. But from a scriptural perspective, there is no necessity of such hierarchy. Each are beloved creations of God. Both are also the right of everybody, regardless of job, class, race, intellectual ability, or sex. Every human has a need to wrestle, to their ability, with intellectual questions. There is, then, a humble intellectual life that can be lived by everybody. Whether or not witty folk can easily grasp those things wrestled with by those who are less quick is irrelevant to the question. Stay in your lane. Wrestle with your own problems. If you have a way to help, help. But don’t judge. The medieval hierarchy—nobility above aristocrats; above clergy; above soldiers and guildsmen; who are above peasants—appropriates too much space in our hearts today, long after our cultures have made a mockery of nobles, aristocrats, and clergy. Let us drop the hierarchical thinking and return to those grace filled needs of the human, which are not only material, but also intellectual, artistic, and spiritual.
DS
Link to image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Intellect,_statue_by_Josef_Ma%C5%99atka.jpg
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