We are sometimes confused on the whole age-long controversial question of thinking, of the use of the mind. Throughout the centuries, East and West, there has always been a tendency amongst religious people to denigrate thinking, as if thinking were an enemy of the Spirit. This tendency has been particularly strong in all forms of monasticism. Monks have even gone so far as to consider that in denying themselves space for thinking they have opened themselves more directly to the unhindered communication of the Holy Spirit. This policy is dangerous, for in closing the conscious working of the mind they are weakening their defences, and while attempting to deny temptation, they are excluding the one great defence: a mind open to the influence of the Spirit.
It is neither safe nor fruitful to seek to deny our minds. In fact it is not possible. However we wriggle about, we can only every deny thought by thinking we deny it. So it would seem safer and more fruitful, instead of fighting the inevitable, to set about seeking to train our minds, to discipline them, gradually to learn to avoid self-indulgent speculation and idle dreaming.
Once we accept positively the inevitability of thought, we can begin to learn to direct our minds carefully and lovingly to the search for Truth in every sphere. (Tavener, John, and Mother Thekla, Icons: Mediations in Words and Music, Fount Paperbacks, London, 1994, pp. 23-23.)
Recently I came upon an article on the Internet entitled, “Reason as Pope,” or something close to that. It was an article in defense of irrational theology.
Well, reason is not pope. Our faith is not something human reason hatched, but is based upon what God in Christ has revealed. Reason is not the basis or source of the Christian faith, does not dictate what we shall believe but is shaped by it.
Reason just trumps unreasoning, trumps absurdlity. That’s all.
But that’s terribly, terribly important. If we fail to let reason do that, we have defeated the purpose for which God gave it.
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