The Pilgrim's Rule
Chapter 2
The Intellect under the Light of Truth
Learning to receive reality, judge rightly, and submit the mind to God.
And be not conformed to this world; but be reformed in the newness of your mind: that you may prove what is the good, and the acceptable, and the perfect will of God.
The kingdom within cannot be governed in darkness.
The will chooses what the intellect presents as good. The passions press their claims. Memory supplies images. Imagination paints possibilities. judges what must be done. Yet unless the mind receives truth, every other interior power can be directed toward a false object.
A resolute will can pursue evil efficiently.
A disciplined imagination can construct persuasive fantasies.
A strong memory can preserve injuries.
An intense can accuse where no sin exists or remain silent where repentance is required.
Interior order therefore begins beneath a light the soul does not create.
It begins with truth.
The Intellect Was Made for Truth
God created man with the spiritual powers of intellect and will. By reason he can know realities beyond immediate sensation, recognize moral order, deliberate about means, and direct himself toward a good freely chosen.[^1]
The intellect does not manufacture the nature of things. It receives, abstracts, compares, distinguishes, judges, and reasons. Its perfection lies in conformity to what is.
This dependence upon reality is not humiliation.
It is the mind's dignity.
An eye is perfected by seeing what stands before it, not by demanding that light conform to preference. The intellect is perfected when it knows the true, not when it makes desire the measure of being.
The first discipline of the mind is therefore receptive:
What is this thing?
What has actually happened?
What does God reveal?
What does teach?
What evidence is present?
What conclusion truly follows?
The pilgrim does not ask first what interpretation will protect his comfort.
He asks what is true.
Truth Has Its Source in God
God does not merely possess accurate information. He is Truth itself. His knowledge is not measured by creatures; creatures are measured by His creative wisdom. All that exists receives being and intelligibility from Him.[^2]
The eternal Word is the light through whom all things were made. In the Incarnation, Truth does not arrive as an abstraction but as a Person. Christ declares Himself the Way, the Truth, and the Life. To know truth rightly is therefore ordered, however remotely, toward communion with Him.[^3]
This protects the Christian from two errors.
Truth is not a cold possession by which the clever dominate the simple.
Truth is not a private construction altered by desire.
It is a gift grounded in God, manifested supremely in Christ, and entrusted to the mind so that the whole person may live according to reality.
To love truth is to love something of God's light.
To knowingly resist truth is to resist a gift of the One who cannot deceive or be deceived.
The Wound of Ignorance
The fall did not destroy reason, but it wounded human nature.
The mind remains capable of truth. It can know many things naturally. It can reason, discover, remember, teach, build, and recognize genuine moral goods. Yet ignorance now burdens judgment. Passion can bend attention. can prevent correction. Habit can make falsehood seem familiar. Sin can darken the practical mind precisely where conversion would be costly.[^4]
This wound appears in ordinary life.
A man sees clearly the faults that inconvenience him and vaguely the faults that benefit him.
He demands evidence before forgiving an enemy but accepts rumor when it damages that enemy.
He calls his fear , his resentment , his appetite necessity, and his refusal to learn fidelity.
The intellect may then remain active while serving disorder.
It reasons, but from premises selected by passion.
It gathers facts, but only those permitted by .
It distinguishes, but only when distinction excuses the self.
The pilgrim must therefore distrust neither reason nor the doctrine of the fall.
Reason is a gift.
Its wounds are real.
does not abolish the gift. It heals and elevates it.
Faith Does Not Destroy Reason
Faith and reason come from the same God. They cannot truly contradict one another.[^5]
Reason can know real truths about creation, human nature, moral action, and even the existence of God. Revelation gives truths that the created mind could never discover by its own power and confirms truths that human weakness might otherwise know only with difficulty, uncertainty, or mixture of error.[^6]
Faith is not permission to think carelessly.
Reason is not permission to judge Revelation from a throne above God.
Faith purifies reason from the of self-sufficiency and opens it to mysteries exceeding its natural reach. Reason serves faith by examining credibility, clarifying terms, drawing legitimate conclusions, defending revealed doctrine, and showing the harmony of truths.[^7]
The mind must avoid two opposite rebellions.
Rationalism accepts only what unaided reason is willing to place beneath its measure.
Fideism treats reason, evidence, nature, and careful distinction as enemies of belief.
The Catholic mind refuses both.
It believes God because He is Truth. It reasons because the same God created the intellect.
The Obedience of Faith
Faith is a supernatural by which, moved and assisted by , man gives himself to God and assents to what God reveals because of the of God revealing.[^8]
This assent engages intellect and will.
The intellect assents to divine truth. The will, moved by , commands that assent. The act is free, yet precedes and sustains it.[^9]
The of faith is not the surrender of the mind to human pressure. It is the submission of the creature to God, who can neither deceive nor be deceived.
Nor is faith merely agreement that propositions are correct.
It is personal adherence to God inseparable from assent to the truth He has made known.
The pilgrim therefore does not divide Christ from doctrine.
He cannot claim to trust the Teacher while treating His teaching as negotiable material. Neither can he defend formulas while refusing the conversion they require.
The intellect bows so that the whole person may belong to God.
Receive the Faith from the Church
Christ entrusted Revelation to His Apostles. and Sacred Scripture form one sacred deposit of the word of God, authentically interpreted by the living teaching office of , which serves that word rather than standing above it.[^10]
The pilgrim does not invent Christianity from isolated impressions.
He receives the Creed, the , the commandments, the moral law, and the mysteries of Christ within .
This requires more than vague religious sympathy.
Know what is actually taught.
Learn the words by which guards the mysteries.
Distinguish from theological opinion, discipline from local custom, binding moral principle from one person's application, and authentic from private confidence.
When uncertain, consult the Roman Catechism and other approved traditional catechisms, the decrees of true councils, the teaching of the Roman Pontiffs, the received canon law, approved liturgical books, sound theological works, and competent Catholic pastors or teachers.
Do not let a headline, fragment, private message, or angry summary become the voice of in the imagination.
Definitions Protect Reality
Words can unite the mind to truth or permit it to move through fog.
's doctrinal language often arose because error exploited ambiguity. Terms such as person, nature, substance, , , , , and are not decorations for specialists. They protect realities necessary for worship and salvation.
A definition does not exhaust a mystery.
It prevents the mind from saying what the mystery is not.
The pilgrim should therefore ask what a word means before arguing about it. He should notice when the same word is being used in different senses. He should not accuse another of denying a proposition until he understands what was actually affirmed.
Many conflicts are fed by undefined words carrying several meanings at once.
Precision can be an act of .
Contradictions Cannot Both Be True
Truth is one.
Two statements that contradict one another in the same respect cannot both be true. The unity of truth rests ultimately in the one God of creation and Revelation.[^11]
This elementary principle protects the soul from a fashionable evasion.
Sincerity does not reconcile contradictions.
Good intention does not make error true.
Complexity does not mean that affirmation and denial are identical.
Mystery exceeds comprehension, but it does not abolish reason. The Trinity is above reason; it is not the assertion that God is one and three in the same respect. The Incarnation surpasses imagination; it does not mean Christ is and is not truly God.
The mind permits distinctions to serve truth.
The evasive mind uses complexity to avoid judgment altogether.
Fact, Interpretation, and Judgment
Interior confusion often begins when different mental acts are blended together.
A fact is what is or occurred.
An interpretation proposes the meaning, cause, or relation of facts.
A judgment affirms or denies something as true.
A practical judgment determines what ought to be done.
Suppose a friend does not answer a message.
The fact is the absence of an answer.
“He despises me” is an interpretation, not an observed fact.
“I may speak against him” is a moral judgment requiring principles of and .
“I will send an accusation immediately” is a practical decision.
If the first interpretation is false, the succeeding judgments may become a chain of injury built upon imagination.
The pilgrim should slow the chain.
What do I know?
What am I inferring?
What remains unknown?
What does require while uncertainty remains?
Imagination Is Not Knowledge
The imagination makes absent things present under images. It assists memory, planning, art, empathy, and meditation. Yet vividness is not evidence.
A feared future can feel present without being probable.
A remembered scene can acquire details never observed.
A repeated image can seem true because it is familiar.
A persuasive story can move the passions before the intellect has examined its claims.
The pilgrim should not despise imagination. He should govern it.
When an image produces accusation, fear, , or despair, ask whether the mind possesses the truth it appears to announce.
An image can be suffered without assent.
It becomes morally significant according to how the will receives, rejects, cultivates, or uses it.
Feeling Is Not a Verdict
Feelings reveal something, but not necessarily what they first appear to prove.
Fear may reveal danger, memory, exhaustion, temperament, bodily illness, or uncertainty.
Anger may follow injustice, wounded vanity, frustrated control, or simple misunderstanding.
Peace may accompany , relief, avoidance, or an untroubled badly formed.
The intellect must listen without kneeling.
“I feel condemned” does not prove that God has rejected the soul.
“I feel sincere” does not prove that a judgment is sound.
“I feel no devotion” does not prove that prayer is worthless.
“I feel certain” does not create evidence.
Passions can alert reason. They cannot replace it.
Opinion Must Know Its Measure
Not every judgment possesses equal certainty.
Some truths are known by divine faith. Others are known by reason or immediate experience. Some conclusions are morally certain. Some are probable. Some are merely possible. Some matters remain unknown.
The truthful mind marks these differences.
It does not say “ teaches” when it means “I prefer.”
It does not say “everyone knows” when it has heard one report.
It does not say “God told me” when it has formed a personal impression.
It does not say “impossible” when it means “I cannot imagine how.”
It does not say “certain” merely to silence anxiety.
Intellectual includes proportioning confidence to evidence and .
“I do not know” can be an act of truth.
Rash Judgment
To judge another's hidden disposition or guilt without sufficient foundation violates and .[^12]
The mind may move quickly from an outward act to an interior sentence:
He acted clumsily; therefore he is malicious.
She disagreed; therefore she is .
He failed once; therefore he never cared.
She spoke firmly; therefore she hates me.
Circumstances may require judgment of outward conduct. Parents, superiors, judges, employers, and those responsible for safety must sometimes act upon evidence. is not blindness.
Yet one must distinguish necessary prudential judgment from the appetite to occupy God's tribunal.
Interpret words and deeds favorably where permits. Seek clarification. Protect the vulnerable. Establish facts. Correct actual wrong. Leave the secrets of the heart to God.
Credulity Is Not Faith
Faith believes God revealing.
Credulity believes claims without proportionate reason because they excite fear, flatter desire, confirm suspicion, or arrive clothed in religious language.
A pious tone does not authenticate a story.
A dramatic prediction does not establish a private revelation.
An image, quotation card, anonymous testimony, or confident speaker does not become trustworthy through repetition.
Test sources. Identify who is speaking. Read the document rather than the summary where duty permits. Distinguish eyewitness, inference, rumor, and fabrication. Notice whether a claim contradicts faith, morals, established fact, or competent .
The supernatural does not require the abandonment of .
herself examines alleged miracles and revelations carefully. Private revelations, even when approved, do not complete or correct the definitive Revelation given in Christ.[^13]
The pilgrim honors God by refusing both cynical disbelief and excited gullibility.
Curiosity and Studiousness
The desire to know is good, but like every appetite it requires order.
St. Thomas distinguishes studiousness from curiosity. Studiousness applies the mind earnestly and moderately to knowledge ordered toward truth and duty. Curiosity seeks knowledge in a disordered manner: for , sinful use, unlawful means, distraction from obligation, or fascination with what does not belong to one's charge.[^14]
Curiosity is not measured only by subject matter.
One can study theology curiously while neglecting prayer and repentance.
One can read news curiously while ignoring the dependent person nearby.
One can pursue another's secrets curiously while calling it concern.
One can collect arguments against error while becoming unable to contemplate truth.
Ask before opening another source:
Does duty require this?
Will it help me know, love, or serve God?
Am I prepared to act upon what requires?
Am I avoiding a nearer task?
Am I feeding anxiety, vanity, anger, or ?
The disciplined intellect knows not only how to learn.
It knows when to stop.
The Appetite for Novelty
New information offers a small promise of enlargement. The mind feels that one more report, controversy, explanation, or revelation will finally bring control.
But novelty can keep the intellect perpetually at the threshold.
It begins many books and finishes none.
It hears many teachers and obeys none.
It encounters many questions and remains with no truth long enough to become wise.
The Gospel does not need to be made new before it can convert the soul.
Return to first principles.
Read the Creed again.
Read the Gospel slowly.
Study the commandments.
Learn one doctrine accurately.
Remain with one sound book until it has been understood.
Wisdom grows by depth, relation, judgment, and life—not by accumulation alone.
Choose Teachers Prudently
No pilgrim learns alone.
He receives language, distinctions, testimony, correction, and accumulated wisdom from others. The question is not whether he will be taught, but by whom.
Choose teachers whose doctrine is sound, sources are identifiable, reasoning is honest, life does not openly contradict the truth proclaimed, and is proportionate to the claim.
Give privileged attention to Sacred Scripture within , the Fathers and Doctors, councils and papal teaching, the Catechism, approved liturgical texts, and proven spiritual masters.
This does not mean that every useful natural truth must come from a Catholic writer. Truth remains truth wherever found, and legitimate arts and sciences possess their own methods.[^15]
Yet no human teacher is incapable of error.
Do not create a private from a favored author, priest, commentator, academic, or personality.
Receive help gratefully.
Reserve divine faith for God revealing.
Read Primary Sources
When a dispute concerns what someone actually taught, read the source when reasonably possible.
Summaries are necessary. Good teachers save time. Commentaries clarify difficult texts. Yet excerpts can omit qualifications, and polemics can attribute to an opponent what he never held.
Begin with the question.
Locate the relevant passage.
Read enough context to understand its object.
Notice whether the author is defining, objecting, distinguishing, conceding, or concluding.
Compare authoritative translations if a word carries weight.
Then use trustworthy commentary.
This discipline is especially important when speaking publicly, accusing another, forming , or claiming as .
The eighth commandment governs scholarship too.
Scripture Must Govern the Mind
Sacred Scripture is inspired by God and teaches firmly, faithfully, and without error that truth which God wished to see confided to the sacred writings for the sake of salvation.[^16]
The pilgrim should read it as God's word entrusted to .
Read the literal sense attentively. Attend to genre, context, unity, , and the analogy of faith. Receive the spiritual senses without using them to destroy what the text affirms.[^17]
Do not approach Scripture merely to find phrases for an existing opinion.
Let it contradict you.
Let the commandments expose excuses.
Let the Psalms teach desire.
Let the prophets uncover false worship.
Let the Gospels place Christ before the mind.
Let the Apostles teach the pattern of life in .
The sacred page was not given to decorate self-will.
It was given to make the mind obedient to God.
Learn with the Fathers and Doctors
The Fathers witness to 's ancient reception of Scripture and doctrine. The Doctors unite holiness with eminent teaching. Their schools and emphases differ, but their service teaches the pilgrim how reason can labor inside faith.[^18]
St. Augustine teaches the mind to seek the Truth above the changing self.
St. Athanasius guards the divinity of the Word because salvation depends upon who Christ is.
St. Thomas distinguishes so that affirmation may conform to reality.
St. Bonaventure orders knowledge toward wisdom and love.
St. Teresa examines interior experience beneath and doctrine.
St. John of the Cross strips spiritual impressions of their claim to govern faith.
St. Francis de Sales joins clear judgment to gentleness.
Do not invoke the saints as ornaments for an opinion.
Become their student.
Study According to Vocation
The measure of study differs according to duty.
A priest, catechist, parent, teacher, judge, physician, tradesman, student, and newly instructed Catholic do not require identical knowledge. Each must learn what is necessary to worship God, avoid sin, fulfill obligations, and serve those entrusted to him.
Neglect of necessary study can become moral failure.
A worker who refuses instruction may injure another.
A parent who will not learn the faith may leave a child unfed spiritually.
A person who makes grave moral judgments without understanding relevant facts may act .
A teacher who speaks beyond competence may spread error with confidence.
Study is then not self-enrichment alone.
It is part of .
Begin with what duty requires. Establish a realistic time. Take notes sparingly. Review. Ask questions. Apply what has been learned. Do not allow the desire to know everything to prevent learning the next necessary thing.
Prayer before Study
The intellect depends upon God in every natural act and upon supernatural light for the knowledge of revealed mysteries.[^19]
Pray before study.
Ask for light, , perseverance, of intention, and protection from error.
Offer the labor for God's glory and the service of souls.
When difficulty appears, remain without panic. When understanding comes, give thanks. When uncertainty remains, mark it honestly. When truth requires repentance, do not hide inside further research.
Study should end sometimes in adoration.
The mind has not failed when mystery leads it to kneel.
It has reached the proper threshold of a truth greater than itself.
Doubt Must Be Named Truthfully
Not every question is sinful doubt.
The mind may fail to understand a doctrine it truly assents to. It may experience involuntary difficulty. It may need evidence concerning a historical claim. It may distinguish what has been defined from what remains disputed.
Voluntary doubt is different. It disregards or refuses to hold as true what God has revealed and proposes for belief.[^20]
The pilgrim should not call every difficulty .
Neither should he cultivate suspension as though permanent indecision were .
Name the object.
What exactly is uncertain?
Is it revealed doctrine, a theological explanation, a disciplinary judgment, a factual allegation, or an emotional resistance?
What proposes it?
What evidence is relevant?
What moral cost makes assent unwelcome?
Bring real questions into prayer and sound instruction. Refuse the secret that will accept truth only after the whole mystery has fit inside one's imagination.
Error Must Be Corrected without Vanity
To discover that one has been wrong is painful because the mind's wound is entangled with .
Do not defend an error merely because it has become public.
Do not change the subject.
Do not exaggerate the opponent's claim to preserve the appearance of victory.
Say:
I was mistaken.
I spoke beyond my knowledge.
I repeated what I had not verified.
I judged an intention without evidence.
I used the term incorrectly.
Then repair what the error harmed.
Correction received humbly can purify the intellect more deeply than a debate won through cleverness.
The love of truth is proved when truth defeats the self.
Correct Others in Charity
Truth and cannot be enemies because both have their source in God.
Fraternal correction seeks the neighbor's good. Its object, , timing, manner, necessity, and probable fruit must be judged .[^21]
Not every error requires immediate public response.
Not every silence is .
Ask whether duty gives responsibility. Establish what was actually said. Correct the claim rather than inventing a hidden motive. Use the least humiliating sufficient means. Distinguish grave danger from minor imprecision. Remain willing to be corrected in return.
The person who enjoys exposing error should examine the enjoyment.
The person who fears all conflict should examine the fear.
Speak the truth in so that both speaker and hearer may grow into Christ.[^22]
Conscience Must Be Formed by Truth
is not an independent source creating good and evil. It is a judgment of reason by which the person recognizes the moral quality of a concrete act.[^23]
One must follow a certain , yet one must also form .
Ignorance can diminish responsibility, but ignorance may itself be culpable when a person neglects what he could and should have known. Repeated sin can blind judgment. Cultural approval can make evil appear ordinary. can make innocent things appear forbidden.
Form through the word of God, the teaching of , prayer, examination, counsel, and honest attention to facts.[^24]
Do not seek only a conclusion that relieves pressure.
Ask what God commands.
Ask what object is chosen.
Ask what intention moves it.
Ask what circumstances affect responsibility or consequence.
Then act with a will prepared to .
Prudence Brings Truth into Action
The intellect is not ordered merely by accumulating principles.
applies right reason to action. It remembers experience, understands the present, receives counsel, judges means, and commands the fitting act.[^25]
The imprudent person may know moral vocabulary yet fail to see what must be done now.
He knows but ignores the hungry person.
He knows but postpones .
He knows prayer but neglects the obligation before him.
He knows silence but uses it to evade necessary correction.
asks:
What is the true good here?
What obligations already bind?
What facts are certain?
What counsel is needed?
What means are lawful and proportionate?
What must be done first?
Then it commands.
Truth becomes order in the living hour.
Intellectual Humility
does not deny gifts of mind. It places them beneath God and truth.
The person can know something firmly without pretending to know everything. He can defend doctrine without imagining himself its source. He can teach without despising the learner. He can learn from someone less polished. He can suspend judgment where evidence is insufficient. He can admit the limits of his competence.
Intellectual appears in many forms:
- refusing simple truths because they seem beneath one's sophistication;
- collecting difficult questions to appear profound;
- treating clarity as naivete;
- mistaking suspicion for discernment;
- demanding certainty where human affairs permit only probability;
- speaking universally from narrow experience;
- receiving correction as personal attack;
- preferring an original error to a truth already taught.
Knowledge can inflate when severed from .[^26]
The learned pilgrim remains a beggar before divine Wisdom.
Mystery Is Not Absurdity
The finite intellect cannot comprehend God.
It can know truly without knowing exhaustively. Revelation gives real knowledge of mysteries that remain above complete created understanding.[^27]
This is not contradiction.
A child can know his father truly without comprehending the whole life of the father. A creature can know what God has revealed while remaining unable to contain the divine essence within a concept.
The pilgrim should resist two .
One reduces mystery until nothing remains beyond natural measure.
The other uses mystery to protect confusion, sentiment, or contradiction from examination.
Catholic mystery is luminous darkness.
It gives truth enough for faith, worship, , and love while preserving the infinite of God.
The mind bows because it has encountered excess of light, not absence of meaning.
Truth Must Become Life
A man may know the commandments and refuse them.
He may define and remain cruel.
He may defend the Real Presence and receive .
He may study and hunger for praise.
He may expose every public error while refusing confession of private sin.
Knowledge alone does not save.
The demons know that God exists and tremble.[^28]
Saving faith works through . The truth must be received by the will, embodied in conduct, nourished by , and ordered toward union with God.
After study, ask:
What must I adore?
What must I repent of?
What must I do?
Whom must I serve?
What falsehood must I stop repeating?
What truth must I begin living?
The intellect has not fulfilled its service when it has merely won assent.
It must show the road to .
The Vision for Which the Mind Was Made
Natural knowledge, sacred doctrine, meditation, study, and every act of faith belong to pilgrimage.
They are real lights, but they point beyond themselves.
The final happiness of man is not endless research. It is the vision of God. The blessed see God face to face, not by comprehending Him, but by a supernatural elevation of the created intellect in glory.[^29]
Then faith gives way to sight.
Questions ordered to the journey reach their end.
Error cannot enter.
The intellect rests without stagnation in the inexhaustible Truth, and the will loves without division the infinite Good.
Every honest act of learning can be offered toward that homeland.
Every correction can loosen attachment to falsehood.
Every doctrine received can prepare adoration.
Every “I do not know” can create room for Wisdom.
The pilgrim guards the mind because he hopes one day to see God.
A Rule for the Intellect
- Begin with God. Ask for light and of intention before serious study or judgment.
- Receive reality. Distinguish fact from interpretation, imagination, and feeling.
- Hold the faith. Learn revealed doctrine from Scripture and as authentically interpreted by .
- Reason honestly. Define terms, reject contradiction, follow evidence, and proportion confidence to what is known.
- Govern curiosity. Study what truth, duty, , and vocation require; refuse knowledge sought for sin, vanity, agitation, or escape.
- Choose sound teachers. Prefer authoritative and primary sources, the Fathers and Doctors, and proven guides.
- Form . Bring moral judgment beneath divine law, teaching, relevant facts, and counsel.
- Receive correction. Admit error plainly and repair falsehood or .
- Speak in . Correct when duty requires, without or delight in humiliation.
- Descend into action. Let truth become worship, repentance, , mercy, and faithful duty.
- Remain before mystery. Know truly without pretending to comprehend the infinite God.
- Remember the end. Order every created truth toward the eternal vision of Truth Himself.
For Meditation
- Do I seek truth so that I may know, love, and obey God—or do I use thought to defend appetite, preserve pride, and remain unconverted?
- Do I desire truth even when it condemns my preference?
- Which judgments in my mind are facts, and which are interpretations supplied by fear, anger, or imagination?
- Do I confuse emotional certainty with evidence?
- Have I repeated claims about the Church or another person without consulting a reliable source?
- Is my study governed by vocation and charity, or by novelty, controversy, vanity, and escape?
- Can I say “I do not know” without anxiety or shame?
- Do I receive correction as service to truth?
- Have I made a favored teacher, commentator, or private opinion function as an authority it does not possess?
- Is my conscience being formed, or merely consulted for the answer I already want?
- What truth presently requires an act of repentance, restitution, courage, or mercy?
- Does what I know make me more prayerful and charitable?
- Do I study created truths as steps toward the eternal vision of God?
Rule for the Pilgrim
- Submit the intellect to reality, reason to the light of faith, and every judgment to the truth revealed by God. Study what duty requires, distinguish knowledge from imagination and feeling, refuse curiosity and rash judgment, correct error humbly, and let every truth known descend into charity and obedience.
- Let truth enter before appetite speaks.
- Receive reality as God has made it.
- Submit reason to faith without ceasing to reason.
- Receive the deposit of faith from the Church.
- Distinguish fact from inference, thought from image, feeling from judgment, and confidence from certainty.
- Refuse rash judgment, credulity, curiosity, and the pride that would rather preserve itself than be corrected.
- Study according to duty.
- Pray before learning.
- Speak truth in charity.
- Let every doctrine become worship and every moral judgment become obedience.
- Keep the intellect beneath Christ, who is Truth, until faith gives way to the vision of God.
A companion for this lesson
Continue Your Formation
Read Book I, chapters 2–5, on humility, truth, and holy reading in The Imitation of Christ by Thomas à Kempis, to submit curiosity and private judgment to truth.
View the Pilgrim's Shelf →