Quotes about Intellect

I am now convinced that theoretical physics is actual philosophy.

If you are reading in order to become a better reader, you cannot read just any book or article. You will not improve as a reader if all you read are books that are well within your capacity. You must tackle books that are beyond you, or, as we have said, books that are over your head. Only books of that sort will make you stretch your mind. And unless you stretch, you will not learn.

The truly great books are the few books that are over everybody's head all of the time.

is simply a reminder of what the greatest systematic theologians have always known and recognized — that theology is a matter of loving God with our minds and that loving does not mean merely admiring or 'being intellectually interested in'.

In a world congenial to skepticism, skeptics love to play the skeptic's card nonchalantly as if it were the royal flush that trumped all other cards and could not be countered. For many, it has become the skeptics' way of hanging out a "Do Not Disturb" sign. Simply raise a skeptical objection and retire from all argument. But of course, the simplest response is to turn such skepticism back on itself.

Thinking Christians think in believing and they believe in thinking.

Spiritual truth is learned through the atmosphere that surrounds us, not through intellectual reasoning. It is God's Spirit that changes the atmosphere of our way of looking at things, and then things begin to be possible which before were impossible.

If anything is a mystery to you and it is coming in between you and God, never look for the explanation in your intellect, look for it in your disposition, it is that which is wrong.

The golden rule for understanding spiritually is not intellect, but obedience. If a man wants scientific knowledge, intellectual curiosity is his guide; but if he wants insight into what Jesus Christ teaches, he can only get it by obedience.

Experience alone opens a door, but intellectual framing and reflection are required if meaning is to be made of the experience.

I need Sunday morning centered on what is transrational, the fundamental Christian mysteries of incarnation and resurrection, the very heartbeat of Christian faith. Not irrational or unworthy of discussion and debate, but that which, when the intellectual dust has cleared, is ultimately beyond what our minds can grasp. I need a God bigger than my arguments.

When Christians feel crushed by such "people of God," faith is exposed as something that just doesn't work here and now. And if something doesn't work, intellectual arguments for staying in the faith lose their appeal over time. Why bother?