Lessons In Truth - Lesson 8 - Annotation 2
What is the relation between spiritual understanding and intellectual knowledge?
2. Intellectual knowledge, sometimes referred to as intellectual understanding, is the forerunner of spiritual understanding. Charles Fillmore says in Keep a True Lent 155:
"Intellectual understanding comes first in the soul's development, then a deeper understanding of principle follows, until the whole man ripens into wisdom."
As children we were taught about God from the level of understanding of our parents, guardians, teachers, or ministers. We undoubtedly read our Bible and other books telling of God and His laws. However, spiritual understanding goes deeper than knowledge that is conveyed to us by others or by books, for it is God's revelation of Truth in us. We are not implying that facts are not valuable but they deal more with the "letter" of the law. We are seeking the "spirit" that "giveth life" which God so freely offers. When we earnestly desire to know God, not merely know about Him, desire to understand ourselves and the universe as God created it, the Spirit of truth, the Holy Spirit (the Teacher within) "speaks" to us as intuition and brings us the spiritual understanding we so desire.
Intellect is another name for man's thinking or reasoning faculty, the conscious phase of mind about which we learned in the third lesson. Intellectual knowledge, or intellectual understanding, is developed through use of this reasoning, thinking faculty as it gathers facts on any subject. This may be done by listening to teachers, studying books, observing phenomena along any line, and even experimenting on our own. Thus we acquire a knowledge of facts along some particular line, such as biology, geology, astronomy, physiology, religion, and the like. Many of these facts may be true but until they are revealed by spiritual understanding we do not have an inner assurance concerning them, only an intellectual acceptance.
________________________
Preceding Entry: What is spiritual understanding, and how is it attained? How did Peter know that Jesus was the Christ?
Following Entry: Can you cure yourself or another by speaking words of Truth from the intellectual plane of consciousness? Does true healing require something beyond this?
