The Good Use of
our Minds
“The artist must purify the source.”
— Novelist François Mauriac
Thomas Aquinas said there are five intellectual
virtues: Wisdom, Science, Understanding, Art and Prudence. They are
“intellectual” in that each involves the acquisition of a certain kind of knowledge,
and “virtues” in that there is some good in each acquisition.
Wisdom is divine knowledge—the knowledge of God’s moral
will. Science is empirical
knowledge—knowledge gained by observation of created things. Understanding is intuitive knowledge—a perception
of those things we know without reason or instruction. Art is practical knowledge—“know-how” (doing). Prudence is the habit of moral behavior (being).
Wisdom,
the knowledge of moral good, prepares the mind for the other intellectual
virtues and determines our performance in each one.
The
principle is clear in the realm of prudence, for goodness begins with the
knowledge of God’s moral will. We are given intellect and the ability to reason
that we may know and pursue the good, the true and the beautiful.[1]
The
principle is equally true in the realms of science and intuition. Moral wisdom
results in greater objectivity, perception, insight and clarity. Good
scientists do good science. As
C. S. Lewis put it, “anyone who is honestly trying to [live a moral life] will
soon find his intelligence sharpened.”
The principle is no less
true in the realm of art. What makes for good
artists and artisans? Again, the answer is divine wisdom for there is feedback
from moral virtue to the arts: Morally good people tend to be more insightful. They are better painters, poets,
novelists, and playwrights.
On the other hand, morally impure artists tend to
produce impure and impoverished art, which explains, in part, why literature,
television, cinema and the other media are so banal and boring these days.
There is little originality, imagination, inspiration or creativity to draw us
in, so they must titillate our libidos with sex and nudity to keep our
attention.[2]
Nowhere is this more evident than in the current spate of silly and salacious
sitcoms. Ernie Kovacs got it exactly right: “Television: A medium. So called because it's neither rare
nor well done.”
I think here of J.R.
R. Tolkien's philosophy of creation and subcreation. Creation, as such (making
something out of nothing) is the exclusive province of God: He thinks and
speaks everything into being. Those
who aspire to create can only echo his thoughts (or distort them). An artist’s
yearnings after goodness, truth and beauty are reflected in art that speaks from God's heart to ours: “Deep calls to deep” (Psalm 42:7).
“What is to reach the heart must
come from above,” Ludwig van Beethoven said. Put another way, “Worship
and adoration of the Lord is the source of profound wisdom; insight
into life comes from knowing the Holy One” (Proverbs 9:10).
DHR
[1]
When
pre–enlightenment theologians used the word “reason” they were not defining the
term as we do as rationalism. Rationalism is the idea that independent human reason is the means by which we
discover truth. “Reason,” for ancient writers, is the
capacity to understand divine reason
as it is disclosed in nature and revelation, an ability given solely to human
beings.
[2]
I picked up
a book this week that was first written forty years ago. It did not sell well
when it was originally published for it was not well written. The author revised
and “modernized it” solely by adding a number of explicit sex scenes.
