In this unique, ordered, resplendent consciousness of all the rest of creation, the sovereign status of man as an image of God and a lord of created things is specifically manifested. Whoever denies that knowledge by itself is part of man’s destiny, that he is invited to penetrate the cosmos intellectually and to propose to himself as a self-subsistent theme the nature and qualities of existing things, cannot but fail to understand the nature of man.

To our intellect is entrusted the further function, however, of supplying a base for all our emotions, volitions, and conduct. But for our underlying knowledge of being, of what is, we could not be affected and enriched by the values inherent in objects. We could not give forth an affective response, nor actively influence our environment.

Yet, while by our intellect we participate in existence in a uniquely dignified way, this is not the only, not even the supreme, form of our participation. Thus, we are not only called to know God, to form a concept of Him, and in the life to come, to contemplate Him eye to eye; we are also called to adore Him; we are called to love Him and to immerse ourselves in His Love, and thus the streams of love are interpenetrating. The intimate union, the true wedlock with being, is ultimately achieved in the act of find, the embrace of full awareness, in the possession through self-surrender and in the abandonment implied in the response to value. But knowledge is the indispensable basis of this union.

The spiritual deformation rooted in excessive rational analysis

The type of man whose touch with being is and remains an exclusively intellectual one, who loses interest in everything once he has mastered it intellectually, reveals a special kind of spiritual deformation. He is not filled with a genuine longing for participation in being. Knowledge is not for him a road to such participation but a mere submission to the immanent logic of an unlimited process divorced from the goal of possessing the truth. Hence, such a man cannot even truly understand the primary function of the intellect, with the participation in being which it embodies by itself. To such a man the process of acquiring knowledge has become a self-sufficient purpose.

What really matters, however, is always the objective theme present in a given situation. Should a profound significance and a high value attach to the contents of such an object or situation, then we are summoned by these to proceed beyond the merely intellectual contact, and beyond and above knowledge, to approach the stage of frui, and to evince an emotional and volitional response itself based on knowledge. Certain situations require us to intervene actively. He who is affected with a hypertrophy of the intellect is unable to appreciate the objective theme of a given situation and the demands involved in it. He cannot find his way out of the self-contained process of knowledge, and continues endlessly to dissect the object. Thus, he loses hold of the sense of that specific participation in being which is implicit in knowledge as such. Lacking a genuine touch with reality, he perseveres in asking “Why?”—and the object escapes him more and more. He falls short of that intuition of the essential which evokes a new, a secondary, an emotional and volitional attention to the aspects of a situation. He, too, remains an eternal spectator, without ever being admitted into the full presence, the intimate atmosphere of objects.