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Fatima—The Golden Mean

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 August 2024

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For our discursive minds things in themselves one and undivided have to be separated, sub-divided, analysed, taken apart in a way which is sufficiently real in the case of a complicated piece of machinery or even with the human body, but which when applied to things that are not material—like the human mind—becomes most unreal and unnatural. In the case of spiritual entities just because they are so one and indivisible we endeavour all the more to divide them in a feeble effort to get some understanding of what must ultimately remain mysterious. So we find that there are as many divisions and sub-divisions in theology as there are in zoology or biology.

But there is nothing reprehensible in this. It is the legitimate attempt of the human mind to exercise its proper function in acquiring knowledge. The things of God lie beyond anything but a scrappy and imperfect knowledge, but the mind must try to pierce the veils—provided that it fully recognises its limitations.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © 1950 Provincial Council of the English Province of the Order of Preachers

References

1 The Message of Fatima. By C. C. Martindale, S.J. (Burns Oates; 10s. 6d.)