value that we cannot ignore if we want to take the principle of the Incarnation seriously. Their wondering helps us to wonder, their questions question us.”40
45. A dangerous confusion can arise. We can think that because we know something, or are able to explain it in certain terms, we are already saints, perfect and better than the “ignorant masses.” Saint John Paul II warned of the temptation on the part of those in the Church who are more highly educated “to feel somehow superior to other members of the faithful.”41 In point of fact, what we think we know should always motivate us to respond more fully to God’s love. Indeed, “you learn so as to live: theology and holiness are inseparable.”42
46. When Saint Francis of Assisi saw that some of his disciples were engaged in teaching, he wanted to avoid the temptation to gnosticism. He wrote to Saint Anthony of Padua, “I am pleased that you teach sacred theology to the brothers, provided that … you do not extinguish the spirit of prayer and devotion during study of this kind.”43 Francis recognized the temptation to turn the Christian experience into a set of intellectual exercises that distance us from the freshness of the Gospel. Saint Bonaventure, on the other hand, pointed out that true Christian wisdom can never be separated from mercy towards our neighbor: “The greatest possible wisdom is to share fruitfully what we have to give.… Even as mercy is the companion of wisdom, avarice is its enemy.”44 “There are activities that, united to contemplation, do not prevent the latter, but rather facilitate it, such as works of mercy and devotion.”45
Contemporary Pelagianism
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