St Justin Popovich | The Mystery of Knowledge

Nevertheless, this natural knowledge, according to St. Isaac, is not at fault. It is not to be rejected. It is just that faith is higher than it is.

This knowledge is only to be condemned in so far as, by the different means it uses, it turns against faith. But when this knowledge “is joined with faith, becoming one with her, clothing itself in her burning thoughts,” when it “acquires wings of passionlessness,” then, using other means than natural ones, it rises up from the earth “into the realm of its Creator,” into the supernatural.

This knowledge is then fulfilled by faith and receives the power to “rise to the heights,” to perceive Him Who is beyond all perception and to “see the brightness that is incomprehensible to the mind and knowledge of created beings.”

Knowledge is the level from which a man rises up to the heights of faith. 

When he reaches these heights, he has no more need of it, for it is written: “We know in part, but when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away” (I Cor. 13:9–10).

Faith reveals to us now the truth of perfection, as if it were before our eyes. It is by faith that we learn that which is beyond our grasp—by faith and not by enquiry and the power of knowledge.

St Justin Popovich