“Even when you have read and understood many puzzling things it nevertheless behooves you to come to One who is the Beginning of all things, that is, God Himself; otherwise, your knowledge will avail you little.”

All study should lead to worship, all knowledge feed our appreciation of the glory of God, all information serve to drive us closer to the fount of all knowledge. And all these with humility, because:

“There are in books the same voice and the same letters read, but they do not instruct all people alike, for I am within, secretly hidden in the letter…”

We may understand, but the understanding is always the self-gift of Christ. We may know, but our knowledge is always participation in the knowledge of Christ. Someone who does not yet know, and someone who does not yet understand, is a person who has not yet received Christ’s gift. Such a person, then, needs not our impassioned arguments, but rather our heartfelt prayers.

Quotes from The Imitation of Christ, Book III, 43.