Heart & Wisdom

Cyril J. Law, Jr. - Lecturer, School of Christian Studies, USJ. Coordinator, Tridentine Liturgy Community, Catholic Diocese of Hong Kong.

The Heart is the third spiritual centre or faculty of the human person alongside of the Intellect and the Will. The Heart is also, sui generis, the seat of affectivity and the furnace of zest and zeal. So what does it has to do with knowledge? Simply put, the Heart’s primary task is to love. Love is the most affective value response in that it engages most fully the emotions of the Heart. It spurs one on to grasp, to embrace and to love the thing one wishes (Will) to understand (Intellect). And to an extremely vital extent, the intentional object of knowledge ought to be an object that the Heart reckons in order for it to merit worth or be treasured superactually. For knowledge to be superactual is to be “more-than-merely-actual-at-the-moment-it-is-felt.” The Heart is a splendid composite that shares in both realms of the actual and the superactual. It is most actual, for no man lives, let alone know and act, without a Heart; It is no less supernatural, for the Heart’s activity, viz., love, is superactual in nature. Agere sequitur esse -- We know a thing’s nature by knowing its action. Hence it is by virtue of such unique “amphibious” state of being that we attribute the Heart with the ability to sublimate knowledge into the Love of Wisdom – which, if you will, may be defined as a habit of the soul ordering all things sweetly according to highest principles.
Nevertheless, one should be mindful not to let the Heart go astray into total arbitrariness. Infallibility of the Heart is thus far not a verified thesis. Therefore the danger of turning knowledge into a perverted love of evil genius is ever present. This is the reason why a vigilant collaboration with the Will and Intellect is an absolute must for the sake of a healthy equilibrium while a person exercises his knowledge. And this calls for strict self-reflection. Yet once again, without the Heart as fuel to the quest of wisdom, it is hard to wonder to what degree of perfection could a person attain in beholding the Cause of all causes.
Philosophy comes under the genus of wisdom. But the vital linkage which joins the science of rational penetration into intelligible essence structures to that of wisdom lies in what the Greek termed philos – love. And within a human person, the spiritual faculty that is responsible for love is the Heart. The Heart facilitates a person to better love what is eternal and sublimates the quality of his journey to wisdom. One cannot deny the unique role the Heart plays in drawing a conscious knowing person close to the font of knowledge, without at the same time doing damage to the inherently balanced spiritual configuration of a human being. The Heart beats in a dynamic rhythm; the Intellect probes with rational lucidity and the Will makes deliberate choices—all three operations ought to work together in reaching the ultimate objective goal of human life, which I propose and believe to be God.
People say “one cannot have wisdom without living life.” Here I venture to say that without love, so-called wisdom would only be reduced to platitude. One can only grow cold, insipid, and eventually Heartless if s/he does not pay Heartfelt attention to the truths hidden in the content of a book, a lecture, a, craft, a saying, or a person which he is trying to know. For a love-less human being devoid of zest, love, zeal and Heart (or a man characterised by apathy), it is not difficult to observe him caricatured as always uttering sigh-like remarks such as, “yeah…yeah…I know, I know.” Basically, such a man knows nothing in the strictest sense. His alleged cognition is deprived of intentionality, lacks transcendence and has no Heart to it.

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