[All-American]

All this talk of the interplay (feud?) between things “spiritual” and things “intellectual” present what is for me one of life’s most perpetually befuddling paradoxes.

All around me, and especially at the BYU, I hear talk of how to “balance” the intellectual and the spiritual. It comes up from time to time in Sunday school, in those late night discussions with roommates—even on teachers’ evaluations they ask the students if the teacher properly applied spiritual matters insofar as the course material allowed.

Frankly, I’ve never understood why the division is made between “spiritual” and “intellectual” matters. I don’t believe the separation is a natural one—D&C 29:34 seems to imply as much—and that any distinction is essentially artificial, as far as I’m concerned. I’ve felt the spirit just as strongly in Greek 311, studying the Gospel of John in its original Greek, as I have in any Sunday school class—and why not, if the objective of either is to gain further light and truth? And if this is the case, why should the spirit not be present in Econ 111, when learning about the interaction of the laws of supply and demand? If Brigham Young instructed Karl G. Maeser that he should not teach so much as the arithmetic tables without the spirit of the Lord present, does that not suggest that any “intellectual” pursuit inherently ought likewise to be a “spiritual” one?

Learning, growing, and gaining further knowledge has always been an important part of my own spiritual pursuits. I don’t understand why one side of the fence feels any need to shun the other, when the objectives of both are one and the same. The intent of the “spiritual” is the worship of a being whose glory is intelligence, light, and truth.

In fact, the two are codependent. In his warning against intellectualism in 2 Nephi 9:28-29, Jacob notes the tragic flaw of too many intellectuals: “When they are learned they think they are wise, and they hearken not unto the counsel of God, for they set it aside, supposing they know of themselves, wherefore, their wisdom is foolishness and it profiteth them not.” But it is not learning itself he condemns—“to be learned is good, if they hearken unto the counsels of God”—it is the neglect of things spiritual in favor of the intellectual. Likewise, Joseph Smith rebuked the saints for their spiritual “zeal” which was “not according to knowledge,” noting that under such a spirit, many of the saints “were darkened in their minds, in consequence of neglecting the duties devolving upon themselves.” It seems clear that to divorce intellectualism from spirituality would have a similar effect as the deprivation of works from faith.

The simultaneous warnings are not contradictory. For both for the intellectuals who shun the spiritual and the spiritually-minded who shun intellectualism, the warning is not against intellectualism and spiritualism, but against pride, the great inhibitor of light and truth. To sneer at the spiritual or to condemn the intellectual ultimately prevents the acquisition of what knowledge might have otherwise been available to the detriment of the one who so acts.

We ought not to bemoan the interaction of the spiritual and the intellectual, nor fear to expose truth to truth or panic if two truths seem incompatible at first glance. We ought then to recognize that our knowledge, whether it is gained through intellectual or spiritual pursuits, is both imperfect and incomplete, and make adjustments as necessary. I see no other appropriate course of action for any who believe that ultimately, all truth will be circumscribed into one great whole.