FIDES QUAERENS INTELECTUM

By Leonardus Nana

It is common to find the name of a saint for the name of an organization like school, church and other religion institutions. There are lot of catholic schools take Santa or Santo for their names, for example, they have Saint Gabriel Senior High School, Saint Peter Elementary School or Saint Mary Kindergarten and so forth.

 Fides Quaerens Intelectum sounds strange or peculiar but when you come to Jalan Eltari Sasi Kefamenanu Timor, East Nusa Tenggara Province, you will find Fides Quaerens Intelectum.

Fides Quaerens Intelectum is a Catholic Senior High School on Eltari street Sasi Kefamenanu Timor, East Nusa Tenggara Province.  This Catholic Senior High School was built in 2006 by Pater Antonio Razzoli, OFM.Conv, a missionary from Italy.

Fides Quaerens Intelectum derived from Latin term means Faith to Lead Intellect or knowledge. We do not know the background of choosing Fides Quaerens Intelectum as the name for this Catholic Senior High School.

The House of Education

Fides Quaerens Intelectum  Senior High School is an institution for learning and educating children. Many children of various family backgrounds and from different district are sent to learn and be educated. They learn social science, economic science, natural science, mathematic, physic, science of information and technology, art and skill, etc.

Fides Quaerens Intelectum  is considered a good place for encouraging students and teachers to  comprehend that learning is fun and could be done at anytime and in any places in the whole of life – Long Life Learning;

Learning can be started at home, in school, at work place or from society.  Learners can learn from themselves, parents, and sister-brother and from the others as it was written “People learn from one another just an iron sharpens iron, Proverb 27:17.

Fides Quaerens Intellectum Senior High School is a Catholic boarding School. All students should stay in dormitory so children should leave their parents and spend their time learning to study in Fides Quaerens Intellectum. The main ideology is that  children should spend their time learning at least three years of education is necessary in order to give the child reasonable opportunities later in life.

Fides Quaerens Intellectum gives students opportunities not only to learn for knowledge of intellect but also knowledge of faith. The purpose is that by adequate intellect and strong faith, students can build themselves to become independent and self-confident so that they can grow up to become self-reliant (not needing help or support from other people). The reason is if you are good reliant person, and have knowledge about the world that you live in and have strong believe in your capacity, life gets a lot easier, and you will have better chances of getting or creating a good job.  Therefore, Fides Quaerens Intellectum is considered good place for learning as it was written Learn where understanding, strength and insight are to be found. Then you will know where to find a long and full life, light to guide you and peace.”-Baruch 3:14

Learning is not a hard and complicated work; Learning is fun and simple as it is a trial; a trial is an error; an error is an exposure and an exposure is retention.

Learning is Trial

In the beginning, Human beings lived by and/or from nature, almost all of their necessity were given by and/or obtained from nature. Somehow, they were growing in number and so are their needs. Mobilization was then determined as one of the needs to ease the fulfillment of another needs. Firstly, people mobile from one place to other place on foot, but then a means of transportation was needed for they had to carry more things to reach further distance. It was problem but a trial was done by arresting animal like horse to ride on for moving or carrying things from one place to another place.

Learning is Error

Many errors were occurred during the trial or experiment of using horse for transportation. One error thing was a horse only carried at much two persons and/or few things. People then, took it as an exposure and learn more for further advancement.

Learning is exposure

People experienced carrying only few goods on a horse but they wanted to load more. They, then made cart to be pulled by one or two horses; and then bigger cart was made to be pulled by several horses. Many people and goods were transported, so road and bridge were constructed for the safety and the easiness.

Learning is retention

Horse, cart, road and bridge for transportation are good exposure that gave human beings great advancement and are still used nowadays. Base on the experience of using horse and cart for transportation, people of today keep on trial and trial. They finally invented machine to replace horses and that to ease their works in many fields.  They have been developing car, truck or lorry to move or transporting goods from one place to another place. The above achievement is good retention. 

On the same way, learning in school is not without error and mistake or failure. Failure is good lesson to produce exposure or experience and exposure will let you learn how to bounce back from failure. Remember, no one ever succeed without failure.

Henry Ford wrote "Failure is the opportunity to begin again more intelligently" 

Base on Henry Ford’s quotation, you are suggested to learn from http://www.1000ventures.com/business_guide/crosscuttings/failure_freedom.html then you will find that “Failure provides a great learning opportunity and should be viewed as a very lifeblood of success. "If you give people freedom to innovate, the freedom to experiment, the freedom to succeed, then you must also give them the freedom to fail.

According to Deepak Seethi of AT&T, the organization of tomorrow will demand mistakes and failures. It is only by trying lots of initiatives that we can improve our chances that one of them will be a star.”

Therefore, never stop to learn and give up to do trial and experience failure. Because through learning you will obtain lots of way, system, procedure, method, technique, skill and confidence needed for the completion of your work. The way, system, procedure, method, technique, skill and confidence are considered good knowledge. Therefore, if you have good knowledge, you will not afraid to do something, you will think of a way of doing it and even you can do it without anyone help. You will experience that your learning is a process of freeing one dependency on others for knowledge.   

Knowledge for Every Person

Who can receive the knowledge? Everyone deserves right to receive knowledge. Where to receive the knowledge? Nobody will come up into sky, or go down to the deepest seabed. Nobody will go across the mighty ocean or come to the remotest part of the earth to receive knowledge. God has put knowledge of intellect and knowledge of faith in the heart of every person.

At first, God equipped human with brain and this brain contains a power that called Mind. Human’s mind riches of intelligence and this intelligence has reasoning power that empowers human to learn, learn and learn. Why should people learn? They indeed should learn to devote their time, energy and mind to recognize God’s knowledge, to accept it and to work at it as the Holy Scripture wrote “A Person’s thoughts are like water in the deep well, but someone with insight can draw them out (Proverb 20:5)”.

Thought is a power or process of thinking that enables someone’s mind to think about something; to think about life, humanity and universe. While thinking is the use and exercise of mind in order to form opinions and/or to conclude something.

Every person has thoughts but why are some people clever and wise but the others are stupid and foolish (cf. Proverb 14:8)?  Not all people recognize their thoughts well and be able to train and use them properly but only someone with insight can draw them out (cf.Proverb 20:5).

Everyone with insight can draw his or her thoughts through good education and good education will positively give your mind power to begin everything in this world (Sirach 37:18b). Have you given your Mind power to begin something for you? The formula of Conceptual Learning of Thomas Watson, the founder of IBM below can be useful:

1.      Target : Formulating the target you should achieve in your life (to become someone and/or to achieve something at some point in the future)

2.      Method : Activate your mind to formulate and to set up the proper method applied to achieve your target

3.      Action : do a proper action in a proper time base on the proper formulated method
The three conceptual learning of Thomas Watson are the Mind great power that has and always will be within you. By the power, you can achieve everything you have ever wanted to have, experience, or become.

The concept of Thomas Watson above can be put into the following practices:

A.    TARGET, Think of what you have in Mind – you know what you want, for example you want to  become a doctor or druggist in near future.

B.     METHOD, exercise your thought to form opinions about the benefit or value you will gain and/or what you will give when you have become, for example a doctor or druggist and how to accomplish what you are thinking of.

This means, you should make a set of decisions about how to do something in the future. Or plan of how to accomplish your goal as it was written “Planning and thought lie behind everything that is done (Sirach 37:16).

Why should planning? Plan will help you to make your goal happen in the way you intend by setting up priority. This means becoming a doctor or druggist is very important and must be dealt with before other things. The priority leads you to work in patient and passion. You will work your goal carefully and so it will produce plenty as it was written; “Plan carefully and you will have plenty; if you act too quickly, you will never have enough (Proverb 21:5).

However, a well settled plan does not warrant the success of a goal; therefore, we should come to and ask the Lord to bless all our plans and we will be successfully in carrying them out (Proverb 16:3). For God’s blessing could guide us to act in accordance with what we have planned as it was written “you may make your plans, but God directs your actions” (Proverb 16:9). 

C.     ACTION, we know that every person has been given a great deal of work to do. Sirach 40:1a.” In order to execute the given great deal of work successfully, we should put a plan in a good settlement. Therefore, after the plan is well-resettled, we should work at it with all our hearts as though we were working for the Lord and not for men (Colossians 3: 23).

Base on the three steps of concept above, we can conclude that first, we should accept our goal as a great deal of work to do from God, after that we must fall in love with the work (goal), and then formulate plan how to work at it. We should work at our goal with all our hearts as though we were working for the Lord and not for men base on what we have planned. Finally, a success will be granted for our goal.

The granted success we will have through our target, method and action are a good achievement (you succeeded in doing a very good and difficult thing), a complete fulfillment (you got what you want in life) and a real joy (you got pleasure from what you have done).

When you have been successfully accomplishing the above three steps, you then will become clever and wise because you do not only think what you know but also you know what to do, Proverb 14:8, but one who only thinks what he knows is stupid and foolish.

Say for example: Your goal is want to become a doctor or a druggist, and then you may formulate your plan like the following example:  Leaving your parents for studying in Fides Quaerens Intelectum Senior High School. You must not take Social Sciences for your major but study physic, chemistry and biology in Natural Science Program. After graduating Senior High School, you should enroll to the faculty of pharmacology if you would like to become a druggist or you should study in health and medical study program if you want to become a doctor. If you study hard and do all activities base on what have been programmed, you then will become a professional druggist or medical doctor.  

Likewise another profession, God, The Most High gave doctor or druggist knowledge and skill to do their works. The knowledge and skill give them position of importance and so Kings reward them and powerful people hold them in high regard for knowledge and skill they possess. The druggist and the doctor are two professions which depend on one and another as it was written “The druggist mixes the medicines, and the doctors use them to cure diseases and ease pain (Sirach 38:7)”.

The above descriptions give understanding that God gave human being knowledge and skill. The knowledge and skill enable human to do their works successfully. The harvests of their successful works are prosperity and honor (Sirach 38: 1-8).

Knowledge is a Mandate, Motive and Goal

Now everyone has possessed the two God-given abilities (intellect and fait), but what is the God-given abilities for? Well, by God-given abilities of faith, now we know that God gave his knowledge to be accepted as Mandate, to be used for building our Motive so that by that knowledge we are made worthy for God’s Goal for our life” as explained in the following:

1.      Mandate: When we accepted God’s Knowledge means we received mandate to worship and to serve him in the whole our life. We worship and serve God by fearing and loving him with all our strength, mind and hearts. We fear and love God through the means of our prayer and activities.

God’s mandate is an obligation, and in that obligation, we have authority or right, it est.:

a.       We are assigned to take charge of the Earth and its content (Gen 1: 28b)

b.      We are assigned to bring them under our control (Gen 1: 28a) by the power God gave us (Gen 1: 26b)

c.       We should use the knowledge  to empower and enlarge our capacity so that we are capable of doing such jobs successfully because we have done them through a tight method like examining the evidence so that we might “test all things” (1 Thessalonians 5:21), “test the spirits” (1 John 4:1), and “hold fast what is good” (1 Thessalonians 5:21).

2.      Motive: We were given Knowledge to worship and serve God by taking charge and controlling the Earth and its content. There are some motives to have God’s knowledge, but the most are: to restore God’s power in us by the power of Christ Jesus, his only beloved son (Philippians 4:13b). To be taught and guided by Holy Spirit about everything and make us remember all that Christ has told us (John 14:25). Therefore, by the guidance of Holy Spirit, we could be able to do the following without worry or mistake as it was written Faith can lead you along difficult path. She will make you so afraid that you will think you can not go on (cf. Sirach 4:17). so that we are made right to accept God’s Obligation and Authority:

a.       We confessed that Jesus Christ is our Lord and God, we should bow down to worship and serve him only.

b.      We recognized that all of us are like sheep that were lost, each of us going his own way (Isaiah 53:6a)

c.       We could examine our ways and turn back to the Lord (Lamentations 3:40)

d.      We recognized that there is nothing in us that allows us to claim that we are capable of doing this work. The capacity we have comes from God (2Cor 3:5)

e.       We recognized that we are content with weakness, insults, hardships, persecutions and difficulties (2Cor 12:10a).

3.      Goal: The knowledge was given to make us worthy for God own strength to worship him and the strength to work; to work for God and to work for ourselves. We worship God and we work for him aim at keeping our existence in his presence. When we are in God’s presence, God’s glory will shine on us so that we will be capable of doing even greater things. In addition, by the knowledge, we could build our dreams and we would like to bring them to life. You know what? In our dreams are some particular strength or beauty that empowers people to achieve future as Anna Eleanor Roosevelt said “Future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.”

How do we bring our dream to life? Henry Ford wrote “There is no man living that cannot do more than he thinks he can. As we advance in life we learn the limits of our abilities.”

Base on the idea of Henry Ford above, we should build our dream or target base on the strategy of  SMART (specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and time scale). This means you should make simple, reasonable and realistic dreams as your goals for “when dream is real, it doesn’t matter that turns the road takes. When dream is real, the joys and possibilities are endless (cf. Nicholas Sparks in The Note Book-Warner Books”, but please do stretching your goals for they will energize and push you to work harder at meeting more difficulties targets. The result is you can achieve more than, if you had set an easier goal as it was written, “Hard worker will get everything he wants and will have more.”(Proverb 13:4b&11c)

Knowledge for stretching our Goal

God gave knowledge to make us worthy for his Goal for our life so that the goal of God will become the goals of ours. The goals are “the power of Christ that unlocks the fullness life of ours,” and “the power of Christ as the power of us as believer.” The power of Christ is the capacity that God gave us to do all our works with thankful heart (cf. 2Corinthians 3:5). This means “Faith makes you know the truth of what you have learnt and achieved, and the truth shall free your dependency on others for knowledge (cf. John 8:32).

Therefore, as believers, challenging yourself by stretching those goals for they can broad your capacity. When you set a stretch goal for yourself, you know that you may not meet it 100%, but by coming closer, you will likely achieve an extra ordinary results. Say if you set the goal to 125, essentially asking an extra 25% of yourself. When you achieve 120 means, you have managed 20% more than you had set an easier goal, as it was written, “Hard work will give you power (proverb 12:24a ) to get what you are after or to give you a fortune (proverb 12:27b) and that power gives you strength to face all conditions.” (Phil 4:13a).

This means that if someone's beliefs and confidence are strong enough, they can achieve something that is very difficult. Higher intellectual achievement, as the goal of learning will be fully completed when learners are confidence enough to give their notice, thought or interest (attention), energy, time, etc. completely to practice what they have learnt.

At this step, the learners must be encouraged if there is no stupid student or clever student but only the learners who have confidence and love. That if you are certain of the ability within you, you are certain to sharpen it through hard studying, and then, you love what you have (your ability) and love what you do (hard studying), means you are having a very strong desire to success. Loving what you do mean you have passion for your learning. Passion is the fastest way to spur you to massive success. It is something you love. You love the beauty of your dream. It is something you are excited about. You are excited about the goal you have defined.

Therefore, when you have faith and love, you cannot worry to stretch your goal although it looks impossible for others. Jack Welch, the former legendary CEO of General Electric, urged everybody to stretch. Stretch target energize. He wrote, “We have found that by reaching for what appears to be the impossible, we often actually do the impossible; and even when we don not quite make it, we inevitably wind up doing much better than we would have done.” The principle of stretching the goal is simple as simple as the below principles:

1.      Create a dream that is so big that it will keep you excited

2.      Define the dream in minute detail

3.      Live in the dream so that it becomes real to you on the inside, and then…..

4.      Hold on it so tightly that no one can take it way from you

The above 4 principles are strong enough to motivate you as student to wake up early to study, study and study or stay up late to accomplish all the given assignments.

Knowledge for Prosperity and Honor

Every person always dreams to live a successful life in a quality that combines respect, being proud, and honesty. They then made systematic study through observation, and experiments. The purpose is to develop theories to describe how to achieve the successful life. The systematic study is then conducted to search for Knowledge through an intensive learning. The knowledge they achieved then used to stretch their goal for the achievement of their dreams.  

The true knowledge they are searching are God’s gift as it was written “God sends knowledge and understanding like the rain to the dry riverbeds and whoever receives it will prosper.” It was also written “God sends knowledge and understanding like the rain, and increase the honor of those who receive her. (Sirach 1:19).”

According to David L. Lipe, Ph.D.  in Faith And Knowledge (www.ApologeticsPress.org) there are two kind of God’s gift of knowledge. The God-given abilities of reason and rational thought (intellect) and God-given abilities of faith (faith).

Base on the above description, it is obvious that knowledge (knowledge of intellect and knowledge of faith) is divine and belongs to God. Knowledge is a holy gift that God sent and stored it in human’s mind.

God sent and stored his knowledge in human’s mind because human is God’s temple and which His Holy Spirit lives in (1Cor 3:16). However, the sin had been making their heart and mind like dry riverbeds. It is likewise an area of a farmland but cannot be cultivated. The land is only full of dust and dry grain of sands. No plants can grow on it and no living things could survive there. However, when the rain falls, the dry riverbed becomes a running brook and a pond is formed. Then, fresh water can be obtained and the living can exist.

The rain is the condensed moisture of atmosphere falling in drop of water. The earth really hopes for this dropped water to make itself a suitable place for the living. The rain that falls on earth is forming stream. Whatever plant grows near will send out its roots to so it is not afraid when the hot weather comes because its leaves stay green; it has no worries when there is no rain; it keeps on bearing fruit (Jeremiah 17:8).

The stream and water are important for the living of a tree to bear fruits and stay green. On the same way, people who have good knowledge will have a feeling of energetic interest in building good future. Every chance they have is opportunities, which makes them possible to do something that they want to do or have to do. It means knowledge empowers people to grow up self-reliant and prosper. A self-reliant and prosper person have good chance to grow wealthy. Therefore, a country's future prosperity depends to an extent, upon the quality of education of its people.

Faith to Lead The Intellect

Fides Quaerens Intelectum is derived from Latin term means Faith to Lead The Intellect.

We sometimes, can learn if some people who have good knowledge achievement fail to reach their height. At the other time, other people fail to give their notice, thought or interest (attention), energy, time, etc. completely to apply their knowledge for good purpose. They fail because they do not have faith or great trust or confidence in. They are unable to base the work of their mind on their good actions and behavior, and not on what they say that they think or feel.

Therefore, we found if some people are clever to build the world up for a better life but some others are clever to destroy humanity so that they can control over the whole world. They cannot be able to have a life full of equality, justice, welfare, peace and love because they could not base their work on Faith.

Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Faith produces wisdom and wisdom is the ability to use your intellect and experience to make good decisions and judgments.

Therefore, if you have faith, you could be able to apply your intellect for building good character. Faithful students have good quality of intellect that makes them different from another intellectual people. The learners who have faith can use their intellect to have polite behavior, or polite action. They can be able to organize the way in which they live in; they can live in honesty and strong moral principles that they refuse to change. They love to live in a firm unity and in good solidarity.  They always help one to another  in many ways such as supporting and encouraging each other in any situation. They also can build good relationship with the society and the environment as well.

Faith and Intellect are God-Given

Base on the name of Fides Quaerens Intelectum, this Senior  High School has concentration to educate all students to acknowledge that every one of us has two great riches; the first one is the  God-given abilities of reason and rational thought, called Intellect and the other one is  the God-given abilities of believe, called Faith.

Intellect and Faith are two riches, which can support one to another. Intellect can empower you to have an ability to understand and to think that you have Faith and at the same way, your Faith can give you a great trust or confidence that you have intellect.

Intellect is God-given abilities of reason and rational thought. This God-given abilities has been given since you were created. God has stored them in your mind and your task is trying to find them out as it was written Person’s thoughts are like water in the deep well, but someone with insight can draw them out (Proverb 20:5)”.After finding out your thoughts, you should sharpen them by learning. You know a sharpening thought can give you abilities to think in an intelligent way and understand things, especially complicated ideas. Therefore, when you are intellect, you can do everything not in an ordinary level like the ordinary people does but in a high level.

How could we do everything not in an ordinary level like the ordinary people does but in a high level?

The reason is that we have the power of Christ (Phil 4: 13c) that works through the power of Holy Spirit in our Mind. The power of Holy Spirit (Jude 1:20b) is the most important power which enables us to energize our mind works more proficient through the following Power:

a.       Christ power of  Intellectual Quotient (IQ) leads us to grow as an expert.

The Christ power of IQ enables us to know and to excel our capability of Linguistic, Math, Logic and Reasoning. By the power of Christ we are able to work base on logical thinking and good planning as written: Planning and thought lie behind everything that is done” – Sirach 37:16. This means by working in a well organized manner, applying superior systems and procedures and detailed job descriptions, we will get easy to accomplish our jobs. The Christ power of IQ leads us to grow as an expert who has capacity of doing something (2Cor 3:5b) like the others do too.

b.      Christ power of Emotional Quotient keeps yourself in the love of God (Jude 1:21a).
The Love of Christ gives you capacity to recognize your own feelings and those of others, for motivating yourself and for managing emotions well in yourself and in your relationship.
The Love of Christ gives you understanding that Emotional intelligence (EQ) describes abilities distinct from, but complementary to academic intelligence, the purely cognitive capabilities measured by Intellectual Quotient (IQ). On the other hand, the Love of Christ will light on your emotion intelligence (EQ) to shine before your cognitive capabilities (IQ) so that it can work not base on logical consideration only but also empathy, self-awareness, self-responsibility, and self-control. This means the Love of Christ makes you excel in emotional intelligence skills so that you have the strength to face all conditions by the power that Christ gave you (Philippians 4:13). Therefore, you will be more proficient in doing things that are difficult for those who are book smart but lack Emotional Intelligence skills (EQ).

c.       Christ power of Spiritual Quotient leads you praying in the power of Holy Spirit (Jude 1:20b) -
Everybody has intention to become someone and to achieve something at some point in the future or that we called Vision. At the same time he has a feeling of expectation and desire; feeling of trust and confidence. He does not see what he hopes for (to become someone and to achieve something at some point in the future) so he will wait for it with patient (read Rome 8:25) that we called Hope.

He has a strong enthusiasm in life to realize his vision and hope that we called Passion.
As a scholar, you must be very enthusiasm to realize your vision and hope by enlarging capacity. You can do it by acquiring knowledge, competence and skill, etc through learning and coaching.

However, as a believer, you must pray in the power of Holy Spirit to power your emotion so that it can harmonize and synergize your intellectual’s work with enthusiasm. Because it is written, enthusiasm without knowledge is not good; impatient will get you into trouble (Proverb 19:2).

This means your enthusiasm is useless if you do not have knowledge and your knowledge contributes nothing if you are impatient; for impatient makes you unable to make up your minds and undecided in all you do; therefore, you never think that you will receive anything from the Lord. (James 1:6b,7-8)

In addition, The power of Holy Spirit leads people who are book smart to have and to excel in Emotional Intelligence skills and Spiritual Intelligence skills so that he can keep on building himself up on his most sacred faith (Jude 1:20a). It is the faith that gave him feeling of expectation and desire; feeling of trust and confidence. Therefore, he has power to be sure of things he hopes for and to be certain of things he cannot see (read Hebrew 11:1) that we called Faith. This means, the power of Holy Spirit brings passion to make you more enduring, more patients and more enthusiasm to build up bigger capacity. When you are big in capacity, you will have strong trust or unquestioning confidence to pursue and to achieve the goals that is impossible for others.

The other simple way to pursue and to achieve the goals that is impossible for others is learning first from an extra ordinary persons as it was said by Dahlan Iksan “I could become an entrepreneur because I was influenced by my employer.” Dahlan Iskan could grow and become a successful entrepreneur person in business and leadership because he had learnt hard from his former employer. His employer perhaps was not an ordinary person but one is excellent  in leadership and reputation. In addition, Dahlan Iksan perhaps could achieve greater than others could because he has good technical skill and professional skill. Therefore, Gordon Dryden & DR. Jeannette Vos suggested every person to add to his technical skill and professional skill by learning from a professional person.  

Faith to lead Intellect

It is common if we can find that not all people who have sharpening thoughts are able to learn and understand things easily. They sometimes fail to learn and understand that God is the Designer of this intricately designed Universe. Therefore, when they can learn and do everything in intelligent way, they will grow proud of themselves and then will be proudly acknowledging that there is no God in their lives.

Your intellect will probably mislead you but your faith will lead you know that there is nothing in you. The capacity (intellect) you have comes from God (2Corinthians 3:5).

Base on the above description we find a good relationship between faith and rational thought (intellect or knowledge).

Fides Quaerens Intelectum or Faith to Lead The Intellect (Knowledge) can explain the relation between the Faith and the Knowledge (intellect) as it is describing below:

Your intellect will let you consider, for example, the Universe. You know that the Universe is really exists but how could it be?  There must be endless discussions about it-many theories have been found but none can give reasonable answer to questions of the existence of the universe.  However, when you look inside into your mind, then you will find a reason in it. Your reason, then says that it must have an adequate antecedent cause (e.g., the Law of Cause and Effect). Your rational thoughts will positively describe the Law of Cause and Effect easily in an intelligent way and so many people can understand it easily, but it will not be possible to find out its nature. However, it is  your faith, then will lead you to understand that it is reasonable to believe that this intricately designed Universe had a Designer.

Well, this intricately designed Universe had a Designer but who is the designer? The following quotation from “Apologetics Press Intermediate Christian Evidences Correspondence Course” can give us a fully understanding of the creator of the universe:

The Bible, God’sWord wrote that it is God, the Almighty, the designer of this well-designed Universe (and the complicated life it contains). The evidence to substantiate or support the Bible’s claims of its own inspiration can be drawn from both external and internal sources. External evidences for inspiration include such things as historical documentation of biblical people, places, and events, or archaeological artifacts that corroborate biblical statements or circumstances. Internal evidences are part of the actual biblical fabric itself. The Bible’s unity, predictive prophecy, and scientific foreknowledge are unparalleled in human history and bear testimony to the fact that the very existence of the Holy Scriptures cannot be explained in any other way except to acknowledge that they are the result of an overriding, superintending, guiding Mind.” “Atheists expect us to believe that this highly ordered, well-designed Universe (and the complicated life it contains) “just happened.” But such a suggestion the Atheists proposed is unreasonable, irrational. It is unsupported by the facts at hand.

Is faith opposed to reason?. Base on the above description, we herewith can learn that Faith and Reason (Intellect) cannot be separated but they can be a complementary one to another. Hardly! Reason is faith’s silent-yet-stalwart partner.

 Faith and reason are not contradicted but interconnected as it is said the Lord expects us to use our God-given abilities of reason and rational thought to examine the evidence so that we might “test all things” (1 Thessalonians 5:21), “test the spirits” (1 John 4:1), and “hold fast what is good” (1 Thessalonians 5:21). In the same way the Lord expects us to use our God-given abilities of faith to receive five talents or two talents or even only one talent and invest it. However, those who do not have faith go off, dig hole in the ground to hide the talent he had received. (Matthew 25:16-25).

In addition, by, faith you can believe that whatever you do is a sacrifice and a sacrifice will bear fruits, as it was written “A grain of wheat remains no more than a single grain unless it is dropped into the ground and dies. If it does die, then it produces many grains.” John 12:24. Your reason and rational thought will examine how and why a sacrifice will bear fruits?

Your success is the fruit of your hard working. Hardworking demand a devotion of time, energy, thought and money. You must dedicate your time to study, your energy to work, your thought to make good planning and your money to finance your all your work. It means we should sacrifice to work hard and dedicate it as a prayer as it was written being lazy will make you poor, but hard work will make you rich. Proverb 10:4. We should love and enjoy all we work and be patient to complete and to wait its fruits  as it was written “Work hard, don’t be lazy. Serve the Lord with a heart full of devotion. Let your hopes keep you joyful. Be patient in all your troubles and pray all the times” – Rome: 12:11

Faith lead Intellect for Perfection

Perfect is the spiritual riches or values we most admire and wish to incorporate into our hearts, for they can make us feel comfortable, secure or stimulated.

God is perfect and so he requires us to live a life that is good and that deserve praise: things that are true, noble, right, pure, lovely and honorable. (Philippians 4:8).

Being complete and correct in every way seems impossible for nothing in the world is perfect. Perfect is immortal and belongs to God, whereas human being is mortal and worldly. Becoming perfect must be difficult because we live in a world of corrupt and sinful people (Phil 2:15b). In addition, we content with weakness, insults, hardships, persecutions and difficulties (2Cor 12:10a). They are the yoke and load offered by the world and so whoever takes them must be very tired.

Through an intensive learning people can obtained good advancement in many field like in economic science, natural science, physic and technology. However, it is undeniable if the intellect of human sometimes can mislead to apply such mentioned achievement for worldly purposes say for example:

1.      The advancement of the development of Economic Science is for developing capitalism, which makes the rich become richer, but the poor become poorer, instead of practicing socialism economy.

2.      The invention in biology, physic and chemistry and medical studies can save the lives of many people. However, some experts are enjoying to mix drugs for recreational use (marijuana, ecstasy, and some other additive drugs), and developing biology or chemistry weapons.

3.      The nuclear is invented to overcome the crisis of energy and for the other development like in medical field and agriculture field.  However, certain people wish to apply nuclear energy to make MDW (mass destruction weapon).

4.      The development of Technical knowledge helps people to build certain vehicle like rocket for transporting satellite, but people function it for carrying missile; People sent satellite in to sky for spying purposes instead of for communication and nature observation.

The above examples of misusing science and technology let us learn that intellect without faith will give you opportunities to build up life base on bad reputation. You know, person with bad reputation will never be satisfied with all he earns and achieves. His life is devoted for worldly matter (money) and he therefore, would love to get rich (prosperity) and honor by sinfully chasing after worldly matter (money) (Sirach 5:10 & 31:8).

In addition, knowledge without Faith will give you opportunities to do activities of bad lust (evil). The activities of evil (bad lust) can ruin life, humanity and the world. Therefore, take the faith as the shield of your life and education to guard you against evil (Sirach 4:20).

The earth is now not a world that is available to build peace and welfare anymore for people are now striving for chasing after money or worldly matter (cf. Sirach 31:8-9). Henry Ford wrote if money is your hope for independence you will never have it. The only real security that a man will have in this world is a reserve of knowledge, experience, and ability.

Base on the above description, we should be warned to guard ourselves with knowledge, skill and good news that were built on faith only because evil only comes to kill and to destroy.

Closure
It is by faith we have the knowledge that God has given us authority to know, to take care and to control over the universe.

It is by the knowledge of Intellect we the cognitive capabilities measured by the capacity of acquiring intelligences such as Linguistic, Math, Logic and Reasoning. Knowledge of intellect is acquired by studying, practice, or being taught. Knowledge of intellect give you internal motivation to work in a well organized manner, applying superior systems and procedures and detailed job descriptions, so that you will get easy to accomplish your jobs.

However, your internal motivation must be complemented with enthusiasm and passion so that you may give to your work a touch of feeling, hearth and love; you then will be protected and prevented from doing everything that is too mechanical, too formal, and too protective. Knowledge of intellect must be complemented by Enthusiasm and/or as the reverse as it was written: “Enthusiasm without knowledge is not good; impatient will get you into trouble (Proverb 19:2).

This means your knowledge of intellect contributes nothing if you are impatient and your enthusiasm is useless if you do not have knowledge; for impatient makes you unable to make up your minds and undecided in all you do; therefore, you never think that you will receive anything from the Lord. (James 1:6b,7-8).

When you are impatient; you are unable to make up your minds and undecided in all you do; so that you are spending all your time for looking for nothing; you will feel very poor. Therefore, all you gain is the knowledge that you are rich, Ecclesiastes 5: 11b, means that knowledge make us full in desire (aspiration), belief (principle, trust, confidence) and acceptance (recognition, approval). Therefore, when we receiver her, she will increase the honor of ours.

It is by faith we have the knowledge that God requires us to live a life that is good and that deserve praise: things that are true, noble, right, pure, lovely and honorable. (Philippians 4:8). However, he never gives us satisfaction of fully understanding what God does (Ecclesiastes 3: 11).

Therefore, by the knowledge of Faith, God gave of Wisdom or the ability to use our intellect and experience to make good decisions and judgments.

Wisdom is capabilities measured by the heart’s capacity of producing justice, courage, patient, self-control, insight, passion and gratitude (cf. wisdom of Solomon 8:7b) and the other things that are good and that deserve praise: things that are true, noble, right, pure, lovely and honorable. (Philippians 4:8).

Wisdom is the capacity to recognize your own feelings and those of others, for motivating yourself and for managing emotions well in yourself and in your relationship.

How wisdom work in your hearts? At first wisdom will lead you along difficult path. She will make you so afraid that you will think you cannot go on (Sirach 4:17). Therefore, Nothing will stand in your way if you walk wisely, and you will not stumble when you run (Proverb 4:12).

When wisdom is in you, you will succeed in your work for it will give you patient and the capability of controlling yourself as it was written: “It is better to be patient than powerful; it is better to win control over yourself than over the whole country.” (Proverb 16:32).
Wisdom gives you patient to have success and so Benjamin Franklyn, the former USA president said: “A professional is genius in his field for he has a distinct talent that called the talent of patient. His talent of patient gives him endurance to face trials that come to his learning, patient to deal with problems calmly and patient to wait for the result without haste.

Wisdom gives you qualities of doing the right things (effectiveness), but not doing the things right (efficiency) only because she provides you with insight and understanding to protect and prevent you from doing wrong things (Proverb 2:11-12). Therefore, please get up early and find her for she will give you the following benefits:

a.       Wisdom takes care of those who look for her; she raises them to greatness-Sirach 4:11

b.      Anyone who obtains wisdom will be greatly honored – Sirach 4:13

c.       Wisdom can make your life pleasant and lead you safely through it – Proverb 3:17

d.      Wisdom offers you long life, as well as wealth and honor – Proverb 3:16

e.       So do not worry about tomorrow, it will have enough worries of its own. There is no need to add to the troubles each day brings”.– Mathew 6: 34 leo