thought

By “THOUGHT” we mean here, not an artificial elaboration but the mental crystallization of real knowledge. With all due deference to anti-Platonic theologians, Platonism is not true because it is logical, it is logical because it is true; and as for the possible or apparent illogicalities of the theologians, these can be explained not by an alleged right to the mysteries of absurdity, but by the fragmentary character of particular dogmatic positions and also by the insufficiency of the means of THOUGHT and expression. We may recall in this connection the alternativism and the sublimism proper to the Semitic mentality, as well as the absence of the crucial notion of Maya – at least at the ordinary theological level, meaning by this reservation that the boundaries of theology are not strictly delimited. (GTUFS: EsoterismPW, The Primordial Tree)

Thought (exoteric): Theological or, to be more precise, exoteric THOUGHT – the two things do not always coincide exactly – generally shows itself incapable of grasping simultaneously two divergent aspects of one and the same reality: it works by alternatives which tend to be moralizing, the more “pious” option being the “truer” one in its eyes, the type of piety being determined by the perspective which is characteristic of the Revelation in question, even though this Revelation may not necessarily imply the same option on the plane of the pure truth. It is not Christ who is anti-Platonic, it is Christians who are, to the extent that they are: however traditional the anathema pronounced in certain liturgical practices of the Greek Church against the Platonists may be, it nonetheless clearly derives from what we may call the “human margin.” Theologically, the falsity of the Platonic thesis can only amount to a hypothesis, and one which is all the more senseless in that no theologian can contest that the principles of things necessarily preexist in the creative Intellect, or Providence, if one so prefers, and that each positive cosmic possibility is presided over by an angelic power which is its prototype or “idea.” (GTUFS: LogicT, Rationalism, Real and Apparent)

Thought (profane): Profane THOUGHT is not confined to THOUGHT which is ignorant of metaphysical and mystical truths, but also includes THOUGHT which, while knowing these truths well enough in theory, has nonetheless a disproportionate approach to them, an approach that is unaccompanied by a sufficient adaptation of the soul; not that such THOUGHT is profane by definition as in the case of ignorant THOUGHT, but it is so secondarily or morally and lies in grave danger of error, for man is not merely a mirror, he is a cosmos which is both complex and fragile. (GTUFS: LogicT, Understanding and Believing)