"Human intelligence is a reflection of the intelligence that produces everything. In knowing, we are simply extending the intelligence that comes to and constitutes us. We mimic the mind of God, so to speak. Or better, we continue and extend it"
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Smith is trying to collapse the gap modern life assumes between “religion” and “knowledge.” Instead of treating human intelligence as a lucky evolutionary byproduct, he frames it as an emanation: our capacity to know is not merely ours, but a local expression of a deeper intelligence woven into reality. That’s the provocation. It quietly demotes the modern heroic image of the autonomous thinker and replaces it with a participatory model of mind: cognition as continuity, not conquest.
The line “we mimic the mind of God, so to speak” signals his rhetorical caution. He’s aware that God-talk can sound naive or imperial in a post-Enlightenment register, so he softens it with conversational hedging, then sharpens it again: “Or better…” The revision is the tell. “Mimic” implies imitation at a distance; “continue and extend” implies intimacy and obligation. We are not copying transcendence; we are part of its unfolding. That’s a theological claim smuggled in as epistemology.
Subtextually, Smith is defending the perennialist intuition running through his work: traditions differ on the surface, but they converge on the idea that mind is not an accident in a mindless universe. The context is late-20th-century religious studies, where faith is often treated as cultural artifact and science as the only serious knowledge-maker. Smith pushes back by re-enchanting intellect itself. If intelligence is derivative of a cosmic Intelligence, then inquiry becomes more than problem-solving; it becomes a form of participation in the sacred order of things, with humility built in.
The line “we mimic the mind of God, so to speak” signals his rhetorical caution. He’s aware that God-talk can sound naive or imperial in a post-Enlightenment register, so he softens it with conversational hedging, then sharpens it again: “Or better…” The revision is the tell. “Mimic” implies imitation at a distance; “continue and extend” implies intimacy and obligation. We are not copying transcendence; we are part of its unfolding. That’s a theological claim smuggled in as epistemology.
Subtextually, Smith is defending the perennialist intuition running through his work: traditions differ on the surface, but they converge on the idea that mind is not an accident in a mindless universe. The context is late-20th-century religious studies, where faith is often treated as cultural artifact and science as the only serious knowledge-maker. Smith pushes back by re-enchanting intellect itself. If intelligence is derivative of a cosmic Intelligence, then inquiry becomes more than problem-solving; it becomes a form of participation in the sacred order of things, with humility built in.
Quote Details
| Topic | God |
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