Faith & Spirit Quote by Thomas Kempis

Kempis isn’t flattering ignorance here; he’s policing the ego. “Intelligence must follow faith” is less an anti-intellectual sneer than a warning about the kind of intelligence that treats life like a solvable riddle and God like a hypothesis. In The Imitation of Christ, Kempis writes for people inside a devout world, where the point of thinking is not self-expression or novelty but spiritual formation. The line works because it reverses the modern prestige order. Today, we tend to grant reason the right of first refusal: faith is what you’re left with after the arguments. Kempis makes faith the ground and intelligence the instrument.

The subtext is about power. Intelligence “preceding” faith implies a tribunal: the mind as judge, belief as defendant. Kempis distrusts that posture because it quietly crowns the self. He’s addressing a common religious failure mode in educated circles: using theology, debate, and moral reasoning to win status, not to become holy. Under that lens, intelligence doesn’t just ask questions; it “destroys,” turning spiritual life into a demolition project performed for applause.

There’s also an implicit compromise. Kempis doesn’t say intelligence is useless; he gives it a job. Follow faith: clarify, deepen, discipline, keep you from superstition. Never destroy it: don’t let cleverness become a solvent that dissolves commitment whenever it gets uncomfortable. The sentence is a small piece of monastic realism: belief survives not by out-arguing doubt, but by refusing to make the self the final authority.