Faith, unlike the natural experience of God, in a certain sense is already marked by fulfillment, though not, of course, as our own experience fulfills what we merely know, but rather as what we clearly understand compared to what we only have a vague “hunch” about (not yet taking “natural knowledge of God” here for natural theology but for the “grasping along with” of a higher power in plain natural experience).
Again, faith is marked by fulfillment as an enrichment of the content of knowledge (insofar as it tells us something new about God over and above our natural experience and natural theology).
And lastly, faith is fulfillment as a confirmation by a higher authority of what we have already known.
Saint Edith Stein
Knowledge, Truth, and Being
4c3) Supernatural Experience of God; Natural Knowledge of God
This young girl stands with amazement before Fujiko Nakaya’s fog sculpture in the Fens, one of several historic parks in Boston. Learn more about the Fog x FLO: Fujiko Nakaya on the Emerald Necklace fog sculpture installations in the Boston parks here. | Ed Lyons / Flickr
Knowledge and Faith: The Collected Works of Edith Stein, vol. 8 ICS Publications, Washington DC. © Washington Province of Discalced Carmelites, Inc.
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