glossary of terms used by frithjof schuon - Sophia Perennis

Faith / Intelligence: Unlike an intelligence which is all for exactness but never satisfied
in its play of formulations, and which passes from concept to concept, from symbol to
symbol, without being able to make up its mind for this or for that, the faith of the heart is
capable of being satisfied by the first symbol that providentially comes its way, and of
living on it until the supreme Meeting. [LT, Understanding and Believing]
Faith as a quasi-ontological and premental certitude ranks higher than the discerning and
speculative aspects of intelligence, but intelligence as pure Intellection ranks higher than
that faith which is no more than an adherence of the sentiments; it is this ambivalence
which is the source of numerous misunderstandings. [LT, Understanding and Believing]
Faith / Knowledge: There is no faith without any knowledge, nor knowledge without
any faith. But, it is knowledge that has precedence: faith is an indirect and volitive mode
of knowledge, but knowledge suffices unto itself and is not a mode of faith; nevertheless,
being situated in relativity, knowledge requires an element of faith to the extent that it is
a priori intellectual and not existential, mental and not cardiac, partial and not total;
otherwise all metaphysical understanding would imply sanctity ipso facto. However, all
transcendent certitude has something divine about it – but as certitude only, and not
necessarily as the acquisition of a particular man.
In other words: in a Semitic climate much importance is given to the incompatibility
between knowledge and faith, and to the pre-eminence of the latter, to the point of
holding the former in contempt and of forgetting that within Relativity the one goes hand
in hand with the other. Knowledge is the adequate perception of the real, and faith is the
conformity of will and sentiment to a truth imperfectly perceived by the intelligence; if
the perception were perfect it would be impossible for the believer to lose his faith.
Yet theoretical knowledge, even if perfect and hence unshakable, always requires a
volitive element which contributes to the process of assimilation or integration, for we
must “become what we are”; and this operative element, or this element of intensity,
stems from faith. Inversely, in religious faith there is always an element of knowledge
that determines it, for in order to believe, it is necessary to know what one must believe;
moreover, in plenary faith there is an element of certitude which is not volitive, and
whose presence we cannot prevent, whatever be our efforts to refuse all knowledge in
order to benefit from the “obscure merit of faith.”
It is only in God that knowledge can entirely dispense with that element of intensity
necessary for realization or with the will for totalization; as for faith, its prototype in
divinis is Life or Love; and in God alone are Life and Love independent of any motive
justifying or determining them ab extra. It is by participation in this mystery that Saint
Bernard could say: “I love because I love,” which is like a paraphrase of the saying of the
Burning Bush “I am that I am”; “That which is.”
It is knowledge, or the element truth, which gives faith all of its value, otherwise we
could believe no matter what, so long as we believe; it is only through truth that the
intensity of our faith has meaning. [CI, The Question of Evangelicalism]
Faith / Science: Faith is the acceptance of that which we do not see, or rather, of that
which transcends the experience of the average man; science is the experience of that
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