I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use.

I do not feel obliged to believe that same God, who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use. — — — God does not intend to forgo the use of sense, reason, and intellect that he has gifted us, but not to use in a wrong direction and the evil way. God has also enriched the knowledge of the devil that uses in a wrong way.

I don’t know...but then, if God had intended Man to think, He would have given him brains, I suppose.

I say that it is possible to have some knowledge without the help of the senses. For in the Divine Mind all knowledge exists from eternity, and not only is there in it certain knowledge of universals but also of all singulars. ...Similarly, intelligence receiving irradiation from the primary light see all knowable things, both universal and singulars, in the primary light itself. Moreover, the Divine Mind, in the reflection of its intelligence upon Itself, knows the very things which come after Itself, because it is itself their cause. Therefore, those who are without any senses have true knowledge.

God gave us the senses to let us feel the love in everyone’s heart, not the illusions brought about by wealth.

God gave to Adam and to his descendants the gift of intelligence, asking in return, not for blind praise, but for a lucid and joyful understanding of the nature of all things and their source.

God gives us intelligence to uncover the wonders of nature. Without the gift, nothing is possible.

My deeply held belief is that if a god of anything like the traditional sort exists, our curiosity and intelligence are provided by such a god. We would be unappreciative of those gifts (as well as unable to take such a course of action) if we suppressed our passion to explore the universe and ourselves. On the other hand, if such a traditional god does not exist, our curiosity and our intelligence are the essential tools for managing our survival. In either case, the enterprise of knowledge is consistent with both science and religion, and is essential for the welfare of the human species.

Yet God hath not only granted these faculties, by which we may bear every event without being depressed or broken by it, but like a good prince and a true father, hath placed their exercise above restraint, compulsion, or hindrance, and wholly within our own control.

Не се чувствам длъжен да вярвам, че Господ, който ни е надарил с чувства и разум, е възнамерявал да забравим за тях.

If God had wanted us to think with our wombs, why did he give us a brain?

Undoubtedly it is our duty, and for our best good, that we occupy and improve the faculties, with which our creator has endowed us, but so far as prejudice, or prepossession of opinion prevails over our minds, in the same proportion, reason is excluded from our theory or practice. Therefore if we would acquire useful knowledge, we must first divest ourselves of those impediments and sincerely endeavor to search out the truth: and draw our conclusions from reason and just argument, which will never conform to our inclination, interest or fancy; but we must conform to that if we would judge rightly.

But if God had wanted us to think with just our wombs, why did He give us a brain?

God has also given the sense to control. He has given us intelligence which could be utilised both for good and bad. I am not saying it’s easy for people to adopt celibacy—very few can do it.