Hildegard & Einstein Giving Thanks for Intellect & Intuition

For Hildegard, as for Einstein, awe and knowledge, intuition and intellect, aren’t at odds but are companions on the journey. 

When she says “there is wisdom in all creative works,” Hildegard is honoring wisdom and creativity while reminding all of us of the importance of wisdom and not to settle for knowledge alone–something I deeply wish our educational institutions at all levels, from pre-school through professional schools, would honor also. 

Hildegard calls our intellects our “greatest gift” saying that our rationality allows us to understand “all things”—the Scriptures and Nature.  She teaches that Christ is “holy rationality” and “God is rationality,” and therefore our employment of rationality is something “holy.”  Indeed, rationality “leads the human being’s five senses to God’s righteousness.”  

Einstein says, “In the face of creation I feel very humble. It is as if a spirit is manifest infinitely superior to man’s spirit. Through my pursuit in science I have known cosmic religious feelings. But I don’t care to be called a mystic.”  Obviously Hildegard isn’t shortchanged in the cosmic religious feeling department either. It leaps off the page in her writings, her music, and her poetry.

Einstein underscores the importance of the mystical when he stresses that “it is not intellect, but intuition which advances humanity. Intuition tells man his purpose in this life….”  He continues, “One never goes wrong following his feeling—I don’t mean emotions, I mean feeling, for feeling and intuition are one.”

Einstein observes that there is a mystical drive in man to learn about his own existence…. I believe that the dignity of man depends not on his membership in a church, but on his scrutinizing mind, his confidence in his intellect, his figuring things out for himself, and, above all, his respect for the laws of creation.  If we respected the “laws of creation” would Climate Change be overwhelming us today?

Hildegard would agree wholeheartedly. Feeling and intuition
constitute the mystical dimension of our minds from which, according to Einstein, we derive our values.

Adapted from Matthew Fox, Hildegard of Bingen, A Saint For Our Times: Unleashing Her Power in the 21^st Century, pp. 48-50.

Second image: Einstein with Rabindranath Tagore, a Bengali poet, philosopher, playwrite, painter, and social reformer. Wikimedia Commons

Banner image: Hildegard von Bingen and Albert Einstein. Both images from Wikimedia Commons. (Hildegard image, cropped)

Queries for Contemplation

In this Thanksgiving Season, does your thanks include gratitude for your intellect and reason, along with your intuition and mysticism, values and cosmic religious feeling?

Recommended Reading

Hildegard of Bingen, A Saint for Our Times: Unleashing Her Power in the 21st Century

Matthew Fox writes in Hildegard of Bingen about this amazing woman and what we can learn from her.
In an era when women were marginalized, Hildegard was an outspoken, controversial figure. Yet so visionary was her insight that she was sought out by kings, popes, abbots, and bishops for advice.
“This book gives strong, sterling, and unvarnished evidence that everything – everything – we ourselves become will affect what women after us may also become….This is a truly marvelous, useful, profound, and creative book.” ~~ Andrew Harvey, author of The Hope: A Guide to Sacred Activism.