January 11, 2026 Paid subscribers
Knowing About God… or Actually Knowing Him?
Intellectual and Sapiential Ways of Approaching the Living Truth
Most Christians do not struggle because they doubt God.
They struggle because, often without realizing it, they have learned how to know about God far more fluently than how to know Him.
This is not a failure of faith. It is usually a matter of formation.
Every Christian culture, church, and community forms people toward certain ways of knowing: what is trusted, what is emphasized, what kind of language feels legitimate when speaking about God. Over time, these habits shape not only belief, but the posture of the soul toward the mystery of God Himself.
At the heart of this lies a distinction the Christian tradition has long recognized: intellectual contemplation and sapiential contemplation. These are not competing spiritualities. They do not contradict one another. But they do shape the soul differently—and they bring us to God in different ways.