Intellectual visions

Visões Intelectuais

Supernatural events produced in the intellect without any dependence on sensible images. The object manifested to the intellect depends either on acquired ideas but coordinated and modified in a supernatural manner, or on infused ideas. Such visions are therefore purely spiritual and passive, since external imaginative representations do not intervene in them.

This supernatural knowledge differs from natural knowledge. Its object, which cannot go beyond the cognitive domain of the common intellect, generally surpasses this common sphere in intrinsic luminosity, supra-rational certainty, agility in the learning process, stability in the mind, and lasting effects on the soul: intellectual light full of love, peace, desire for God, and absolute detachment from what is not Him and does not directly concern Him.

These visions have God as the primary cause and exclude the action, even mediated, of angels and demons. Their characteristic sign is certainty.

(S. Teresa de Ávila, Livro da Vida 27,5).

“Porque o Senhor imprime na alma um conhecimento tão claro que, mesmo sem tê-lo visto, não é possível duvidar. Está gravado dentro do intelecto, e dele se tem tanta certeza mais do que se o visse com os próprios olhos, porque neste caso sempre se pode duvidar que se está sendo enganado. A princípio, essa dúvida também pode existir aqui. Mas aí a alma sai tão certa que a dúvida não tem força.”

The intellectual visions, which should not be separated from the infused gift of wisdom, may sometimes be obscure and indistinct, other times clear and distinct. The obscure intellectual vision certainly manifests the presence of the object but not the details of its nature:

(St. Teresa of Ávila, Book of Life 27,2).

“It seemed to me that Jesus Christ was always walking beside me, but I didn’t know how, because it wasn’t an imaginary vision. I felt He was on my right side, a witness to everything I did.”

The clear intellectual vision is a rapid intuition of divine truth, which cannot be found elsewhere according to the Apostle’s experience:

(2 Corinthians 12:2-4).

“I know a man in Christ who was caught up to the third heaven fourteen years ago. Whether it was in the body or out of the body I do not know. God knows. I only know that this man, whether he was in the body or out of the body, cannot be described; God knows him. And I heard words that cannot be uttered, things that no human can put into words.”

Therefore, there is no adequate formulation in human language:

(St. Teresa of Ávila, Interior Castle VI 10,1).

“Since it deals with very hidden things, it’s not easy to speak of them, unlike imaginary visions that are easier to explain.”

The theological understanding of intellectual visions and their role in the spiritual journey of seers is illuminated by Pope John Paul II’s encyclical Redemptoris Mater, which reflects on faith as a superior form of knowledge and encounter with the divine.

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