What is Intelligence

by CR (041)

According to the dictionary, "Intelligence is the ability to learn or understand or to deal with new or trying situations; the skilled use of reason; the ability to apply knowledge to manipulate one's environment or to think abstractly as measured by objective criteria; It's also considered mental acuteness or shrewdness"

Biblical Christians believe that "God is the Creator of the human intelligence, giving us the ability to comprehend, think, reason, and remember."

Now, in the opinion of Mary Baker Eddy, an American religious leader who in 1879 founded the movement called Christian Science, "Intelligence is omniscience, omnipresence, and omnipotence. It is the primal and eternal quality of infinite Mind..."

Sidenote: the expression "infinite Mind" by Mary Baker Eddy, seems to be close to what Christian Rationalism calls "Universal Intelligence"

For Christian Rationalism, Intelligence is a faculty of the spirit, the master quality of the soul and affects all other qualities. It purifies them and contributes to make them better and more efficient.

Spiritual qualities depend on intelligence. They are created, they grow, enlarge and improve according to the evolution of the spirit in the course of numerous multiple incarnations, that can last thousands of years. 

Intelligence is a powerful ally of perfection. It makes the spirit realize its faults and try to correct them. It guides reason and provides it with the means it needs to expand.

Intelligence is illuminating beyond comparison. Magnifies and extends the vision and mindset of the spirit and is an instrument capable of dissipating darkness and destroying ignorance wherever it may be found.

References

[1] Merriam Webster Dictionary, 2019 (https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/intelligence)

[2] GotQuestions, 2019 (https://www.gotquestions.org/Christian-intellect.html)

[3] Mary Baker Eddy, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, 1875

[4] Christian Rationalism, 1st Edition, Rio de Janeiro 1984

[5] Compilation, paraphrasing, translation from original texts in Portuguese