In the opinion of all profane thinkers, philosophy means to think “freely,” as far as possible without presuppositions, which precisely is impossible; on the other hand, gnosis, or philosophy in the proper and primitive sense of the word, is to think in accordance with the immanent Intellect and not by means of reason alone. What favors confusion is the fact that in both cases the intelligence operates independently of outward prescriptions, although for diametrically opposed reasons: that the rationalist if need be draws his inspiration from a pre-existing system does not prevent him from thinking in a way that he deems to be “free”— falsely, since true freedom coincides with truth—likewise, mutatis mutandis: that the gnostic — in the orthodox sense of the term — bases himself extrinsically on a given sacred Scripture or on some other gnostic cannot prevent him from thinking in an intrinsically free manner by virtue of the freedom proper to the immanent Truth, or proper to the Essence which by delinition escapes formal constraints. Or again: whether the gnostic “thinks” what he has “seen” with the “eye of the heart,” or whether on the contrary he obtains his “vision” thanks to the intervention — preliminary and provisional and in no wise efficient — of a thought which then takes on the role of occasional cause , is a matter of indifference with regard to the truth, or with regard to its almost supernatural springing forth in the spirit.
Profane philosophy is ignorant not only of the value of truth and universality in Revelation, but also of the transcendence of the pure Intellect;(1) it entails therefore no guarantee of truth on any level, for the quite human faculty which reason is, insofar as it is cut off from the Absolute, is readily mistaken even on the level of the relative. The efficacy of reasoning is essentially conditional.
1. For example, the Cartesian Cogito is neither conformable to Revelation, nor the consequence of a direct intellection: it has no scriptural basis, since according to Scripture the foundation of existence is Being and not some experience or other; and it lacks inspiration, since direct intellective perception excludes a purely empirical process of reasoning. When Locke says Nihil est in intellectu quod non prius fuerit in sensu, the statement is false in the same two respects; firstly, Scripture affirms that the intellect derives from God and not from the body — for man, "made in the image of God," is distinguished from animals by the intelligence not by the senses — and secondly, the intellect conceives of realities which it does not discern a priori in the world, though it may seek their traces a posteriori in sensory perceptions.