In our modern age, though, there is a tendency to place supreme value
upon human reason and beneficence, and to dismiss the idea of revelation
and providence as fantasy. Science and technology, with all their wonders and
powers, seem to have at last fulfilled the ancient promise of the serpent: “You
shall be as gods.” (Genesis 3:5)
Those who have made themselves blind by refusing to believe anything they do not
perceive with the physical senses .... were in former times called “serpents belonging
to the tree of knowledge.” For they reasoned much from things as perceived by the
senses and from the resulting illusions which man accepts and believes all too easily
– and by such reasoning they led very many astray. (Arcana Coelestia 2588.9)
It is true, many have been led astray. The “brave new world” has arrived.
Ancient taboos have fallen. The boundaries separating the sacred from the
profane have been erased. Nothing is off limits. Abortion. Suicide. No-fault
divorce. Same-sex marriage. The invention of new “genders.” Human prudence
in the 21st century knows no bounds – except those mandated by human
prudence itself.
Prudence is useful when governed by first principles drawn from the Word
of God, but dangerous and destructive when not. Not everything we want or
find convenient and can do is something we should do. Recognizing this is
especially important now, in this age of unprecedented scientific knowledge,
technological ability and individual autonomy.
An important use of prudence, therefore, is to recognize its own limits.
If we do not, we will succumb to the temptation to use it in the service of the
love of self, “the deadliest enemy of God and of Divine providence.” (Divine
Providence 210)
When human intelligence alone is relied upon to bring success and
happiness, or used to deny the existence of God and providence, that very
intelligence actually becomes the means of stripping us of the most vital
protections and benefits of human life, the ones bestowed by the Lord by
means of His Word and providential leading.
We can see how self-defeating human intelligence can become when
misused in this way by considering the modern view of the mind: its very
existence (as anything other than a function of the physical brain) is now
denied – by the mind itself!
Ironically, this development (the belief that the mind is nothing) seems
to agree with the truth of this statement: “Man’s own prudence is nothing, it
only appears to be something, as it should.” (Di ٥