Problems of Belief

Postquam de paradisi gaudiis, culpa exigente, expulsus est primus humani generis parens, in hujus caecitatis atque exsilii quam patimur venit aerumnam, quia peccando extra semetipsum fusus, jam illa coelestis patriae gaudia, quae prius contemplabatur, videre non potuit. In paradiso quippe assueverat homo verbis Dei perfrui, beatorum angelorum spiritibus cordis munditia et celesitudine visionis interesse; sed postquam huc cecidit, ab illo quo implebatur mentis lumine recessit. Ex cujus videlicet carne nos in hujus exsilii caecitate nati, audivimus quidem coelestem esse patriam, audivimus ejus cives angelos Dei, audivimus eorumdem angelorum socios spiritus justorum et perfectorum. Sed carnales quique, quia illa invisibilia scire non valent per experimentum, dubitant utrumne sit quod corporalibus oculis non vident. Quae nimirum dubietas in primo parente nostro esse non potuit, quia exclusus a paradisi gaudiis, hoc quod amiserat, quia viderat recolebat. Hi autem sentire vel recolere audita non possunt, quia eorum nullum, sicut ille, saltem de praeterito, experimentum tenent. Ac si enim praegnans mulier mittatur in carcerem, ibique pariat puerum, qui natus puer in carcere nutriatur et crescat; cui si fortasse mater quae hunc genuit, solem, lunam, stellas, montes et campos, volantes aves, currentes equos nominet, ille vero qui est in carcere natus et nutritus nihil aliud quam tenebras carceris sciat, et haec quidem esse audiat, sed quia ea per experimentum non novit, veraciter esse diffidat; ita in hac exsilii sui caecitate nati homines, dum esse summa et invisibilia audiunt, diffidunt an vera sint, quia sola haec infima in quibus nati sunt visibilia noverunt.   Sanctus Gregorius Magnus, Dialogorum Liber IV, Cap I

After the first Parent of the human race was for his fault driven from the joys of Paradise, he came into the hardship of this blindness and exile which we suffer, for having been prostrated by sin he was no longer able to see those joys of heaven which once he contemplated. In Paradise man was accustomed to delight in the words of God and by purity of heart and heavenly vision he was present with the blessed angels, but after the fall the light that had filled his soul was withdrawn, he from whom we are born by the flesh into this sightless exile, yet we do hear of a heavenly homeland, we hear of the angelic subjects of God, we hear that the angelic spirits are accompanied by the spirits of the just and perfect. But those carnal, because they are not able to know these invisible things by experience, doubt whether there be any such things, they doubt whether a thing can be which corporal eyes do not see, a doubt our first Parent was certainly not able to have, for though exiled from the joys of Paradise he was still able to recall what he had seen and had lost, but later men cannot recall to mind such things which they hear about because they never had former experience of them as the first man did. It is as if a pregnant woman were put in prison and there gave birth to a son, who being born in the prison was nurtured and raised there, and if perhaps his mother should tell him of the sun, the moon, the stars, mountains and fields, flying birds and galloping horses, this fellow who had been born and raised in prison, knowing nothing but its darkness, hearing what was said, would lack confidence in its truth because his own experience had not taught him any such thing. So it is that men who are born in this blind exile, when they hear about sublime and invisible things, lack confidence such things because they know only low and visible things. Saint Gregory the Great, Dialogues, Book 4, Chap 1