Knowledge and Wickedness

Subiiciamus ergo animam Deo, si volumus servituti subiicere corpus nostrum, et de diabolo triumphare. Fides est prima quae subiugat animam Deo; deinde praecepta vivendi, quibus custoditis spes nostra firmatur, et nutritur caritas, et lucere incipit quod antea tantummodo credebatur. Cum enim cognitio et actio beatum hominem faciant; sicut in cognitione cavendus est error, sic in actione cavenda est nequitia. Errat autem quisquis putat veritatem se posse cognoscere, cum adhuc nequiter vivat. Nequitia est autem mundum istum diligere, et ea quae nascuntur et transeunt, pro magno habere; et ea concupiscere, et pro his laborare, ut acquirantur; et laetari, cum abundaverint; et timere, ne pereant; et contristari, cum pereunt. Talis vita non potest puram illam et sinceram et incommutabilem videre veritatem, et inhaerere illi, et in aeternum iam non moveri. Itaque priusquam mens nostra purgetur, debemus credere quod intellegere nondum valemus; quoniam verissime dictum est per prophetam: Nisi credideritis, non intellegetis Sanctus Augustinus Hipponensi,De Agone Christiano

Let us therefore submit the soul to God, if we wish to subdue our own bodies to service and to triumph over the devil. Faith is what first subjugates the soul to God, then the precepts of life, by which guarding our faith is made firm and our love nourished, and that which before was scarcely believed begins to profit. For thought and deed make the blessed man, and as in thought one should be wary of error, so in action one should be wary of evil. And he errs who thinks that truth is able to be known when he lives wickedly. Wickedness is love of this world, and to reckon great things which are born and pass away, and to desire these things, and to strive for them, that one acquire them, and to be joyful when they abound, and to fear lest they be lost, and to grieve when they are lost. The life of such folk is not able to be so pure and upright that it may see the eternal truth, and to adhere to it, when it is not yet moved to eternity. Thus before we have cleansed our minds, we should think that we are not yet able to understand, because most truly it said through the Prophet, 'Unless you believe, you will not understand.'  Saint Augustine of Hippo, On The Christian Struggle 1 cf Is 7.9