To deny the abilities I’ve been given—thought, insight, wisdom, analysis, understanding, explanation, persuasion—is a virtual sin against creation. It degrades the virtue of humility to a kind of debased self-knowledge. It withholds from the human community the very gifts I have been freely given for its good. Worse, it denies life the effort it takes to make such gifts real. Having gifts is nothing if we don’t use them. To praise the Creator for seeding the universe with them is bogus if we ourselves fail to use them to their limits. It is a sin against creation.
