Having clarified that you are not referring to mystery novels, but still being a theologian who talks about mystery, you are most likely going to be dismissed as somebody who does not have an answer to the question that has been posed.
Yet the deepest realities of life cannot be completely understood with our intellect, and we run a great risk if we reject them altogether for this reason. The distinction that Matthew Fox traces in Prayer: A Radical Response to Life — one of his earliest books — between problem and mystery still holds, in the sense that is very helpful. A problem is a situation that has or might have a solution; a mystery is a reality that defies solutions because looking for a solution in such a case is a deflection from the quality of presence that is required.
In that book, Matthew berated those religious people who treat problems as mysterious entities; that is, instead of using their God-given rational faculties to solve the problems that life presents to them, they prefer living in a fanciful religious world, attributing success or failure to religious entities. On the other hand, so many people seem more and more unable to welcome into their lives the mysteries that are presented to them: the marvel of being alive, the portal of “Sister Death,” the presence of another person or animal in one’s life, to name the most obvious.
Living life, death, and relationships as mysteries means living poetically, and that is what makes us truly human. Combined, of course, with a healthy rationality.
God, then, is the mystery of mysteries, not in the sense that God is an especially complicated problem to resolve, but as an encompassing horizon or embrace of our experience of mystery.
In his book Naming the Unnameable: 89 Wonderful and Useful Names for God… Including the Unnameable God, Matthew states:
What is mystery is very shy around words and namings. Mystery does not want to be named. It wishes to remain hidden. The uniqueness of the Divine, the immensity of the Divine, renders it a great mystery that may well be without any name. Here is how Meister Eckhart put it: “The mystery of the darkness of the eternal Godhead is unknown and never was known and never will be known. God dwells therein, unknown to the Godself.” *
But such uniqueness and immensity are not something that we cannot experience. It is not simply a limit-concept that we can think of, but never grasp. Because it is not conceptual, the Great Mystery beckons us, approaches us, even instructs us. It does not do that with words or notions, but it is no less real or effectual.
Last night, while leading a group on early Christianity and mystery religions, I came up with a metaphor for explaining what the experience of the Pauline 1st-century Christians might have been. Being baptized and thus being “dressed with Christ” is like cherries plunged into chocolate: they keep their juicy body while being covered with a lather of equally tasty substance, which overall enhances them. “Christ,” therefore, is the holy water, the divine mystery which envelops the believer as a golden leaf.
There is no “understanding” of this, but there is the possibility of experiencing it. One does not need baptism or subscribing to any dogmas, but one does need awareness of the mystery. Without such an awareness, without the capacity of being present before the mystery, even welcoming the mystery, everything becomes a problem. And when problems are too many or too big to solve, we simply crash.
*Quote from Matthew Fox, Naming the Unnameable: 89 Wonderful and Useful Names for God… Including the Unnameable God, page 127
Banner Image: Dante and Beatrice gaze upon the highest Heaven. “Paradiso,” Canto XXXI in the Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri; illustration by Gustave Doré, 1892. Wikimedia Commons.
Queries for Contemplation
What is your experience of the divine mystery? Are there ways to invite people to experience God without dogmas or religious ties? How would that change society?
Related Readings by Matthew Fox
Naming the Unnameable: 89 Wonderful and Useful Names for God… Including the Unnameable God
Prayer: A Radical Response to Life
Creation Spirituality: Liberating Gifts for the Peoples of the Earth
Christian Mystics: 365 Readings & Meditations
Passion for Creation: The Earth-Honoring Spirituality of Meister Eckhart
Sheer Joy: Conversations with Thomas Aquinas on Creation Spirituality
One River, Many Wells: Wisdom Springing from Global Faiths
Matthew Fox: Essential Writings on Creation Spirituality
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9 thoughts on “Mystery”
What IS Mystery?
It IS just that–
unknowable, imponderable-so
why try with intellect
or knowledge.
Let it just be what
It IS– a beyond
everything knowable.
Far beyond in time and space
and sphere.
Just like our Beloved’s
Perfect LOVE.
This topic is essential for overcoming patriarchy and all resulting forms of dominance. Having recently facilitated a conversation in my parish about names and images of the Divine, I was disappointed to see repeated references to “God” and “Godhead,” two clearly gendered words. (Note: prior to Màtt’s book Joyce Rupp’s FRAGMENTS OF YOUR ANCIENT MAME, pub. 2011, offered 365 non-gendered ways to address the Indescribable Unnameable Ultimate Source of All.)
In our program we, too, used the Michelangelo image–to illustrate the predominance of the white male image of the Divine and the human. It was jarring to see it again without any comment of its negative impact.
About forty years ago the director of a university Contemporary Women Center proclaimed, “Until we change the names and images of the Divine we will not overcome patriarchy!”
Language matters. Words matter. Pronouns matter. And images matter. I urge you to keep fine-tuning your awareness of how the Divine is represented, so that ALL individuals, regardless of sexuality or culture, can clearly see themselves as made in the image of the Divine. Thank you for opening this conversation.
“God” for me is not a gendered name. I understand that others perceive it that way, for good reasons. I don’t think I employed masculine pronuouns in this piece, am I wrong? If I must gender the Divine, I usually use “It” as I perceive the Divine mostly as impersonal rather than personal. In the past, I have referred to the Holy Trinity as “our mother” and She. In any case, when I am told what to do around naming God, I get a strong perception of patriarchal energy. I understand the power of language, but I don’t think it’s limited to personal pronouns.
I think that certain terms and many images carry heavy connotations. They often emerge from perspectives that, unfortunately, capture only fragments of a much larger whole.
Interestingly, the early Christians—and likely Jesus himself—were well aware of this limitation. In Gnosticism, for instance, the concept of the Pleroma is understood as asexual or beyond gender. I recognize that as a spiritual image or term, “Pleroma” can feel abstract and lacks a certain tangible quality for many.
However, I find it essential that we seek out and define terms that truly reflect this holistic quality of the divine.
My Faith in the Divine Mystery is of a Source Co-Creator Loving Living Being Eternally Present in All Spiritual Beings/Dimensions of Our Loving Evolving Creation~Cosmos….
Other than Beloved, I mainly try to be open in my heart/body/mind/spirit to this Loving Living Spirit Always Personally PRESENT in Our Eternal Evolving LOVING DIVERSE ONENESS….
The Greek root of “mystery” is also found in “mutism” and “myopia.” It evokes inoperative (or shut) mouth and eyes. Even the staunchest rationalist must admit that many phenomena and realities cannot be apprehended through our senses or detected by our most sophisticated technological sensors, microscopes or telescopes.
“Of course there is another world, but it is within this one, and in order to fully attain perfection, it must only be properly recognized and experienced. Man must seek his destiny in the present, and heaven not above the earth, but within himself.” (Ignaz Paul Vital Troxler, Fragmente, Saint-Gall, p. 134)
“For indeed, the kingdom of God is within you.” Luke 17:21
Spiritual speleology is indeed optional and can be scary.
Oh, GG!
Thank you so much for using words to point me to the wordlessness of Mystery. The chocolate-lathered cherry is divinely-inspired imagry. I will sit with your words, and dwell in the Mystery. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
In great appreciation,
Eileen
The first followers of Jesus, the Ultimate Mystery in human form, were taught to pray to the Father in heaven. This was the common concept of the Jewish community to which they belonged. Generations since have made it not just a habit but a doctrine (Father, Son and Holy Spirit). Alternate theologies are respected in the current Church, and in some spaces outside the liturgy of the Mass, variations are practiced, to the satisfaction of participants. If we are true Christians we respect and love one another as kin within the Mystical Body. “Right” and “wrong” need not be used, as they are contentious terms. Mysterious Ultimate Reality that loves and moves creatures forward to an Ultimate Union has reasons beyond human capacities. As Jesus said about fear in one Gospel, contention is “unnecessary; what is needed is trust” (integral, active faith that needs no reason). When Jesus asked Peter if he and his comrades would also leave him, as many had following a mysterious claim, Peter replied, “Lord, to whom would we go? You have the words of eternal life.”
Meditative/contemplative practices help me to experience the divine in all things. Simple mindfulness and gratefulness for the moment ground me. There are many practices that can be shared with anyone and everyone, and these do not depend on any particular dogma or ties to any particular religion.