Don: Mystery is to knowledge what blindness is to sight. The tension between the need to know about God and the need to live with the mystery of God lies at the interface in many of the conflicts we find in our churches today. For thousands of years, religion has been about knowing and explaining God, and then upon condemning those lacking the knowledge or reassuring those who have it.
Most people seek religions that answer question, not those that ask questions. A religion without answers, a God of only questions, a spirit that leads but does not inform, is viewed by most as a useless religion. We think that the more we know about God, the more controllable he is, to our personal benefit. We want cause and effect, so highly valued in science and the natural world, to be equally operational in religion and the spiritual world.
Jesus said that those who claim insight concerning God are at risk of being judged for doing so. We need to be blind in that respect. We need to accept and embrace mystery.
In the Garden of Eden, God expected Man to live by reliance upon him. The Tree of Life is the symbol of God’s creative and sustaining power, which is the source and the substance of life itself. Just as life itself is mysterious, so is the Tree also a mystery. The alternative, the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, is the symbol for discrimination, for cause and effect. As its very name makes explicit, it is the exact opposite of the tree of mystery. It is the tree of what can be known.
The dilemma in the Garden then was not just about obedience—about whether to obey God’s injunction against eating from one of the trees—but about whether life should be lived as a mystery or as a scientific fact. Through his injunction, God had sought to limit Man’s acquisition of knowledge—of fact. As he threw Man out of the Garden, he revealed why he wanted to limit that acquisition:
Then the Lord God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of Us, knowing good and evil; and now, he might stretch out his hand, and take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever”— therefore the Lord God sent him out from the garden of Eden, to cultivate the ground from which he was taken. (Genesis 3:22-23)
Although it seems that Man could never hope to approach God’s unlimited degree of knowledge, God sees danger in our pursuit of it. This is elucidated in the story of the Tower of Babel:
Now the whole earth used the same language and the same words. It came about as they journeyed east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there. They said to one another, “Come, let us make bricks and burn them thoroughly.” And they used brick for stone, and they used tar for mortar. They said, “Come, let us build for ourselves a city, and a tower whose top will reach into heaven, and let us make for ourselves a name, otherwise we will be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth.” The Lord came down to see the city and the tower which the sons of men had built. The Lord said, “Behold, they are one people, and they all have the same language. And this is what they began to do, and now nothing which they purpose to do will be impossible for them. Come, let Us go down and there confuse their language, so that they will not understand one another’s speech.” So the Lord scattered them abroad from there over the face of the whole earth; and they stopped building the city. Therefore its name was called Babel, because there the Lord confused the language of the whole earth; and from there the Lord scattered them abroad over the face of the whole earth. (Genesis 11)
But the background to this story is that God had already divided Mankind into nations, each with its own language:
5 From these the coastlands of the nations were separated into their lands, every one according to his language, according to their families, into their nations.
20 These are the sons of Ham, according to their families, according to their languages, by their lands, by their nations.
31 These are the sons of Shem, according to their families, according to their languages, by their lands, according to their nations.
32 These are the families of the sons of Noah, according to their genealogies, by their nations; and out of these the nations were separated on the earth after the flood. (Genesis 10:5,20,31-32)
Therefore, it seems to me, the meaning of the Tower story is not what it seems, it is not about the origin of nations and languages; rather, it is about the origin of diverse understandings of God out of what had been a single, unified, understanding. The Babelonians employed their knowledge and technology from a singular perspective, a common viewpoint—a common “language”—about God, in order to build a tower reaching into the very mind of God, where “nothing which they purpose[d] to do [would] be impossible for them.”
But if Man can never hope to approach God’s unlimited degree of knowledge, why is God so concerned about our pursuit of something which is impossible to attain? What is so risky for us? What evil results? The danger, it seems, is that we may think we have attained it and if we do, then we are in a state of sin:
Jesus said to them, “If you were blind, you would have no sin; but since you say, ‘We see,’ your sin remains. (John 9:41)
The use of scientific data and knowledge to pursue the mystery of God seems to be underwritten by what God wants. But it is sinful to claim insight about God, to speak for God, to define his ways via the use of wisdom, technology, and laws of cause and effect. It is the difference between the pursuit of knowledge as an end in itself and the pursuit of knowledge that leads to an ever-expanding mystery about God. It is the difference between walking by faith and walking by sight. The apostle Paul wrote about it:
…your faith [sh]ould not rest on the wisdom of men, but on the power of God.
Yet we do speak wisdom among those who are mature; a wisdom, however, not of this age nor of the rulers of this age, who are passing away; but we speak God’s wisdom in a mystery, the hidden wisdom which God predestined before the ages to our glory; the wisdom which none of the rulers of this age has understood; for if they had understood it they would not have crucified the Lord of glory; but just as it is written,
“Things which eye has not seen and ear has not heard,
And which have not entered the heart of man,
All that God has prepared for those who love Him.” (1 Corinthians 2:5-10)
Is there room for mystery in a scientific world which seeks answers and cherishes knowledge and explanation? Must we choose between knowledge and mystery of God, between blindness and sight? Is mystery something we can share among ourselves?
We can easily print tracts or make videos to share the data, the knowledge, the questions and their answers, of religion. But how can we share mystery? Is religion, which tends to seek to avoid mystery and replace it with knowledge, even capable of doing it or of helping us to do it?
David: The mystery that bothers me is that, at Babel, God divided humanity; whereas at Pentecost, Jesus sought to unite it, and the holy spirit apparently reversed what God did at Babel. Perhaps God does want us all to have our own individual viewpoints about him but share a common love for one another. The problem is that the different viewpoints, the religious differences, that God seems to want, usually lead us to hate one another, which God does not want!
Donald: Just by looking at their definitional attributes we can tell our discomfort with mystery and comfort with knowledge. To be mysterious is to be dark, magical, obscure, perplexing, strange, unknown, weird. To be knowledgeable is to be brilliant, discerning, smart, sophisticated, well-informed, and so on.
The cause of our inability to be unified in the face of mystery is a mystery! Why can’t we just let it be what it is. Love is a mystery we all share, we all need, and we all appreciate. But religion feels obliged to unpack and explain mystery.
Jay: It may be because religions attach salvation to it. Christians claim to understand the role of Jesus Christ in salvation. Other religions probably have their own notions of salvation in the afterlife. They all seek to show the path, the principles, to follow to reach salvation. The stakes are high—there is no stake higher than salvation. People are desperate to know the way and will tend to any religion that claims it has a map showing the way. Nobody wants ambiguity.
David: It seems to me that religion is about community and the group’s relationship with God; whereas spirituality is about the individual and one’s personal relationship with God. We do not have to belong to a religion to have a relationship with God. Whether religions help, or could help, or are doing enough to help individuals to establish or develop their individual relationships with God is perhaps the question.
Michael: We seek salvation through church because we fear death. We seek knowledge because of that fear. Salvation is a salve to our fear; but so too is grace.
David: There’s strength in numbers, so perhaps we form religious groups to help us overcome that fear.
Don: In a way, that’s what the Babelonians were doing; and God did not like it! He seems not to want us banding together and using technology to seek knowledge of him. It seems he does not want us to have a common perception of him. Babel cannot be just about language—it has to be about the content and the meaning of the language we use to express our perceptions of him.
Donald: Do I need knowledge and understanding of God for my salvation? Or do I only need to be faithful? Faith lives with mystery. For some of us, the details are not necessary and are not the goal of our spiritual journey.
Jay: Christ’s ministry did not focus on teaching us about salvation but on teaching us the need to minister to our fellow Wo/man. The Babelonians were focused on their own salvation, their own path (tower) to God, but Jesus said if we worry about one another, the path to God will take care of itself. God seeks unity about caring for one’s fellow Wo/man, but seeks division about seeking salvation. The unity of Pentecost was a unity to spread the Christian ministry of love and caring for one’s neighbor, not a unity to spread the Babelonian goal of reaching God.
David: That would seem to be an argument against the building of ornate cathedrals. They are surely a community effort to reach God. Yet I agree with our dear departed friend Harry that such cathedrals (and even humble village churches, centuries old, in the English countryside) do feel as though (befitting a House of God!) they house the spirit of God. They did and do engender—in Harry and me and countless others who have entered them—a deep sense of spirituality, of nearness to God. I cannot imagine why God would not approve of that; but then, I am not God!
Don: Can mystery be shared?
Donald: Love is a mystery, and love can be shared in the form both of love itself and of the concept of love. Grandiose cathedrals and grandiose music seem to lift us beyond our ordinary, mundane selves, and we can all share in that mysterious sensation, we an appreciate it together; but I am not sure that we can share it with someone who is not there with us in the cathedral or the concert hall.
David: It reminds me of the writer Milan Kundera’s definition of music as “a pump to inflate the soul,” which turns “Hypertrophic souls … into huge balloons [that] rise to the ceiling of the concert hall and jostle each other in unbelievable congestion.” (The book is available here.) When I first read Kundera’s definition, several decades ago, it ruined music for me for years, because I realized I was one of those hypertrophic souls. I was literally dispirited. I’m back up there, now, jostled against the ceiling when I listen to Mozart’s Requiem, but only because I’ve accepted the inflated feeling as worth it, for pleasure’s sake, even if it is just a spiritual trick. Perhaps, in Babel, God is warning against such trickery.
Jay: There’s a difference between an act of worship and an act of defining God. The awe and inspiration evoked by the cathedral or the musical masterpiece seem to me to represent worship rather than an attempt to define God. But I don’t see the building of the Tower of Babel as an act of worship. It was not a statement of awe and honor and appreciation and love for God and his grace; it was purely an attempt to reach and thus be able to define God.
Donald: I feel that worship brings me closer to God, but no closer to knowing him; and that is good enough for me.
Jay: So often we hear it said that the only way to have a relationship with someone is to get to know them first.
Donald: Then we get into the definition of “knowing” and that’s where religions divide. At what point can we say we know enough?
Michael: We can share knowledge, but I don’t understand how one can share mystery, which by definition is indefinable! Can we share an appreciation for mystery?
Donald: My wife and I shared a sense, a moment, of mystery when we visited the abbey on the Mont St. Michel in Normandy and heard the sound of monks chanting. We did not need to define it for each other in order for each of us to appreciate it.
Michael: So you each had individual feelings, but how can you know that what you felt is what your wife felt?
Chris: Mystery is personal. My life experiences, my knowledge, is not the same as anyone else’s. What might be mysterious to others might not be mysterious to me. So in that sense we cannot share our mysteries. I can try to impose my mystery on others by imposing my knowledge base on them. At Babel, everyone agreed on a single knowledge base. It formed their will, which was out of line with God’s. We cannot share mystery because it is personal, but perhaps there are things we can do to pique other people’s interest in exploring mystery for themselves.
David: The knowledge we are talking about is spiritual, not scientific, not worldly. A better word for spiritual knowledge, in my opinion, is enlightenment. This is what the eastern religions and philosophies focus on. As I understand it, enlightenment is what happens when one is in communion with God. It cannot be defined or described in words. Words are a human technology, language is a technology, writing is a technology. They cannot be used to commune with God or to share one’s enlightenment with others. Enlightenment is a mystery known only to the enlightened, but I think it is possible to identify a person who is enlightened through some mysterious sense we possess.
Don: The religion of Jesus is not abut knowledge: It is about being a Good Samaritan, about sharing one’s love and resources with others. Judgment is all about this—about taking care of one’s follow human being. We tend not to practice that, because in our religion we focus on knowledge, hermeneutics, bible study, questions and answers, cause and effect.
Mystery seems to be personal and unique to the individual. Whether it can be shared is unclear. What clearly can be shared is goodness to others. It can be shared as a practical matter, which is what God wants. It cannot be shared, and God apparently does not want it to be shared, as a theoretical matter.
David: Like love, goodness is a mystery we can share without understanding it. We don’t know in any scientific sense where it originates. We can make no more than faith-based guesses.
Donald: Is it arrogant then even to try to understand mystery?
Don: Paul said that understanding, the pursuit of mystery, and even the possession of faith is subordinate to love.
Jay: It is absurd to think we can understand everything, and everyone knows that. The issue is that we tend to act as though we do understand everything. It is equally absurd to think that there is just one way, for everyone on the planet, to God; but again, while we know that it is absurd, we nevertheless tend to act as though there is only on way. This is why I think our class is important. It reminds us of the absurdities by lifting us out of the daily immersion in our cultures and their groupthink and reminding us that there are divine timeless principles which—unlike humanly predetermined pathways to God—do apply to everyone.
Don: When Man seeks to understand God, as Adam and Eve did, and to define a singular path to God, as Man did at Babel, then God says Stop! Jesus said that to think we know is sinful. The singular path to God is a dangerous path to set foot upon.
David: In her ministry to the poor of Calcutta, Mother Theresa did what Jesus wanted. Difficult though this ministry must have been, it does not seem to have troubled her. What did trouble her, as revealed by her letters, were her doubts about her faith—a mystery. If she had not been at all religious, she might well have still had the same compassion for, and would have still ministered to the needs of, the poor of Calcutta. She just would not have had the religious baggage that weighed her down spiritually. Surely, in Jesus’s eyes, all that mattered was her service, not her religiosity.
Michael: But her religion might be what put her on the path to ministering tot he poor.
David: A religion that relates the Parable of the Good Samaritan, and thereby serves to remind us all of what is good and right, is surely a good thing, provided that we do not come to rely on it for guidance at the expense of the inner light, the holy spirit, the gently nagging Good Samaritan we all carry inside us.
* * *
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.