Mysteries and Problems

Posted on 22 September 2018 by Fr Aidan Kimel

“Mysteries can never be solved. The deeper you enter into a mystery, the deeper the mystery itself gets. Nor can you think your way out of a mystery, because to do so is to reduce the mystery to the standing of a problem. But if you cannot think yourself out of a mystery, you can pray your way into one. Indeed, prayer is the only way there is into a mystery.” ~ Denys Turner

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3 Responses to Mysteries and Problems

  1. Denys Turner says:
    22 September 2018 at 6:40 pm

    This importantly misquotes my lecture: I didn’t say “…if you cannot think yourself out of a mystery you can think your way into one.” I said:”…if you cannot think yourself out of a mystery you can pray yourself into one.” All the difference in the world.

    On Sat, Sep 22, 2018 at 2:40 PM Eclectic Orthodoxy wrote:

    > Fr Aidan Kimel posted: ““Mysteries can never be solved. The deeper you > enter into a mystery, the deeper the mystery itself gets. Nor can you think > your way out of a mystery, because to do so is to reduce the mystery to the > standing of a problem. But if you cannot think yourself ” >

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    • Fr Aidan Kimel says:
      22 September 2018 at 10:33 pm

      Yes, you are quite right, Denys! All the difference in the world indeed. I corrected the quotation here on the blog as soon as I noticed during the late afternoon, but it took me a while to get around to correcting it on Facebook. Sometimes my fingers don’t type exactly what I’m listening to. Thanks for catching my mistake.

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  2. Thomas says:
    23 September 2018 at 12:51 pm

    I’m not sure whether mysteries can be “solved”, but they can certainly be known. Whatever lacks intelligibility is just a nullity, and the only occurrence that lacks intelligibility is sin. Mystery cannot lack an answer to our questions, unless that mystery is human sinfulness, and it cannot answer our questions unless it is something yet to be known.

    There are truths that exceed our capacity to know without divine aid. The Trinity is a prominent example. And while knowledge of the Trinity emerges out of a textured spiritual context that includes prayer and religious rites, it is produced by the application of reason. One simply doesn’t get the doctrine of the Trinity, or the two nature of Christ, etc. without the use of rational inquiry. And the origin of these mysteries does not come from any of our activities, whether or prayer or reasoning, but in the unilateral action of God in history.

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