Mystery (theology)

“ What do we call the mystery of one God in three Persons?
We call it the mystery of the Most Blessed Trinity.
44. Can we comprehend this mystery?
No; it is impossible that our weak and limited intellect, which cannot understand even created things except imperfectly, should understand a mystery which is infinitely above all created things. ”

“ Everywhere mystery is the necessary accompaniment of knowledge; and the more we know, the more mysteries will we have. If, then, God reveals to us any thing about Himself additional to that which reason can ascertain, mystery must still be the consequence. ”

“ As for those wingy mysteries in divinity, and airy subtleties in religion, which have unhinged the brains of better heads, they never stretched the pia mater of mine: methinks there be not impossibilities enough in religion for an active faith; the deepest mysteries ours contains have not only been illustrated, but maintained, by syllogism and the rule of reason. I love to lose myself in a mystery, to pursue my reason to an O altitudo! 'Tis my solitary recreation to pose my apprehension with those involved enigmas and riddles of the Trinity, with Incarnation and Resurrection. ”

“ CXI.—ABSURDITY AND INUTILITY OF THE MYSTERIES FORGED IN THE SOLE INTEREST OF THE PRIESTS.
What is a mystery? If I examine the thing closely, I discover very soon that a mystery is nothing but a contradiction, a palpable absurdity, a notorious impossibility, on which theologians wish to compel men to humbly close the eyes; in a word, a mystery is whatever our spiritual guides can not explain to us. ”

“ The catechisms used in the Sunday schools are mostly filled with pious trash. The questions and answers they contain are written out of ignorance, written, too, in most cases, for the purpose of making the intellect the slave of the priest and minister. There is no mystery so shallow as a theological mystery, because it is founded on deception. The only mysteries that the human mind can contemplate with real wonder are the sublime mysteries of Nature, the mysteries of life and death, of sand and star, of flower and feeling. ”

“ O mystery of mysteries, that heaven should not be possibly obtained without such grinding down and breaking up of our original nature! O mysterious, that principle in us, whatever it is, and however it came there, which is so antagonistic to God, which has so spoilt what seems so good, that all must be undone, and must begin anew! ”

“ Mystery in the Scripture sense does not mean something actually incomprehensible, but something concealed or unknown until it please God to reveal it; something beyond the human mind to discover for itself, and which can only be attained by Divine aid. ”

“ Every revealed religion is filled with mysterious dogmas, unintelligible principles, incredible wonders, astonishing recitals, which appear to have been invented solely to confound reason. Every religion announces a hidden God, whose essence is a mystery; consequently, the conduct, ascribed to him, is no less inconceivable than his essence. The Deity has never spoken only in an enigmatical and mysterious manner, in the various religions, which have been founded in different regions of our globe; he has everywhere revealed himself only to announce mysteries ”

“ And in another sense, too, a mystery is so called; because we do not behold the things which we see, but some things we see and others we believe. For such is the nature of our Mysteries. I, for instance, feel differently upon these subjects from an unbeliever. ”

“ The mystery comprehended two leading features—the Divine purpose in saving man through a suffering and crucified Saviour, and the free admission of the Gentiles on equal terms with the Jews to the privileges of the covenant. Unlike the heathen mysteries, which were confined to a narrow circle, the Christian mystery is freely communicated to all. The mystery was concealed from the ages, which may be referred to the angels; and from the generations, which may be referred to men. Though faintly shadowed in types and figures, the truth would never have been discovered by man. ”

“ The myths state clearly the one tremendous fact that the Gods are; that is what Julian cared about and the Christians denied: what they are the myths reveal only to those who have understanding. 'The world itself is a great myth, in which bodies and inanimate things are visible, souls and minds invisible.'
'But, admitting all this, how comes it that the myths are so often absurd and even immoral?' For the usual purpose of mystery and allegory; in order to make people think. The soul that wishes to know God must make its own effort; it cannot expect simply to lie still and be told. ”

“ We can be certain therefore—we who understand that the mysteries of nature are, after all, within the limited circle of created life, while the mysteries of grace run up into the supreme Mystery of the eternal and uncreated Life of God—we can be certain that, if nature is mysterious and paradoxical, grace will be incalculably more mysterious. ”

“ In a word, a mystery is whatever our spiritual guides cannot explain.
It is profitable to the ministers of religion, that people understand nothing of what they teach. It is impossible to examine what we do not comprehend; when we do not see, we must suffer ourselves to be led. If religion were clear, priests would find less business.
Without mysteries there can be no religion; mystery is essential to it; a religion void of mysteries, would be a contradiction in terms. The God, who serves as the foundation of natural religion, or deism, is himself the greatest of mysteries. ”

“ When I can embrace such opposite propositions by calling them mysteries, I can believe that two and two are more than four, that all the parts are less than the whole, and that a thing may be made to exist and not exist at the same time and explain them by a reference to the mystery of God’s incomprehensible nature. ”

“ What may we not expect in blessings upon the world, when the veil of mystery is withdrawn and the showers of blessing descend! It is this for which the whole creation groans and travails in pain together until now, waiting for the completion of this mystery, for the manifestation of the Sons of God, the promised ‘Seed’ in whom they shall all be blessed.—Rom. ”

“ The talk of a mystery is the jargon of a priesthood which finds it profitable to keep the lay mind at a distance. Increased emphasis is placed on mystery because religious teachers are alive to the danger [Pg 168] of basing their beliefs upon matters that can be brought to the test of experience. Mystery mongering is not the beginning of religion, but a sign of its approaching demise. Mysticism, too, is no more than a cover for a sanctuary that has been emptied of all worthy of respect. ”

“ When you have said it is a mystery, you have said all. Shall man, with his deficient reason, pretend to understand God? This is a truth revealed to us by his only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, who was himself in a201 human form; and when God reveals to us a mystery, shall we not believe it? ”

“ I am more and more impressed that Heraclitus insists on the equation of reason and unreason, or chance, as well as of being and not-being, etc. This throws the secret beyond logic, and makes mysticism outclass philosophy. The insight that mystery,—the Mystery, as such is final, is the hymnic word. If you use reason pragmatically, and deny it absolutely, you can't be beaten; be assured of that. But the Fact remains, and of course the Mystery. ”

“ I proceed to speak of the three principal means that have been employed in all ages and perhaps in all countries to impose upon mankind.
These three means are mystery, miracle, and prophecy. The two first are incompatible with true religion, and the third ought always to be suspected. With respect to mystery, everything we behold is, in one sense, a mystery to us. Our own existence is a mystery, the whole vegetable world is a mystery. We know not how it is that the seed we sow unfolds and multiplies itself. ”

“ Whoever believes in a God at all, believes in an infinite mystery; and if the existence of God is such an infinite mystery, we can very well expect and afford to have many of His ways mysterious to us. ”

“ The deep mysteries of salvation, which angels desire to look into, and only satisfy themselves with admiration at, must appear as respondents at their bar; and if they decline the judge and court, as incompetent, they flee out and flout at subjecting this blind mole, man's reason, to the revelation of faith in a mystery. ”

“ As a reality in human spiritual experience God is not a mystery. But when an attempt is made to make plain the realities of the spirit world to the physical minds of the material order, mystery appears: mysteries so subtle and so profound that only the faith-grasp of the God-knowing mortal can achieve the philosophic miracle of the recognition of the Infinite by the finite, the discernment of the eternal God by the evolving mortals of the material worlds of time and space. ”

“ Mystery has a large part in the Christian faith, not to discourage, but to encourage the prayerful, aspiring souls of men. The drapery of cloud hangs all about, not to defeat, but to challenge. It is no illusion like a great desert distance filled with the blue of emptiness, that strews the sands with the bones of those whom it deceives, but is as real as the curtains of the ancient tabernacle that held the symbol of Jehovah’s presence. Life’s mysteries are often most tantalizing ”

“ It is the central mystery of mysteries—the problem of sin and suffering, the one huge difficulty which the reasoner has to solve in order to vindicate the dealings of God with man. But take our own case as an example. ”

“ A "mystery" in Scripture is a previously hidden truth, now divinely revealed; but in which a supernatural element still remains despite the revelation. The greater mysteries are:
(1) The mysteries of the kingdom of heaven Matthew 13:3-50. (2) the mystery of Israel's blindness during this age Romans 11:25 (with context) ; (3) the mystery of the translation of living saints at the end of this age 1 Corinthians 15:51,52; 1 Thessalonians 4:14-17. (4) the mystery of N.T. church as one body composed of Jew and Gentile Ephesians 3:1-11; Romans 16:25; Ephesians 6:19 ”

“ Yes, partially so; for had they not had faith, they certainly never would have come to this place: it is the faith of the Latter-day Saints that brought them here.
There is a very mysterious principle that abides with this people; it is a mystery, and one of the greatest mysteries to the inhabitants of the earth that have been made acquainted by history, or by personal knowledge, with this people. And what makes it more singular, say they, by all our calculations we cannot conceive of it; it is so mysterious that it absolutely amounts to a miracle. What is this great mystery? ”

“ The mystery which appears to surround them is wholly superficial and disappears before a more painstaking observation: it is enough merely to set aside the veil with which mythological imagination has covered them for them to appear such as they really are. ”

“ All religions, without a single exception, however rude or however polished, agree in asserting the supernatural, and that, if the cosmic mystery is inexplicable by human means, it is explicable by supernatural means. ”

“ THE MYSTERY OF GOD The infinity of the perfection of God is such that it eternally constitutes him mystery. And the greatest of all the unfathomable mysteries of God is the phenomenon of the divine indwelling of mortal minds. The manner in which the Universal Father sojourns with the creatures of time is the most profound of all universe mysteries; the divine presence in the mind of man is the mystery of mysteries.
The physical bodies of mortals are "the temples of God." ”

“ Religion in having mystery is in analogy with all around it. Where there is exceptional mystery in the Spiritual World it will generally be found that there is a corresponding mystery in the natural world. Natural Law, Bio-genesis, p. ”

“ Theologians escape by the old loophole of mystery, ordinary believers by thinking of Christ as man and God alternately. We can doubtless deceive ourselves by such juggling, but we cannot honestly escape from the inevitable dilemma. ”

“ The presence of mystery in philosophy is annoying, and the aim is to get rid of it, but a religion without mystery is absurd. Religion deals with the fundamental relations between God and man and the light it brings us must be a supernatural light. Such a religion in its presentation naturally cut across the preconceptions of the traditionalists in Jerusalem to whom nothing new could be true, as across the preconceptions of the sophists of Athens, to whom nothing that was not new was interesting. ”

“ Other things may be matter of dispute, but this not. “Without controversy great is the mystery of godliness.”
Why does St. Paul speak of the Truth as “the mystery of godliness”? In order to express both the Divine and the human aspects of the Christian faith. On the Divine side the Gospel is a mystery, a disclosed secret. It is a body of truth originally hidden from man’s knowledge, to which man by his own unaided reason and abilities would never be able to find the way. ”

“ Indeed, these effects are indissolubly connected. If there is any mystery in Christian healing, it is the mystery which godliness always presents to the ungodly, — the mystery always arising from ignorance of the laws of eternal and unerring Mind. ”

“ The mystic insight begins with the sense of a mystery unveiled, of a hidden wisdom now suddenly become certain beyond the possibility of a doubt. The sense of certainty and revelation comes earlier than any definite belief. The definite beliefs at which mystics arrive are the result of reflection upon the inarticulate experience gained in the moment of insight. ”

“ It is just at this point that all the theological juggling comes in, in the effort to reconcile contradictions and irreconcilable paradoxes, under the designation—Mystery, Miracle, and Faith. Few theologians would admit that it is desirable, even if possible, that the mystery and miracle should disappear, and that wisdom and understanding should take their place. In other words, that Jesus should be proved an evolution under both natural and divine law, as the result of “Living the Life.” ”