Sunday 30 April 2017

What Is A Mystery?

Poul Anderson wrote mysteries.
Gratillonius was initiated into the Mystery of Mithras.
Catholic liturgy refers to "sacred mysteries" and the Trinity is a mystery.
When Mathilda asks Rudi about "'...the Sword of the Lady...,'" he replies, "'It's a Mystery.'"
-SM Stirling, The Sunrise Lands (New York, 2008), Chapter Seven, p. 161.

Mathilda cannot reply because her religion, Catholicism, refers to mysteries.

OK. I am intrigued and do not know what is coming next. Are the Wiccan Gods real or is someone/something communicating through the Wiccans' idea of them?

Last post of the month.

Addendum: However, a relevant post has been published here.

3 comments:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

In Catholic theology, "mystery" is a term of art with a definite meaning. As Fr. John Hardon, SJ, said on page 275 of his POCKET CATHOLIC DICTIONARY (Image/Doubleday: 1980, 1985): "MYSTERY. A divinely revealed truth whose very possibility cannot be rationally conceived before it is revealed and, after revelation, whose inner essence cannot be fully understood by the finite mind. The incomprehensibility of revealed mysteries derives from the fact that they are manifestations of God, who is infinite and therefore beyond the complete grasp of a created intellect. Nevertheless, though incomprehensible, mysteries are intelligible. One of the primary duties of a believer is, through prayer, study, and experience, to grow in faith, i.e., to develop in understanding what God has revealed."

Sean

S.M. Stirling said...

Or as was said of Pythian Apollo: "Whose thoughts turn on themselves like serpents in a bed of reeds, coil upon coil; for how can a man reveal all his thought to a child, or a God to a man?"

Sean M. Brooks said...

Dear Mr. Stirling,

Exactly! By definition, God who is the infinitely transcendent Other, cannot possibly be fully understood by a merely finite mind.

Sean