A mystery that repels

There was a time when I seemed to be an atheist magnet. Or, perhaps more likely, I attracted people who at least claimed to be atheists. Sometimes I had my doubts.

I always had a difficult time arguing for the existence, or legitimacy, of God, Jesus, the bible, etc. with people who were ironically so 'set in their ways' against such possibility. Yet they, at the same time, argued that religious people were the ones "set in their ways." That never made sense to me.

Do atheists lack an openness to mystery? Is it possible they lack... imagination? I don't know.

In my reading through the Fall 2022 issue (#114) of Image Journal, I loved this piece from Philip Metres. On pp. 112-114 he discusses "Set Apart: Or, Transcendence versus Immanence." He says...

...According to Cunningham and Kelsay in The Sacred Quest, "Religion signifies those ways of viewing the world which refer to (1) a notion of sacred reality (2) made manifest in human experience (3) in such a way as to produce long-lasting ways of thinking, feeling, and acting (4) with respect to problems of ordering and understanding existence." There is another world, religion seems to say.

But where, precisely, is it? Is it in the sky (heavens), or among us (or even within us)? Both? Or, the agnostic in me wonders, neither? Translations of Jesus's words seem to vacillate between suggesting the kingdom is both "nigh" and "at hand," here and also shortly to come. In religious terms, whether we encounter the divine through transcendence or immanence has been a living question. Rudolf Otto's The Idea of the Holy (1917) proposes that religion should not be reduced to rationality, making an argument for nonrational apperception. Otto's notion of of the numinous - what he defines as "non-rational, non-sensory experience or feeling whose primary and immediate object is outside the self" - proposes that some experience of God is not grounded in the senses but is nonetheless felt. In one poetic passage, Otto writes that

"we are dealing with something for which there is only one appropriate expression, mysterium tremendum [a mystery that repels]... The feeling of it may at times come sweeping like a gentle tide pervading the mind with a tranquil mood of deepest worship. It may pass over into a more set and lasting attitude of the soul, continuing, as it were, thrillingly vibrant and resonant, until at last it dies away and the soul resumes its "profane," non-religious mood of everyday existence... It has its crude, barbaric antecedents and early manifestations, and again it may be developed into something beautiful and pure and glorious. It may become the hushed, trembling, and speechless humility of the creature in the presence of -- whom or what? In the presence of that which is a Mystery inexpressible and above all creatures."

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Yeah... I'm not entirely sure what all that meant... but it seemed to me to suggest "Hey, it's okay if things don't make perfect sense. Mystery is sometimes good. We don't have to know everything!" 

Maybe it's nothing more than accepting the fact we are known by God, and that's good enough. There is nothing to prove. Nothing more to say. That's it.

Does that make a religious person a simpleton, or does it mean we have the imagination to believe... beyond our abilities (perhaps)??

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Can it be that atheists are not so much repelled by people of faith, as they are by their unwillingness to accept not knowing. Is it the mystery (or Mystery) that repels them?

I don't know. I'm just wondering things. 

 

"For I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified." - 1 Corinthians 2:2