Catholic Apologetics Online

Choose a topic from Vol 3:

God

Man

Religion

The Religion of the Bible

The Christian Religion

A Definite Christian Faith

The Problem of Reunion

The Truth of Catholicism

The Church and the Bible

The Dogmas of the Catholic Church

Moral Teachings of the Catholic Church

The Church in Her Worship

The Church and Social Welfare

The mysteries of religion

92. Are not the mysteries taught by your religion simply mental opium?

Not in the least. They do not stifle thought. They are a provocation to thought, and have inspired the greatest minds. Unexplained themselves, they throw an immense amount of light on the problem of life's purpose and destiny, when added to what we already know by reason itself. Though we cannot sound their full depths, we find in them the explanation of most of our noblest experiences. They are the key to life; and as life itself is mysterious, so the key to it is mysterious. A key is as intricate as the lock, or it does not fit. It is only by combining the clear and the mysterious that we arrive at a proper understanding. We have an example of that in science itself. In spectroscopic analysis a ray of light is broken up into its various colors; but the spectrum reveals a series of dark lines which are most mysterious. Their explanation is found only by noting where they fall in relation to the colors which are clearly shown. Now, in his search for knowledge man finds that his own power of sight is limited to a very narrow band of wave lengths. He can see neither infrared nor ultraviolet rays. These would be absolute mysteries to him if he depended only on sight. But his intelligence has discovered them. Faith goes further, and by a knowledge secured from God's revelation, gets an inkling of the great mysterious reality of God Himself, who clarifies the puzzling lines and dark shadows by which the whole of our knowledge and life are crisscrossed from end to end. So we find that the mysterious and the clear give the true sense to life.

93. All mysteries yield sooner or later to reason. Science will know tomorrow what it does not know today.

Mysteries necessarily exist, and ever will exist. Even in the merely natural order, it is useless to say that what is a mystery now will not be a mystery in the future, as if all mysteries in nature will thus be eventually unraveled. Knowledge begins with mystery and ends in mystery. The further science pushes its conquests, the more mysteries it will discover, every advance revealing further mystery ahead. Transmission by radio was an unsuspected mystery to previous generations. It is an accomplished fact today, but it has led to a host of other mysteries.But these natural mysteries are not even on the same plane as supernatural mysteries. Were all natural mysteries eventually solved, supernatural mysteries would remain. Not all the scientific knowledge of the universe could manifest to us the infinitely mysterious inner life of God Himself. From the natural point of view God's intimate nature and vital activities are inaccessible to man. And any knowledge of His personal inner life given to us by revelation-a life completely transcending the natural order of created being-will be as mysterious to us as it is beyond our natural and experimental ideas. These revealed mysteries satisfy reason by surpassing reason, since reason itself tells us that a divine religion, introducing the Infinite, must contain elements exceeding every finite capacity.

94. Are we expected to believe things to be true without any evidence for them?

We are expected to believe what God has revealed, because God must know the truth, and because He could not deceive us. Where revealed mysteries are concerned, we accept them, not because they appeal to reason as evidently true in themselves, but because of God's authority. This supposes evidence, of course, that God has actually revealed the mysteries we thus accept. We believe what God says, but we must know that He said it. It will be necessary, therefore, to study the historical evidence for the fact of revelation.

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MORE FROM VOLUME 3

• About the Author
• Preface
  - Msgr Fulton J Sheen
• Author's Foreword
  - Dr Rumble, MSC

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