I’ve always been drawn to magicians and the tricks that they perform. It is, I think, not just the mystery of magic that intrigues me but also the magic of mystery itself. Because whilst it’s fun to try to work out how they do the seemingly impossible, the greatest pleasure comes when the skill of the performer leaves you utterly perplexed. Understanding how the illusion is achieved is invariable disappointing since, in so doing, the extraordinary becomes the commonplace and the unbelievable becomes mundane. We all need a little mystery in our lives – speaking to us as it does that there is something beyond the ordinary that each and every one of us needs. As such there is comfort in the incomprehension.
I was thinking about this again this week after James Rew scored an unquestionably magnificent double century in Somerset’s game against Hampshire. Just 19 years old Rew is a prodigious talent who has already scored six first class centuries and it’s little wonder therefore that his innings is being talked about by many who, looking on admiringly, are already talking about him as a future England player. But as I read more and more of his performance I began to wonder if the extent of the associated analysis might ultimately be detracting from the performance itself. Now don’t get me wrong, I enjoy a statistic as much as the next person and, apparently, considerably more so than my wife, but perhaps there comes a point when we would do better to understand less and marvel more at what it is we are watching. Because, just as the enjoyment derived from a Beethoven symphony is not magnified by knowing the number of notes it contains, the beauty of one of James Rew’s cover drives is not enhanced by knowing the percentage of runs he’s scored in front of square on the off side.
A similar problem exists in the world of medicine where attention is focused on a patients clinical parameters without sufficient thought being given to the individual to whom those parameters apply. The result of this micro management is that too often patients become cases to be managed rather than individuals to be cared for.
And so I find myself asking why this might be the case. Perhaps it’s got something to do with our overwhelming desire to be in control and imagining that with complete understanding of the world in which we find ourselves, we would be like God. But here’s the thing. ‘Overwhelming’ is exactly what that desire is since, finite as we are, we simply aren’t able to know all that there is to know. There is simply too much information out there and we are, as Atul Gawande describes, ‘necessarily fallible’ as a result. Furthermore, in pursuing the infinite our finite minds are deprived of the joy of stepping back and marvelling at the whole.
Because sometimes the wood is more beautiful than the trees.
Perhaps, therefore, science is in danger of trying to do too much. C.S. Lewis had some interesting things to say about how the focus of what science seeks to do has changed over time. In his ‘The Abolition of Man’ (1943) he wrote how, whereas it used to seek knowledge in order to understand how humankind conformed to reality, science now seeks ‘to subdue reality to the wishes of men’. Lewis contended that there were dangers inherent in such an ambition. He realised that it would be those with power who would impose their wishes on the weak and maintained that any attempt to subdue reality to the wishes of the powerful would require nature to be conquered in order that it conformed to their desires. That, he said, would require a reducing of all of nature to nothing but it’s component parts, denying anything beyond the merely physical and quantifying everything only in terms of what we can measure. Lewis believed that, since humanity is itself a part of nature, this diminishing of the whole would ultimately diminish humanity and bring about what he called the ‘abolition of man’.
If Lewis is right, therefore, not only does our perceived need to be in complete control deprive us of the pleasure that comes from simply accepting our position of spectator and marvelling at what there is to see, it also leads to our ultimately diminishing all that has been put in place for us to enjoy. This is not to suggest that we should abandon all attempts to discover the truth – far from it, the truth is out there and is to be pursued – but it is to recognise that there are some things that we can not know and that there is wisdom in accepting that this is indeed the case.
But as well as being content with mystery, perhaps we might find some comfort in it too. Take suffering for example, that aspect of life that eventually enters into all our lives and frequently leaves us wondering ‘Why?’. Some say there is no answer to that question, that suffering is utterly meaningless. But whilst understanding how some are drawn to that conclusion, there is no comfort in it. Furthermore the inference that many go on to make that there is no God reinforces their hopeless position. But just because we cannot understand something doesn’t mean that it has no meaning. It means only that, wrapped in mystery, the meaning is beyond our understanding.
So if there is a God, why does he sometimes chose to allow us to suffer? Given what I have already said about this being mysterious ground, we should of course step carefully – the answer may never be ours to know. The wisest counsel when asked to give a reason for why a person is suffering is almost certainly to keep silent because there is certainly no easy, concise, one size fits all answer. But we could do worse than listen to what God said when Job asked him why he was made to suffer. The answer that God gave may not satisfy everything for what he said from out of the whirlwind was this:
“I will question you” (Job 38:3)
G.K. Chesterton writes:
‘…God comforts Job with indecipherable mystery, and for the first time Job is comforted…Job flings at God one riddle, God flings back at Job a hundred riddles, and Job is at peace. He is comforted with conundrums. The riddles of God, Chesterton writes, are more satisfying than the solutions of men’
In the prologue to the book of Job we see that Job was tormented, not because he was the worst of men, but because he was the best. There is a sense, therefore, in which Job points us to one who later suffered on a cross. Job is not told that his misfortunes were due to his sins, or part of any plan for his self improvement – but we are, none the less, told that he was allowed to suffer under God’s sovereign care. That a good man should suffer at the hands of a loving God is a paradox. Chesterton calls it ‘the very darkest and strangest of … paradoxes’ which is, he says, ‘by all human testimony the most reassuring’.
We cannot then know everything – neither are we meant to. We need mystery in our lives – to be both thrilled and comforted by. As such rather than seeking to understand it is sometimes better to step back and marvel – and most specifically of all at the infinite mystery of God which is both necessary and sufficient to inspire us all to trust in his sovereign goodness.
Wishing you all a magically mysterious day!
Related posts:
To read ‘T.S. Eliot, Jesus and the Paradox of the Christian Life’, click here
To read “Why do bad things happen to good people – a tentative suggestion”, click here
To read “Suffering- A Personal View”, click here.
To read “Luther and the global pandemic – on becoming a theologian of the cross”, click here
To read ‘The Abolition of General Practice’, click here
To read ‘On not remotely caring’, click here
To read ‘General Practice – still a sweet sorrow’, click here
To read ‘Eleanor Rigby is not at all fine’, click here
To read ‘In loving memory of truth’, click here
Some musings 