Mystery

In my profession, and in the academic world more generally, there is nothing that is more important than careful thinking. Clear thinking. Sound thinking. Reason. We like our ideas lined up, put in rows, fit together neatly like a good puzzle. We like systems with ones and zeros that always lead to the same end.

 In fact, if you hang around folks like me long enough you could easily come to the conclusion that there is no greater sin than a refusal or inability to think. A well-reasoned blasphemy may well be more respected than a poorly reasoned statement of faith. After all, aren’t we to love God with our minds?

My own Reformed tradition is perhaps especially plagued by this reasoned snobbery. When Mark Noll published his book, The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind, with the conclusion that the scandal was that there was no evangelical mind, many in my circles chortled with laughter, winking and nodding in the agreement that of course, this was something they had known all along and was clearly unfortunate.

Unfortunately, these same people never stopped to consider whether their own emphasis on intellect and reason wasn’t equally problematic. Tim Keller says that an idol is a good thing that has become an ultimate thing. I wonder if that is what has happened in my profession – that we have taken a good thing and made it an ultimate thing.

One of my favorite authors when I was a child and even today is Madeleine L’Engle. She has a wonderful way of pondering, asking questions, and imagining that goes beyond reason. She appreciates mystery and paradox. She isn’t afraid of unanswered questions.

I wonder if L’Engle is closer to the vision of Christian scholarship than most of us involved in it. I wonder if being a Christian scholar isn’t really something like an invitation to study what’s in front of us, whether biology or theology, in a context where mystery and paradox and humility are central categories, not fall-back positions.

In a brief verse about the season of Advent and the incarnation L’Engle writes:

            This is the irrational season

            When love blooms bright and wild.

            Had Mary been filled with reason

            There’d have been no room for the child.

Indeed.