Is it impious to explain the Mysteries?

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It seems to me that, in order to respect the Mystery of God, there are certain things which, to attempt to explain, is impious.

Take for example, the Trinity. We all know the doctrine- three hypostases and one ousia. But this doesn’t actually explain anything- it simply states the Mystery.

Similarly with the Eucharist- the substance changes, but not the accidents. Again, this is a statement of the Mystery, but not any explanation at all.

Another case is the problem of evil. Numerous people try to explan it, but, as we see in the Book of Job, that is both ineffective and misleading.

It seems that if we start to offer coherent explanation of the Mysteries of God, we are actually doing something wrong. Do we need to respect the Mystery of God more, and not pretend that we can explain the Higher Truths?
 
I don’t think it’s impious, otherwise we’d not have theologians among our saints. I also don’t find your options in the poll terribly fair–it’s a bit of a jump to go from saying that the divine mysteries can’t be completely comprehended (i.e. completely surrounded or overtaken) by the intellect, to whole-hog saying they can’t be grasped at all. We obviously can grasp something of the Divine, otherwise he’d not have revealed himself to us. If the human intellect is incapable of knowing something of the Divine, what does this say about the power of the Divine to reveal Himself?

-ACEGC
 
I think that good, careful, thoughtful (and even prayerful) theological explanations, including qualifications and disclaimers as needed depending on the particular subject, can be considered very worthwhile (and even pious in a manner of speaking). Partial explanations and heuristic understandings are part of the appropriation process for doctrines and dogmas.

I’m reminded of many old (but still good) books by Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange where there is a good harmony between advanced thinking and the (initial or basic) simplicity of the Gospel. I’m also reminded of an old statement by Plato from long ago: “A reasonable person ought not to say, nor will I be very confident, that descriptions of the soul and her mansions [or similar subjects] are exactly true, but we may certainly venture to think that something of the kind is true.” [adapted from this page with [URL='http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/']this license]
 
Rather, it is imprudent. To claim to “explain the mysteries” (which have remained mysteries even after the collective minds of Christendom have failed to do so for 2,000 years) insinuates that one is wiser or more illumined than all who have gone before.

Even worse, it may be prideful.
 
I don’t think it impious, nor imprudent. More accurately it is impossible. We do not have the ability to understand the mystery let alone explain it. We’ll understand it in heaven.
 
Aquinas21 said:
I think that good, careful, thoughtful (and even prayerful) theological explanations, including qualifications and disclaimers as needed depending on the particular subject, can be considered very worthwhile (and even pious in a manner of speaking). Partial explanations and heuristic understandings are part of the appropriation process for doctrines and dogmas.

I’m reminded of many old (but still good) books by Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange where there is a good harmony between advanced thinking and the (initial or basic) simplicity of the Gospel. I’m also reminded of an old statement by Plato from long ago: “A reasonable person ought not to say, nor will I be very confident, that descriptions of the soul and her mansions [or similar subjects] are exactly true, but we may certainly venture to think that something of the kind is true.” [adapted from this page
Click to expand...

with [URL='http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/']this license]

Yes, it seems as if the simple words of Christ exceed the thousands of books written by the philosophers. Indeed, John 1:1 seem up for me the whole of human wisdom and philosophy, and everything else, including the visible world, is merely a commentary on it.

I like that quote of Plato (from Phaedo, I think) suggesting that we can use images (including explanations), provisionally, without claims to absolute truth.
 
po18guy said:
Rather, it is imprudent. To claim to “explain the mysteries” (which have remained mysteries even after the collective minds of Christendom have failed to do so for 2,000 years) insinuates that one is wiser or more illumined than all who have gone before.

Even worse, it may be prideful.
Click to expand...
Yet, after 2,000 of getting no closer to any final explanations, we continue to do theology.

Is theology to be understood more as an spiritual or creative activity, than a discipline of studies which leads to real advancement?
 
It is said humans only use about 10-20% of our brains, so this always made me wonder what our true potential could be if we could use even another 50%, or 100% of our brains!!! I think we would be able to do literally anything, but for some reason, we have either forgotten how to access these parts, or we are not meant to have these abilities.

I think we try to understand the divine and God, heaven, hell, angels, demons, etc and we do our best and try to explain it in terms we use and understand, but the actual truth is probably something we cannot even comprehend, or would be so bizarre, it would not make any sense to us, as we can only understand what we can see and touch and experiment with. The supernatural realm is not something we currently have this ability to do though, maybe in the future, with ever progressing science and technology, we may be able to get closer to the real truth.

I have a feeling once we start to learn more about different planes of existence and/or dimensions, we will be getting close to the truth, they are studying this and doing research into this area right now, so maybe in another 100 yrs, it will be common knowledge for us to know all these is to know about such things…hopefully sooner, I would like to know about this before I die!!
 
Qoeleth said:
It seems to me that, in order to respect the Mystery of God, there are certain things which, to attempt to explain, is impious.

Take for example, the Trinity. We all know the doctrine- three hypostases and one ousia. But this doesn’t actually explain anything- it simply states the Mystery.

Similarly with the Eucharist- the substance changes, but not the accidents. Again, this is a statement of the Mystery, but not any explanation at all.

Another case is the problem of evil. Numerous people try to explan it, but, as we see in the Book of Job, that is both ineffective and misleading.

It seems that if we start to offer coherent explanation of the Mysteries of God, we are actually doing something wrong. Do we need to respect the Mystery of God more, and not pretend that we can explain the Higher Truths?
Click to expand...
If anything can be turned from a mystery to a non-mystery then all we’ve done is to arrive at truth, which is what Christianity is all about! It’s normal for humans to ask questions, to explore, to solve riddles-but that surely won’t happen unless we try. And if it remains a mystery after all, then so be it.
 
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