surely without the concept of mystery, the notion of any deity pretty much crumbles. All God/desses are responsible for miracles (acts achieved through a mysterious manner) on some scale. If you take that away, what's left?
"Mystery" is a term of art in Christian theology. It's somewhat different from the concept of a miracle.
Here's the Catholic Encyclopedia on the issue:
"In conformity with the usage of the inspired writers of the New Testament, theologians give the name mystery to revealed truths that surpass the powers of natural reason. Mystery, therefore, in its strict theological sense is not synonymous with the incomprehensible, since all that we know is incomprehensible, i.e., not adequately comprehensible as to its inner being; nor with the unknowable, since many things merely natural are accidentally unknowable, on account of their inaccessibility, e.g., things that are future, remote, or hidden. In its strict sense a mystery is a supernatural truth, one that of its very nature lies above the finite intelligence."
In other words, a mystery is something that is simply deemed true -- a theological fact -- by a given religious system, although it cannot under any circumstances be proven as true by either logic or evidence.
And for a non-religious parallel - how about the 'mystery' that lies in reconciling special relativity and quantum mechanics?
Not the same thing. The fact that modern science hasn't yet reconciled special relativity and quantum mechanics doesn't mean it can't be done, or that it's inherently unknowable.
I'd also point out that the trinity is far from being the only deity to suffer from having a blurred single/multiple identity. Several schools of Hinduism believe that the polytheist pantheon obvious on the surface are simply manefestations of the ultimate God, who may or may not be personal (depending on who you talk to to).
True, both Christianity and Hinduism have systems in which deity can in some sense be understood as both single and multiple. But I don't believe Hinduism considers this relationship to be by definition incapable of being understood.
Here's the Catholic Encyclopedia again:
"The Trinity is the term employed to signify the central doctrine of the Christian religion -- the truth that in the unity of the Godhead there are Three Persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, these Three Persons being truly distinct one from another. Thus, in the words of the Athanasian Creed: "the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God, and yet there are not three Gods but one God." In this Trinity of Persons the Son is begotten of the Father by an eternal generation, and the Holy Spirit proceeds by an eternal procession from the Father and the Son. Yet, notwithstanding this difference as to origin, the Persons are co-eternal and co-equal: all alike are uncreated and omnipotent. . . . It is manifest that a dogma so mysterious presupposes a Divine revelation. . . . Indeed, of all revealed truths this is the most impenetrable to reason."
Interestingly even the more recent looser translations include the "like one of us" line. But the amplified bible includes a parentheses indicating that this is the trinity).
A common interpretation, but I can guarantee you it's not in any Jewish translations.
The knowledge of good and evil = sex belief may well predate Augustine. In the Apocaylpse of Moses (a 1st century AD working of the apocryphal hebrew writing The Life of Adam and Eve ) the tree is identified as a fig tree. Figs have numerous other references through the bible, many negative (the cursing by Jesus being the most memorable). Mind you I might be retrofitting the modern symbolism of the fig onto the story.
It's generally understood in Jewish theology that the Tree of Knowledge was a fig tree. Here's Rashi:
"That is the tree of which they had eaten [the fig tree]. With that which they had sinned, they were rectified, but the other trees prevented them from taking their leaves. . . . Now why was the tree not identified? Because the Holy One, blessed be He, does not wish to grieve any creature, so that [others] should not put it to shame and say, 'This is [the tree] because of which the world suffered.'"
In other words, the fig tree wasn't actually named in the Bible so it wouldn't be embarrassed. I love that.
But I don't see the fig=sex connection.
(Other than the use of fig leaves to hide Adam and Eve's nudity in Genesis 3:7.) |
