The Divine Lamp

1.  We learn from the preceding section that Supernatural Revelation gives us knowledge of truths unrevealed by Natural Revelation.  These truths constitute the specific and proper contents of Supernatural Revelation.  As, however, this Revelation is by word of mouth,and not, as in the Revelation of Glory, by the vision of its object; as it does not entirely lift the veil from revealed things: it leaves them in obscurity, entirely withholding, their reality from the mind’s eye, and only reproducing their essence in analogical concepts taken from the sphere of our natural knowledge.  This peculiar character of the content of Supernatural Revelation is called Mystery, or mystery of God; that is, a truth hidden in God, but made known to man by a free communication.

2.  Mystery in common parlance means something hidden or veiled, especially by one mind from another.  It implies the notion that some advantage attaches to the knowledge of it which gives the initiated a position superior to outsiders.  The heathens gave the name of “mysteries” to the symbolical or sacred words and acts which they kept secret from the multitude, or to the hidden meaning of thier liturgy, understood only by the initiated.  The Fathers appled the term to the sacred words and acts of the true religion, kept secret from the heathen and the catechumens, and understood only by the perfect, especially the mysteries knowable only by Fatih which are veiled under the sacramental appearances. (see Newman’s Developement of Doctrine, pg 27)

a.   The notion of theological mystery properly so-called implies that the mysterious truth is incapable of being discovered by human reason , and that, even after it is revealed, reason cannot prove its existence.  These conditions, however, are fulfilled by many truths which are not usually styled mysteries.  Hence we must add the further condition that the truth should be naturally unknowable on account of its absolute and objective superiority to our sphere of knowledge, and that we should consequently be unable to obtain a direct and proper, but only an anological, representation of its contents.  A mystery is therefore subjectively above reason and objectively above nature.

b.   That there are such mysteries has been defined by the First Vatican Council: “Besides those things which natural reason can attain, there are proposed for our belief the mysteries hidden in God, which, unless they were divinely revealed, could not be know.”  Although by means of anlaogy we may attain some knowledge of these mysteries, nevertheless human reason is never able to perceive them in the same way as it peceives the truths which are its proper object.  “The Divine mysteries, by there very nature, so far surpass the created intellect that, even when they have been imparted by Revelation and received by Faith, they nevertheless lie hidden and enveloped, as it were, in a sort of mist, as long as in this mortal life we are absent from the Lord, for we walk by faith and not by sight” (Vat. Council I; sess. 3, chap 4).  And the council speaks of the two elements, subjective and objective, in the corresponding canon 1: “If anyone shall say that in Divine Revelation no mysteries properly so called are contained, but that all the dogmas of the Faith may be understood and demonstrated from natural principles by reason duly cultured, let him be anathema”

c.  The doctrine of the Council is based on many pasages of Holy Scripture, some of which are quoted or alluded to in the decrees.  The fullest text is 1 Cor 2:6-12  “We do speak wisdom among the perfect, yet not the wisdom of this world, neither of the rulers of this world that come to nothing; rather, we speak the Wisdom of God in a mystery which is hidden, which God ordained before the world for our glory: which none of the rulers of this world knew… But as it is written: eye has not seen, nor ear heard, neither has it entered into the heart of men, what things God has prepared for those who love Him.  But to us God has revealed them by His Spirit.  For the Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God.  For what man knows the things of man, but the spirit of a man that is within him?  So the things that are of God no man knows, but the Spirit of God.  Now we have received not the spirit of this world, but the Spirit that is of God: that we may know the things that are given us from God.”   (See also, Eph 3:4-9; Col 1:26-27; Matt 11:25-27; John 1:18).

d.  The presence of myteries in Christian Revelation is essential to its sublime character.  The principle of Revelation is God Himself in His character as Father, sending His Son and, through Him, the Holy Spirit into this world to announce “What the Son received from the Father, and the Holy Spirit from both.”  Again, the motive of Revelation is the immense love of the Son of God for us: He speaks to us as a friend to friends, telling us the secret things of His Father (John 15:14).  And the end of Revelation is to lead us on to a truly supernatural state, the direct vision of God face to face.  Moreover, without mysteries, Fatih would not be “the evidence of things that appear not” (Heb 9:1), nor would it be meritorious (Rom 5; Heb 10).  In fact, the very essence of Revelation is to be supernatural and therefore mysterious, so that all who deny the existence of mysteries deny also the supernatural character of Christianity.  We may add that the study of the revealed truths themselves will plainly show their mysterious nature.

e.  The mysteries which are the subject-matter of Revelation are not merely a few isolated truths, but form a supernatural world whose parts are organically connected as those of the natural world-a mystical cosmos, the outcome of the “manifold Wisdom of God” (Eph 3:10).  In their origin the represent under various forms the communication of the Divine Nature by the Trinity, the Incarnation, and Grace; in their final object they represent an order in which the Trinity appears as the ideal and end of a communion of God and His creatures rendered possible through the God-Man, and accomplished by means of grace and glory.

f.   It is folly to maintain that the revelation of mysteries degrade our reason; on the contrary, it is at once an honor and a benefit.  To say that there are truths beyond the reach of our reason is surely not to degrade it, but to acknowledge the true extent of its powers.  And what an honor it is to man to be made in some way a confidant of God!  Moreover, the more a truth is above reason the more precious it is to us.  Finally, the knowledge of things supernatural is a pledge and foretaste of the prefect knowledge which is to come.  (From A MANUAL OF CATHOLIC THEOLOGY chap 1, sect. 4)