Mystery
In the last post, we talked about how miracles can foster a sense of wonder. I recently ran across this quote by Professor Anthony Esolen, which stated “The more we see of God, the more profoundly are we struck by the mystery, and what can we say?” Mystery is really at the root of what causes wonder. It got me thinking about what we know and what we don’t know, what we can know and what we can’t know.
When I teach my students about the immune system, I liken it to an orchestra, with the many different immune cells like musicians each playing their own part, but all in close coordination with each other to make the beautiful music of an immune response. But then we discuss the history of how new immune cell types and interactions are discovered, which add a new layer of complexity to the music. It’s as if there are unseen instruments playing off-stage that are a critical part of the music, but we don’t even realize it. I think about the regulatory T cell that I studied during my graduate research. This cell was postulated many years before it was formally discovered, waiting for newer technology to tease out and verify its existence. But all along it was there, working in the background, setting critical limits on auto-reactive immune cells that might try to attack our own bodies in an autoimmune storm. At the same time, these regulatory T cells have been found to dampen down immune cells that might otherwise effectively eliminate early cancer cells. It’s a little unnerving to appreciate that all of science’s carefully crafted schemas on how the immune system functioned didn’t account for this regulatory T cell that was such an essential player. Makes you wonder what else is out there that we don’t yet know about.
Mystery is what makes the search for new knowledge interesting, the hope of discovering something that will break open a new wave of understanding and advancement of a field of study. But mystery should also keep us humble, and not too rigid or comfortable about the extent of our knowledge. Attributed to several different scientists, “The universe is not only stranger than we suppose, but stranger than we can suppose.” And from St. Paul, "What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man conceived, what God has prepared for those who love him.” This world that God created and sustains is more complex and magnificent than we can imagine. What a blessing to be able to learn and discover and grow in knowledge, and yet also be given the gift of faith to find peace in the mystery that is His alone to know.
