Keith Giles - Sola Mysterium: Celebrating the Beautiful Uncertainty of Everything

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Copyright 2022 by Keith Giles

First Edition

Cover design and layout by Rafael Polendo (polendo.net)
Cover illustration by BiroZsolt (shutterstock.com)

Unless otherwise identified, all Scripture quotations in this publication are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version, NIV. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com The NIV and New International Version are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.

ISBN 978-1-957007-19-9

Published by Quoir
Oak Glen, California

www.quoir.com

DEDICATION

To Rafael Polendo, who believed in me when no other publisher would. I am forever grateful.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Thanks to everyone in the Square 3 online community for inspiring the conversations that sparked much of what I wrote about here, and to my wife Wendy for providing inspiration and feedback on this book in the earliest stages. Thanks also to Steve McVey, David Bentley Hart, Bishop Carlton Pearson, Gabriel Gordon, Jason Elam, Grant Morrison, Malcolm Gladwell, Carl Sagan, Carlo Rovelli, Anil Seth, Richard Rohr, Alan Watts, Charlie Kaufman, David Foster Wallace, J.J. Abrams, Adam Grant, Ricky Jay, Derren Brown, Carl Jung, Thich Nhat Hanh, and Black Elk.

AUTHORS NOTE

The title of this book is an intentional play on Martin Luthers Five Solas (Sola Scriptura, Sola Gratia, Sola Fide, etc.) from the Protestant Reformation. However, I am very aware that Sola Mysterium isnt correct Latin for Only Mystery. As author and Bible scholar David Bentley Hart explained to me, Sola Mysterium is gibberish You cant use a feminine adjective to modify a neuter noun If you wish a grammatically correct analogy of the former, you should write Solum Mysterium (or) Solo Mysterio .

After careful thought, I have decided to use the title found here simply because I likes the way it sounds. Please forgive my intentionally bad grammar.

If our religion is based on salvation,

our chief emotions will be fear and trembling.

But if our religion is based on wonder, our chief emotion will be gratitude.

CARL JUNG

When a man was once asked about his belief on a particular subject, his response was, I believe what my church believes.

Well, what does your church believe? the other person continued.

My church believes what I believe, he said.

But what do you and your church believe? the inquirer persisted.

We believe the same thing, the man answered matter-of-factly.

Too many people are like that guy. They know what they believe for one simple reason: Theyve been told exactly what to believe and they have never really even examined or questioned it. Their belief system has been neatly arranged and kept in order for such a long time that the very thought of changing or adding to their defined dogma is literally out of the question. Their perspective is, If it aint broke, dont fix it.

This close-minded attitude is one of the greatest impediments to personal growth. Far from being wrong, questions are often bridges that lead to a deeper and wider understanding than we will ever have if we arent willing to venture beyond the borders of beliefs that we currently hold. Questions can be an acknowledgment that we realize we dont know everything. To travel into the unfamiliar can be a journey into mystery and it is by embracing mystery that we open ourselves to new possibilities for growth.

In Sola Mysterium , Keith Giles leads us to courageously go places that many in the faith have never gone. While honoring the witness of Scripture, he takes us along the pathways of science and sociology and psychology and other disciplines to show us how to think about Reality in different ways. The result is that your imagination will be stimulated and your faith will be strengthened.

This book is brain candy on the one hand and pure nutrition for the soul on the other. Its a fun book to read and yet simultaneously challenges you to rethink things youve held sacred that may be short- sighted at best and simply wrong at the worst. It may make you doubt what you thought youve known and then turn right around and thrill you with new ideas that will immeasurably enrich you.

When Jesus was about to leave his disciples and return to the Father, He promised them that the Spirit of Truth would come. He will guide you into all truth, Jesus told them. All truth. Not just religious truth. Not even just Bible truth. All truth.

That day has come and this book is an example of what Jesus was talking about. Sola Mysterium will guide you into truth that may be unfamiliar to you. You will find yourself telling friends about things you found fascinating in this book. Its the kind of book that will enlighten, encourage and even entertain you. Open your mind now and step into the space where Mystery abides.

STEVE MCVEY

Best-selling author of Grace Walk

Please, do not tell me what you know about God.

Talk to me about all the things you do not know about God.

Rather than explain the unexplainable, try to imagine

All the wondrous beauty hidden

In the endless folds of eternity

That resides just outside of your certainty.

Our theology has remade God

Into a Book we can carry around

Or a symbol we can wear around your neck.

We have successfully reduced the Infinite

To fit on a sticker on the back of our car.

Oblivious to this blasphemy

Our capacity for awe neglected

Our lungs continually expand with Divine breath

Our hearts beat with the rhythm of Eternity

Our waking and sleeping, ebb and flow

Upon an ocean of exquisite Being.

Where is your uncertainty?

Where is your sense of wonder

In this universe of light and love?

Can you not hear the whispers within your own soul?

Can you not sense

The missing silence, deep

In the center of yourself?

Why would you remain here

In this senseless illusion

Even a moment longer?

Dont you long, even now

For every nerve to stand and resonate

With the glorious frequency of God?

Arent you starving for that inner void of unknowing

To be filled with the perpetual flow of discovery?

There is a vast dimension of infinite wonder to be explored

Just beyond your senses.

The same Spirit that sustains you calls out to you

As deep unto deep

Let go of this foolish certainty.

Embrace the truth that you

Know nothing of the One

Who knows you completely

Make room in your heart

For more than this.

There is a mystery that seeks to confound you.

There is a song you have never heard.

Quiet now.

Can you hear it?

When you speak of all you know of God

Which is nothing

You speak more of yourself