Living with Mystery: Virtue, Truth, and Practice

Abstract

This paper examines how a person’s life may be shaped by living with a sense of the mystery of reality. What virtues, if any, are encouraged by such a sense? The first section rehearses a radical ‘doctrine of mystery’, according to which reality as it anyway is, independently of human perspectives, is ineffable. It is then argued that a sense of mystery may provide ‘measure’ for human lives. For it is possible for a life to be ‘consonant’ with this sense – through exercising humility, for example – and even to emulate mystery. A further section corrects a misunderstanding about the connection between a sense of mystery and the virtues it invites, while a final section considers the relationship between living with mystery and religious faith.