It was only decades later when I was watching a documentary and the narrator explained that there is a lot science still doesn’t know about fire that I finally understood- the chemistry teacher couldn’t answer my question because science hadn’t figured it out yet. So why wouldn’t the teacher just say that? To admit you don’t know is to admit that your knowledge is incomplete, that you have more to learn. Probably admitting any weakness in front of a hostile classroom of high school students who would rather be anywhere else did not feel like an option.
In my role as a minister, I often get questions for which I don’t know the answer. But I’m supposed to be the expert -- how could you trust me if I don’t know everything? Usually I do swallow my pride, remember that ministers are not all knowing, and ask if someone else knows the answer.
But some questions, like “what is the nature of fire”, just lead to more questions. In a recent Ted Radio hour Tabetha Boyajian, a professor of astronomy at Louisiana State University, was talking about some unusual transit patterns in NASA’s Kepler Mission data that scientists can’t fully explain, and this mystery is launching whole new lines of inquiry. Host Guy Roz suggested “So science is more often than not about raising more questions than finding answers. And it seems like in this case, you still don't know what's going on…. That is great. There are more questions now than you can answer, which is better - which is great. Boyajian replied “Well, that's - yeah. That's science. [i]“ The gift of not knowing is the curiosity, the open mindedness that leads to new discoveries, to whole new fields of knowledge opening up.
If you accept the notion that even something as common as fire can be a mystery, and that our curiosity and humility about our knowledge can be helpful in our quest to understand, I’d like to propose that “not knowing” is even more useful when considering the divine. We try to organize God into tidy boxes, with systematic theology and hallmark cards, but as some theologians say, the divine cannot be tamed. God is wild. The world is changing and evolving, we are changing and evolving, and the divine is changing too.
The more I read of the contemplatives and the mystics I see this theme emerging - that in fact not knowing is the only way we can begin to know the divine. The divine, by definition is different from humans. If we let our human knowing drive our inquiry, we could be looking in a limiting way, in a limited range. Not knowing if you believe in God is actually a powerful place to be on your spiritual journey.
Until recently, I thought of not knowing as something on the way to something else. We don’t know about the outcome of a scientific experiment until it is complete, but there is an expectation that someday we will know -- that we could know anything given enough time. Lately, I’ve been coming to a realization that not knowing isn’t just an in-between place that must resolve into knowing, but that not knowing has its own gifts. As Theologian Gerald May says “It is precisely at those times of not knowing that we are most alive… If you really think about it, I believe you will see that your life is greater, more full and awake, even, perhaps more joyous at such times than at any time of certainty.” [p. 122]
Where knowing can give us the delightful satisfaction of wrapping our tidy box up with a ribbon, not knowing allows us to be humble and curious. It allows us to keep our minds and hearts open; it allows us to stay present in the reality of the moment, even when that reality is confusing and uncertain. That space of unknowing is exactly where the soul grows and blooms. The spiritual journey, like science “is more often than not about raising more questions than finding answers. And that’s great.”
