The Mystical Catholic Tradition of Jon Fosse

"… I sometimes think that the modern world's true cultural divide is not between believers and unbelievers but between those who think life is a puzzle that is capable of being solved and those who believe it's a mystery that ought to be approached by way of silence and humility. I am a problem solver by disposition, but in my heart I am strongly on the side of the mysterians.

As an institution, the Catholic Church is notably hierarchical and dogmatic, and it has often presented itself not just as a solution to the puzzle of life but as the only possible solution. Yet the church has also always been a home for the kind of mystical, contemplative, apophatic faith that Asle represents. It is the faith of the 13th-century and early 14th-century German friar Meister Eckhart, whom Asle quotes at several points. It is the faith of the 16th-century mystic Teresa of Avila and her follower, John of the Cross. It is the faith of the 20th-century theologian Karl Rahner, who said that "The devout Christian of the future will either be a 'mystic'—someone who has 'experienced something'—or will cease to be anything at all." Each of these figures was formally investigated for heterodox belief during their lifetimes, but all are recognized today as vital communicators of Catholic truth.

It's a mistake to treat their tradition as a watered-down version of the more certain expressions of faith typically associated with organized religion. The most sincere believers I've known have also been the most humble, the most perplexed. It may be that those who feel most powerfully the presence of God in their lives likewise feel most powerfully the impossibility of adequately capturing that presence in words. And it may be that those for whom God is not a symbol or a cudgel but a lived reality find this reality most mysterious.

Of course, this kind of faith has its critics. On the one hand, many believers consider it a capitulation to secular culture, perhaps even heretical in its mystical acceptance of the many paths to God. On the other hand, many atheists consider it an intellectual sleight-of-hand, an effort to launder with philosophical abstractions the fundamentally irrational and intolerant business of belief. You can call that religion if you want, they'll say, but we all know that's not what most people mean by the word.

To which one can only respond as Asle would: You're probably right about that too, but then again maybe it isn't so simple."

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/08/opinion/jon-fosse-nobel-god.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare
The Mystical Catholic Tradition of Jon Fosse