The Four Perplexities
RICHARD S. COHEN
SHMA.COM
Mystery & Awe
Richard S. Cohen
The Four Perplexities . . 2
Steven Pinker
Revisiting the
“Two Cultures” . . . . . . 3
Robert Pollack
Ethics Informed
by Awe. . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Howard Smith
A Revolution in
Science and Religion . . 6
Eran Mukamel
The Mystery of Our
Sensory World. . . . . . . 8
Ann Landowne
The Mystery of
the Body. . . . . . . . . . . 9
Our Artistic Talmud
NiSh’ma .......... 10
Or N. Rose
Beginnings:
Human & Divine . . . . 12
Eitan P. Fishbane
Opening to the
Mystery. . . . . . . . . . . 13
Jamie Korngold
Adventure and Awe . . 14
Nasser Zakariya
A Final Story. . . . . . . 15
Andrea Wershof
Schwartz
Book Review . . . . . . . 16
Lesley Hyatt
In My Tribe. . . . . . . . 17
Irene Lehrer Sandalow
Sh’ma Ethics . . . . . . . 20
Richard S. Cohen is the
director of the Program for the
Study of Religion and
associate professor of
literature at the University of
California, San Diego.
Ihave been thinking about mystery for a while now. Not the literary genre. Not the soteric cults of Egypt, Greece, or Rome.
Not the Christian mystery of divine grace.
These are apocalyptic mysteries. They harbor
an implicit promise: Hidden behind the dark
veil lies a deep reservoir of truth. If one is privy
to a secret initiation or receives an uncanny
revelation then all will be brought to light.
Mystery, here, is the ultimate solution to the
profound risks of being human.
For me, mystery is not so dark and not so
light. It is, rather, a perplexity on a continuum
of perplexities. Mystery is one of four species
of cognitive events that has the potential to
command our attention and entangle our
minds in an open process of wonderment. In
addition to mystery, the other perplexities are
the problem, the dilemma, and the paradox.
A problem is any matter that, at least theoretically, is susceptible to being resolved through
the accumulation and processing of data. Every
mystery that Hercule Poirot or Philip Marlowe
solved is a problem in my terms. When the
Discovery Channel proclaims that dark energy is
one of the greatest mysteries in science today, it
is talking about a problem. For if scientists do
not yet understand dark energy, it is because
they do not yet know how to gather the necessary data — not because they conceive dark energy as essentially unknowable.
The second form of perplexity is the
dilemma. Dilemmas occur when perplexities
arise that require some form of lived response
before all appropriate data can be collected.
Dilemmas are time sensitive. They are resolved
not through the accumulation of information
but through decisive action in the face of true
uncertainty. While in a state of subjective indeterminism, you must make an objective determination that may have irrevocable existential
consequences.
Paradox is the third species of perplexity.
Take the Christian Trinity. In normal mathematics: One equals one; three equals three. Yet,
Trinitarian dogma demands that Father, Son,
and Spirit be accepted as unitary, one God,
while simultaneously remaining divided as
three separate persons. The word “paradox”
translates as “against belief.” Contradiction is
the heart of the paradox.
A paradox is neither a problem nor a dilemma.
The perplexities implicit in the Trinitarian dogma
cannot be resolved through the deliberate accumulation of further knowledge. All the research
is done; the data is all there. Likewise, the paradox does not entail choice or time-sensitive action. The Trinity is a matter of one and three, not
one or three. Paradox entails an internal contradiction within a functionally complete data set
for which all data points possess equal value.
So, at an emotional and cognitive level, the
paradox has the potential to be received as anomalous and disruptive, an epistemic break, a
trauma, radically incommensurate with an individual’s previous experience or normal phenomenology of belief. In this way, paradox shares
salient characteristics with mystery. Still, the two
are different, for paradoxes may be resolved.
Mystery proper begins when we question:
Is it truly necessary to resolve the unknown?
Why not be willing, on occasion, to remain on
this side of mystery? This intellectual gesture
requires a thoroughgoing rejection of transcendentalist assumptions: a willingness to accept that the hidden cannot be revealed; the
veil cannot be pulled away. Perhaps nothing is
hidden and the “veil” does not veil. What if
there is no transcendental power abiding, as it
were, on the other side of mystery, poised to
open our eyes to the full truth? What if mystery always remains . . . mysterious? What if,
in short, all we might know of mystery exists
on this side of mystery?
As a perplexity, mystery begins in a subjective experience of perplexity, astonishment, enchantment, or rapture; a state of cognitive or
emotional jeopardy. Perhaps long-time presup-positions about the way the world works have
proven false. Perhaps one has suffered unaccountable trauma. Perhaps one has experienced
a moment of time out of time. But rather than
treating this destabilized state as a state of risk,
to be analyzed and resolved as appropriate —
controlled through mechanisms appropriate to a
problem, dilemma, or paradox — one responds
to the state of affairs as one might to an uncaused effect — puzzled, entangled, attentive.
Many, if not most, of our lives’ mysteries
can be reduced to problems and clarified
through naturalistic means. I am not questioning our general ability to identify and solve
