The Limit of Knowledge and the Greatness of Mystery

Israel Centeno

The man of knowledge often walks with the certainty of one who has read, studied, and understood much. His strength is reason; his pride, certainty. Yet, at a certain point, he encounters an unavoidable frontier: there will always be something beyond all science, beyond all intelligence, beyond all technology.

That “something” is not an empty riddle but Someone: the One who loves us, who created us, who gave us laws, who made us capable of loving and being loved. This Someone, who throughout history revealed Himself in signs and words, after the coming of Jesus is no longer content to reveal Himself from afar but desires a living, personal relationship with us.

And here lies the difficulty: for the man of science, for the philosopher of impeccable logic, accepting such a relationship is almost impossible. He may acknowledge that there is a mystery, but he does so as one who concedes without conceding. He admits it vaguely, reducing it to something undefined, relegating it to the unknowable. In this way, he preserves his pride intact: he recognizes that something greater exists, but at the same time, he distances it, as though God had withdrawn from us.

Yet deep within his intelligence, he knows that reason alone is not enough. Even the brightest mind cannot grasp the knowledge of God. Not because it is a shameful limit, but because the Infinite cannot be contained in what is finite. The human mind may approach, glimpse, intuit—but never capture. And this impossibility is not defeat; it is a reminder of our condition: creatures called to receive, not to possess.

We are always limited by space and time. Even living in a three-dimensional world, there are perceptions and experiences forever denied to us. No matter how hard I try, I cannot experience the world as a fish perceives it, nor can I have the perception of a bird in flight. Likewise, no matter how hard I try, I can never contain in my mind the fullness of the Being who sustains the universe. To attempt it would be like trying to hold the ocean in a clay bowl.

The mystery of God does not annul human knowledge—it crowns it. It shows us that intelligence, however great, is still limited; that science, however vast, remains partial; and that eternal Love is always one step ahead, inviting us into a relationship measured not by equations but by surrender and trust.

Greatness does not lie in knowing everything but in humbly recognizing that there is something—Someone—greater than ourselves. That recognition opens the door to true wisdom, a wisdom unafraid of limits because it knows that those very limits are also a call to encounter the eternal.