Consider, for example, quantum mechanics. As Richard Feynman once said, “I think I can safely say that nobody understands quantum mechanics.” The reason for this is that quantum mechanics doesn't present us with a causal mechanism. And lacking that clear causal account, we find quantum mechanics mysterious. We know quantum mechanics "works," from a predictive aspect, but we don't know "how" it works. This lack of a causal account is what made Einstein so suspicious of quantum mechanics ("God doesn't play dice with the universe") as being the final account of the cosmos.
My point here is simply to note that, when we lack a causal account, even scientists resort to "mystery." The opposite of mystery, therefore, seems to be giving a causal account. To explain something is to expose the mechanism. As Feynman said in another quote, "What I cannot create I do not understand."
This is why I discussed the "causal joint" in the prior post. If the opposite of mystery is a mechanism then the "casual joint" between God and the world will be ever shrouded in mystery. No causal, mechanistic account can be given for the God/world relation.
A more whimsical way to describe all this comes from the paperback edition of Hunting Magic Eels. In one of the new chapters I used Brandon Sanderson's contrast between hard and soft magical systems in fantasy novels. I did a recent series about this as well. A hard magical system in fantasy fiction, according to Sanderson, is when the mechanism of the magic is clear and transparent. We know how the magic "works." In a soft magical system, by contrast, we know that magic exists, it enchants the fantasy world, but we don't know how the magic works. The mechanism is hidden. As I argue in the paperback edition of Hunting Magic Eels, Christianity is a soft magical world. As the old hymn puts it, God moves in mysterious ways. We know that God is at work in the world, but God's actions are not at our disposal. The "why's" and the "how's" are not transparent to us. The world is inherently and persistently mysterious.
