Sometimes I feel as though I’m the last to know things. Maybe you feel the same. I’m coming from the perspective of a husband and father, as a boss in my day job, but also as a lay Catholic who wants to share the truth of our Faith with the world. Information and skills with using that information are vastly important to all of these activities and states of life.
It’s easy to be impatient or frustrated in “I didn’t know” or “not knowing before I should” moments, because let’s face it: the stakes are high. A child wants to know why it’s immoral to do this or that when everyone at school is allowed, and the parent struggles to explain why outside “because I said so.” Or, at a New Year’s party, religion comes up, and someone who knows you are Catholic asks why you don’t just confess your sins to God, and you fumble to come up with a practical explanation rooted in biblical truth. There goes a chance to put the issue to rest and vindicate the Catholic Faith.
We’re all familiar with this. I’ve had my own moments of frustration, when I don’t know what I’m supposed to. But something happened in 2015 that began to straighten things out. The details don’t matter here, except that it ended with a friend saying something profound: “Knowing you don’t know something is still knowing.”
This statement carries profound truth, particularly for those who walk the path of faith. As Catholics, we are invited to embrace the mystery of God and to approach the unknown with both humility and trust. Our faith deals with incredible concepts like revelation, mysteries, miracles, and divisions of authority. Whether we were raised in the Catholic faith or came home through a conversion, even with a lifetime of study, the task of pulling these concepts together is requires a most humble rigor: recognizing the limits of our knowledge. It is not a weakness at all, but a strength—a doorway to deeper wisdom, faith, and understanding.
The Bible reminds us repeatedly of the value of humility in the pursuit of knowledge. In the Book of Proverbs, we are told, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight” (9:10). This verse underscores that true wisdom begins not in certainty, but in reverence and an acknowledgment of our dependence on God. And God, let’s face it, didn’t back the FedEx truck up to the Garden of Eden with instructions and diagrams of everything we want to know. To “fear the Lord” is to recognize our finite understanding in the face of God’s infinite wisdom.
Job’s response to God is a profound example of what I call “holy ignorance.” After chapters of questioning and wrestling with his suffering, Job ultimately declares, “I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know” (42:3). Job’s humility in acknowledging his limited understanding leads to a deeper relationship with God. His story is a powerful reminder that it is not our answers that bring us closer to God, but our willingness to surrender to His mysteries.
The saints, too, have much to teach us about intellectual humility. St. Augustine, one of the Church’s greatest theologians, famously wrote, “If you think you understand God, it would not be God” (Sermon 117). Augustine’s insight challenges us to embrace the mystery of God rather than confining him to the limits of human reason. His own journey of faith—from skeptic to believer—was marked by a growing awareness of his dependence on God’s grace and wisdom.
St. Thomas Aquinas, often regarded as the pinnacle of Catholic intellectual thought, experienced a moment of profound humility near the end of his life. After having written volumes of theological works, he had a mystical experience that left him declaring, “All that I have written seems like straw compared to what has now been revealed to me.” This confession did not diminish his contributions, but rather highlighted his awareness that even the greatest human intellect pales in comparison to the fullness of divine truth. St. Teresa of Avila offers yet another perspective, reminding us of the importance of recognizing our limitations. “The real truth,” she said, “is humility.”
The Catholic Church has always encouraged intellectual humility as a cornerstone of faith. Pope St. John Paul II, in his encyclical Fides et Ratio, emphasized that faith and reason are complementary, but human reason must always remain open to the transcendent. He wrote, “Faith liberates reason from presumption, the typical temptation of the philosopher” (76). Meaning all human people, John Paul II was communicating that by acknowledging what we cannot know, we create space for the mystery of God to fill our hearts and minds.
As we settled in to pray the rosary as a family recently, my son, who is eight years old, asked, “What’s a mystery?” I had to think on my feet to get this mighty concept down to a third-grade level. I said something like, “These are things we understand on a basic level, but make us ask questions we cannot have the answer to—and by doing this, they build our faith through trust in God. Like the wedding at Cana—we know that Jesus performed a miracle, but it’s more than that. It was the start of his public ministry. He obeyed the request of his mother, and the whole situation made for an analogy about new wine coming last. On the basic level, we see the story of a miracle, but really there is a lot more we don’t know that informs us about who Jesus is, which deepens our need act in faith, not according to mere narratives.”
Okay, maybe I overexplained, but Dominic said he understood, so I’ll take it as a win.
How can we, as Catholics, cultivate this intellectual humility in our daily lives, especially as we get older? First, we can embrace the mysteries of our faith rather than seeking to explain them away. The real presence of Christ in the Eucharist, the Trinity, and the Incarnation all transcend human understanding. By approaching these truths with reverence rather than skepticism, we open ourselves to deeper faith.
Then we can practice humility in our conversations, whether friendly or adversarial. St. James reminds us, “Let every man be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger” (1:19). Recognizing that we do not have all the answers allows us to listen more attentively to others and to learn from their perspectives.
Always, we must turn to prayer. In moments of uncertainty, we can echo the prayer of the father in the Gospel of Mark: “I believe; help my unbelief!” (9:24). This simple plea acknowledges both faith and doubt, and it invites God to lead us into deeper trust.
“Knowing you don’t know something is still knowing” is more than a clever aphorism; it is a spiritual truth with deep roots in Scripture, tradition, and the lives of the saints. As Catholics, we are called to walk in humility, recognizing our limitations while trusting in the infinite wisdom of God. This intellectual humility is not a surrender, but an invitation to grow in wonder, faith, and love.
In a world that often prizes certainty and control, the Catholic perspective reminds us that true wisdom lies in surrendering to the mystery. As St. Paul wrote, “For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall understand fully, even as I have been fully understood” (1 Cor. 13:12). Until that day, may we embrace the beauty of not knowing, trusting that God’s truth will always surpass our understanding. Whether we are defending the Faith, teaching it to our littles, or searching for the bits of knowledge that help us retain and appreciate the divine mysteries, we must always apprehend the strength of humility over all other forms of knowledge.