As a philosopher, James K.A. Smith’s work has been dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge. But in his new book, Make Your Home in This Luminous Dark (Yale Univ., Mar.), he explores how he learned to move beyond rational thinking amid life’s uncertainties. The Calvin University professor writes about how engaging with the arts and reading more contemplative authors such as Thomas Merton, St. John of the Cross, and St. Teresa of Avila helped him to embrace mystery.

PW talked with Smith about why he says getting comfortable with radical uncertainty can be liberating.

You write about your experience with depression. How did mysticism help you in that dark time?

As a philosopher—a professional thinker—I assumed I could think my way out of depression. I was wrong about that. Mysticism is a form of spiritual practice rooted in contemplation that seeks to transcend thinking, to get beyond dogma and doctrine. The mystics were inviting me to something beyond knowledge. They were teaching me to let go of control.

You refer to "radical uncertainty." How is that different from doubt or skepticism?

When people deconstruct their faith, it’s often because their dogmatic certainties get punctured. They then often swing to skepticism. Skepticism leaves in place the old standards of knowledge and you end up despairing. I think the mystics transcend narrow ways of thinking about what counts as knowledge. The mystics encourage you to doubt your doubt. When you are ready to doubt your doubt and stop expecting certainty, you enter a contemplative way of being. The primal assurance is not a dogmatic certainty but a deep-seated belovedness, a deep sense of being loved. It’s beyond rational.

Does engaging with mysticism transform doubt into a path of certainty?

The irony of people who are rightly escaping fundamentalisms is that they opt for new dogmatisms. The mystics say no, you transcend dogmatisms. Mysticism is a practice. It’s not an achievement. It’s not a belief. It’s a way of being. I talk about tangible practices like breathing, solitude and silence. It’s cultivating an openness.

How do the arts help in this?

The arts have invited me into a way of imagining the world that didn’t fit narrow binary perimeters. I talk about encountering the poetry of Franz Wright, which required a kind of attention and availability that wasn’t just mental consumption. The art gallery to me is a hushed space, one of the last quiet public spaces. I’m more present to myself.

Why is silence and stillness so challenging?

Silence and stillness are already acts of resistance in an attention economy, especially when we have industries bent on capitalizing on our attention. To disengage and retreat from that frantic, pixilated world into silence and stillness is to say no, I’m not a tool to be used by Big Tech. Silence is an intentional cultivation of availability. You can see how patience is the antithesis of doomscrolling. You can grow into this. It’s not like you go from your frantic lifestyle to a 40-day Jesuit retreat. You can cultivate these little sabbaths of silences and solitudes throughout the day.

How do we fight against digital distractions?

Become the kind of person who can activate these outlets for good ends, but who doesn't need it. You don’t need the affirmation that comes from it, or to win an argument in that space, and you don’t need the glory that comes from attention.

You write how our deep existential challenge is that we want to be known and loved as we are. How does silence open us up to love?

It opens you up to a love you can never lose. It doesn’t mean you don’t need other kinds of love, but you’re not addicted to them. Mysticism is a therapy for our addictions. St. Teresa’s favorite scripture is “Perfect love casts out fear.” Solitude is not hiding from the brokenness in our world. It empowers us.