The mysterious is not the same as the unknowable. Marcel says that the unknowable is only the limiting case of the problematic. The unknowable cannot become known. The mysterious, on the other hand, is capable of being recognized. Mystery reveals to us a depth of life which leads to eternity.
Eternity is an existence without beginning or end.
Faith enables us to say that we believe in a transcendent reality, even though the existence of a transcendent reality is a mystery. Faith is belief that is not based on proof. If we believe in something, we place our faith in it, and thus we are changed in our own sense of Being. Marcel asserts that faith implies humility and prayer. Humility is a mode of being which includes a recognition by the self of its own finiteness, and an affirmation of the sacred.