This is pretty close to the most common practical Protestant take. It’s sometimes humorously called Calminian.
C. S. Lewis, a Protestant who had dear Catholic friends, wasn’t surprised at all and even tried to symbolize it in his parable “The Great Divorce.” At some point the honestly humble Christian has to bow down before mystery vouched for in Scripture and testified in Christian experience and quit trying to puzzle it out in his own noodle. The divine logic can and does make the mortal brain go Tilt.
Well said.
(I once played two roles in a college rendition of The Great Divorce scripted by an ICF leader. We ran into copyright problems after the fact out of ignorance. It was well received, all three performances. I played the Tragedian, and wore an authentic 19th Century “tuxedo”; it was woolen, and I sweltered.)
You may know this, but:
Tolkien, a Catholic, shared a passion for Nordic Mythology with Lewis. They bonded over this before Lewis converted.
Lewis dedicated The Screwtape Letters to JRRT. He also stated that Elwin Ransom of the so-called Space Trilogy, a philologist, was based upon JRRT.
In the foreword to the third volume, That Hideous Strength, he has a footnote alluding to an unpublished manuscript related to Atlantis by his friend, JRRT. Although not stated, that manuscript is The Silmarillion, which was published posthumously by JRRT’s son, Christopher, who was his father’s primary sounding board on the trilogy, as Tolkien sent chapters to his son to read and respond while he was with the RAF in Africa in WWII.
Clearly, for both Tolkien and Lewis, Numenor = Atlantis. Since Akallabeth (Part IV of IV) deals with Numenor and its downfall in the Second Age, that is the portion of The Silmarillion specifically referenced by Lewis.
The pastor that teaches our Sunday school class is really bright. Knows lots of stuff. He is also very fond of not trying to get too smart and try to explain everything. Some things he is very “This is the way that it is.” Sometimes he’ll just leave it as “The Bible doesn’t say. We don’t know.” And other times he chalks it up to one of Heaven’s mysteries.
And often it is summed up by something like “It’s not about YOU. It is about God. Yes God wants to bless you, and He loves you. But ultimately - it is ‘HIS will be done.’ Whether it is Jesus on the cross, or the first thousands of missionaries that died in Africa before saving a single soul - it is about GOD’s will.”