I'm going to agree with you on the 'ground rules' part. We have to use words in some parts of teaching. And theology in large measure is reason applied to spirituality.
However, the way to know mysteries more fully is not with words or with the reasoning mind.
I think we have often lost this truth, and try to 'explain' the mystery using the wrong tools.
As Kosta, I believe it was, reminded us:
"You ask what is the procession of the Holy Spirit? Do you tell me first what is the unbegottenness of the Father, and I will then explain to you the physiology of the generation of the Son, and the procession of the Spirit, and we shall both of us be stricken with madness for prying into the mystery of God."
St. Gregory the Theologian
This is because, surprise surpise, theology is an empirical science. I have learned about grace mostly by being granted grace.
"Man is a composite being, made up of an earthly body and celestial soul... The soul is closely united with the body, yet wholly independent of it.
Man is not only reason but also heart. The powers of these two centers, mutually assisting one another, render man perfect and teach him what he could never learn through reason alone. If reason teaches about the natural world, the heart teaches us about the supernatural world... Man is perfect when he has developed both his heart and his intellect. Now the heart is developed through revealed religion." +Nektarios of Aegina