What is the value of asking questions?Is it only so we can find out the answers?
Or is there a benefit in moving from thinking we know the answer already to knowing that we will probably never know the answer?
Is it better to ask; “God, who are you, really?”, than to state; “This is what God is like.”?
Is it better to admit that we don't know everything than to organize all our knowledge into some wonderful system?
Do we really need to discover the answers?
Can we exist in a world where there are unknowns?
Does God promise to answer every question we ask?
Are we better off if we move from doubt to certainty?
Why do we seem to feel we need to have an answer when someone else asks us a question?
Why do we feel lessened by not being able to give an adequate answer?
Why are we tempted to give an inadequate or even wrong answer rather than admit we have no answer?
Why do we tend to jump into a conversation when someone asks a question?
Why don't we just sit and contemplate the depth and wonder of the question for a minute, and then perhaps admit that we aren't too sure either?
Is it inappropriate to ask questions if you don't expect an answer?
Is this one of the paradigm shifts in the world as modernity gives way to whatever post-modernity is?
Will the system break if we ask too many questions that society cannot answer?
Why do we expect 'FAQ's to always have answers?
Is “What is a rhetorical question?” a rhetorical question?
Are all of these questions making you nervous?
Are you worried about the state of my mental/spiritual health?
Do you think I am reverting to the young child who always asks; “Why?”?
Why might you think so?
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3 comments:
Why, why, why.....we all ask why!
Great post
Can we exist in a world where there are unknowns?
Obviously yes. But are the unknowns inherently unknownable or unknown simply due to the limitations of the knower?
Is it better to ask; “God, who are you, really?”, than to state; “This is what God is like.”?
To ask God who He is out of a desire for unity, for relationship, is one thing. To ask because one wants to be able to have a manageable, reliable, predictable construct of a deity, is another thing entirely.
I like Meister Eckhart's prayer, "God rid me of God." By which he meant, God rid me of my construct, free me from the limitations of my intellect when I consider You. Free me to worship You as Unknowable Mystery, source of Love and Light. Oh, that's sounds way too woowoo. I don't mean that God is THE FORCE. Rather that, He is bigger than any concept we can have of Him and that our desire to define Him says more about our needs than about His desire to be known. Do I contradict myself in saying that He desires to be known? I don't think so, in the same way that I as a person do not want to be categorized and stereotyped, with assumptions made about who I am, how I think, and why I do what I do. I want to be known in the context of relationship.
I'd love to wrestle with your other questions, but my rambling will end here for now. Good questions. Life without questions is . . . really boring, and possibly a sign of spiritual and mental death.
I'll amend what I just wrote: Life without questions is evidence of profound fear. A person's unwillingness to ask questions should not evoke condemnation, but rather empathy and compassion, for who has not experienced that type of fear at some level? And if they think they have not, I wonder if they have truly looked deep within.
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