Is it more important to teach people how to answer or how to question? Is it more important to teach people what to believe or to help others learn how to think for themselves? I receive a lot of pressure to conform to the status quo’s way of thinking. But I also get a lot of pressure to teach the status quo. We feel so much more comfortable and secure when our brains are not challenged. It is upsetting to have our way of thinking upset, so we resist it at all costs. If something does upset our thinking, we find a way to quickly adapt the new information to fit into how we already think. We learn how to acquire new bits of information and integrate it into what we already know so that nothing is really disturbed all that much and we can get on with our lives as usual, or maybe improved.
So, can we teach and listen in such a way that we learn how to question? Can we be a part of a community that dares to explore, question, research and challenge all the ways we have been conditioned to believe and all the ways we are presently being conditioned to believe? Is it possible that it is not in receiving answers, but in questioning everything, that one learns what is true and is changed? When I teach, is it possible for me to help people recognize the freedom they have to question everything, and, in that questioning, realize they are closer to what is true than ever before? For my own children, for instance, I hope they acquire questioning, challenging and discerning minds, not certain, submissive, dull and programmed ones.
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Chesterton said, “The questions of God are infinitely more satisfying than the answers of man.” Damn! Thanks for your questions.
Or overbearing ones that refuse to listen or question.
As usual, David, great post. Got me thinking and questioning.
“The relationship between commitment and doubt is by no means an antagonistic one. Commitment is healthiest when it is not without doubt but in spite of doubt. To believe fully and at the same moment to have doubts is not at all a contradiction: it presupposes a greater respect for truth, an awareness that truth always goes beyond anything that can be said or done at any given moment. To every thesis there is an antithesis, and to this there is a synthesis.” – Rollo May
http://aworkinglibrary.com/library/book/courage_to_create/
When I was a teacher I found myself to be in a minority of teachers who encouraged questions. Most teachers that I knew viewed their students as empty vessels to be filled with answers which could be spit out on command. It was hard to continue to encouraging my students’ questioning while trying to succeed in a system focused on answers.
Internal struggling, questioning, and organizing takes time. Sometimes when we are really focused on one or two questions, our minds are not able to take in anything else at all. That doesn’t work well in a system which expects people to be successful at every subject and to turn off the questions brought up in one class period to focus attention on something completely different and unrelated in the next period. A system which is focused on successfully passing tests doesn’t allow people the freedom to write their own.
I rocked the boat when I was teacher. I asked students to create their own worksheets and then make an answer key. Some students broke down in tears at first because they didn’t know how to formulate a question. But eventually–I think they got comfortable asking. And challenging. It was amazing to see them develop confidence in presenting their opinions and to see them learn respect as their ideas were respectfully challenged by others. It was interesting to see how a place of safety and healthy exploration literally changed people over the course of a few months’ time.
They were first graders. If they could do it, we certainly can do it. But we need teachers who will go against the grain and work creatively within the system. We need teachers who will make sure that if we are attacked, the attacker will be brought to justice and encouraged to “Play fair.” and be respectful. We need teachers who will not rush us toward memorizing facts for a test, but who will encourage us to sit with the facts we have at the moment until we figure out what to do with them. We need teachers who will encourage us to relax, laugh, draw, sing, and share. Thank you for being such a teacher, David. It is a joy to visit your virtual classroom.
We tend to treat ‘faith’ as things believed… as in,’must be believed’ rather than ’something sought’…as in, ‘always seeking’,but never claiming complete knowledge…if so, why wd we seek?
Can I just say that cookie cutter Christianity is lame? I am part of your community from afar, David.
kristi: and i yours.
“God is not in the business of making sausages.”
NP
Wouldnt it be better to just be searching for a G-d, rather than trying to be loosely associated with being a “Christian”? Seems to me, you dont like labels. Isnt it time to drop one then?
I have biblical questions that so far have not been answered to my satisfaction:
1. Why did God create?
2. If adultery is against God’s law, was it TRULY acceptable to have plural wives and concubines during old testament times?
3. Is it POSSIBLE that Judas Iscariot was forgiven for his betrayal, as he was consumed with remorse and declared “I have sinned by betraying innocent blood” to the chief priest and elders?
4. How can Jesus’ bloodlines be traced through Joseph’s lineage, if Mary and Joseph did not have relations until after Jesus was born?
5. If Jacob only loved Rachel, why did he sleep with and produce so many children with Leah and their servants?
6. Why did the Apostle Paul receive the Holy Spirit BEFORE his baptism, and how can we be sure he was given a water submersion baptism?
7. If God does not want women to teach over men in modern times, why does He give some women (i.e. Beth Moore) the gift of teaching?
8. Why is it taught that Elijah was taken up to heaven in a whirlwind, contradictory to what Jesus said, “No man has ascended up to heaven,” and is anyone (besides Jesus) with God in heaven at present?
9. How does God respond to people’s lack of faith, and how should Christians respond?
10. Can a truly saved person’s salvation ever be lost or revoked for disobedience to God? (I know the answer to this one, but so many people seem to be unsure.)
fraizerbaz: all good questions. keep asking.
Good post.
“Anyone who, in discussion relies upon authority, uses not his understanding, but his memory”.
– Leonardo Da Vinci, Notebooks, c. 1500
“The mind, once expanded by a new concept, can never return to its original dimensions”.
–Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Education teaches people how to think, while propaganda teaches people what to think”.
– James A. C. Brown, Techniques of Persuasion (1963)
“Give me the storm and stress of thought and action rather than the dead calm of ignorance and faith. Banish me from Eden when you will, but first let me eat of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge”.
– Robert Ingersoll
Wonderful post David.
Wow Semety, that has to join my list of surreal statements,
“God is not in the business of making sausages.”
Notice on a Devon beach, ‘The Ocean is not a swimming pool’.
and the one my doctor’s surgery came out with, ‘We don’t do home visits for agoraphobia.’
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I was told the word translated ‘faith’ in the NT, actually meant ‘trust.
1. Why not? Maybe it’s just in His nature.
2. It isn’t adultery if they’re your wives.
3. It’s possible. Anything’s possible with God.
4. Lineage is not purely genetic.
5. Well he would have got into trouble if he hadn’t slept with Leah, his wife, and given produced children. And why shouldn’t he have a sex life?
6. It’s not magic! It’s also thought that John the Baptist didn’t do full submersion baptism at all, but just splashed people a bit. Unlike my mum, who tried to drown me in the River Jordan.
7. Women have always taught and always been badly paid for it.
8. Maybe a whirlwind doesn’t count as ‘ascending’. Maybe Elijah was just unlucky like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz.
9. None of their business.
10. Ugh, what does ‘truly saved’ mean?
Oops, I forgot it was better to question than to answer…..I thought it was a pub quiz.
Wholeheartedly agree, David.
“God is not in the business of making sausages.”….I seem to be missing the link……..????????
FiF: maybe because you are a little fried?
Lol…guilty
If only people weren’t so afraid of questions. If questioning and seeking were encouraged, the reputation of the church would perhaps be a lot better off for it. God asks us to be like children, and we all know how many questions they ask!
NP – I agree with you. I’d say that it’s vitally important to teach/encourage people to ask questions, to examine the foundational assumptions that shape their view of the world and their understanding of the christian story and to keep on doing this as faith develops and understanding evolves. And surely such an approach has a long history within Christianity anway? The great Church councils which thrashed out ideas about the dual nature of Christ and the Trinity; or the prologue to Abelard’s treatise Sic et non with its robust defence of doubt as a method of enquiry and it’s famous formulation that ‘by doubting we come to enquire and by enquiry we come to truth.’
Or, more to the point perhaps, we can look to the example of Jesus himself: Lk 2: 46 finds him in the temple courts ’sitting among the teachers….. and asking them questions’. And in the gospel accounts, he frequently challenges people by asking them questions; and his prefferred modus operandi is to tell enigmatic stories or make gnomic pronouncements which invariably demand further work of the hearer to tease out their meaning, rather than giving them predigested and neatly fashioned statements about life/faith/God.
I count the moment whan I realised that my understandings were based on a whole raft of totally unexamined assumptions about the world and about the meaning of the Christian story, as one of the most significant in my own journey of faith – and the start of an ongoing movement, through questioning and thinking, towards what I hope is a more mature understanding of these things.
So yes…..let’s keep asking questions, encouraging others to ask them and supporting each other on that journey of discovery.
Do all people fail to question and challenge their beliefs? And do all, as you said, “integrate” so that nothing is really disturbed or challenged? Or does this just apply to the orthodox and those who preserve the “status quo”?
If it applies to everyone, then it applies to you as well, right?
And if this applies to everyone, then “questioning” is not really a valid way of coming to knowledge, is it? This sort of questioning never attains the truth, it is just a restless search for the novel.
Is this anything more than an adolescent way of pretending to love truth?
‘Is this anything more than an adolescent way of pretending to love truth?’
Enlighten us all to the grown up way.
(of actually loving truth, not pretending to, obviously.)
‘There is in God – some say – a deep and dazzling darkness.’ (Henry Vaughan)
dissidens said, “And if this applies to everyone, then “questioning” is not really a valid way of coming to knowledge, is it?”
If questioning is not the way to come to know something, then how does one come to know something? I don’t understand this statement.
“This sort of questioning never attains the truth, it is just a restless search for the novel.”
Of course, in order for me to understand what you mean by this and why you said it, I have to ask you the question…correct?
“Is this anything more than an adolescent way of pretending to love truth?”
It would appear that you already believe that you know the answer to your own question.
Adolescents are great. I much prefer them to men in suits who think they know everything.
I think I understand dissidens concern here.
If, in our questioning, we go to the opposite extreme and question everything, always, then we may find we can’t accept truth once we have discovered it and we fall into the equally invalid habit of merely seeking things/thoughts that are new rather than actually seeking truth.
Its a fair caution to raise in a discussion like this.
I think that depends on your personality though. Some people place a higher value on novelty than truth and that can lead to ‘mental flirtation’ which is actually a running away from reality.
Remember the first 2 questions found in the Scriptures were asked by Satan to Eve. Really? “Did God really say?” I find it interesting, to have truth challanged, Satan starts with a question. Thank God for the blueprint – Scripture, that shows us the way!
Sorry, but that’s pathetic.
The Blueprint….lol…that’s too funny.
Associating the snake with Satan is very dubious.
dissidens….seven sentences…five questions …what was yr arguement against questions again?
faithless:
There’s only one E in “argument”, and I’m sorry if the questions went over your head.
And I’m sorry if rhetorical questions go over yours.
Thx for the correction dis, but seriously I’m curious to know the roots of yr pessimism…is metaphysical Truth all water under the bridge?
No problem, faithless, but seriously, this bridge you mention, is it the one Tiggy lives under?
the quote was from a friend – how God doesn’t want us all to be exactly alike. Either that or god doesn’t want us to be a bunch of meat in a bag :p
“Those who believe that they believe in God, but without passion in their hearts, without anguish in mind, without uncertainty, without doubt, without an element of despair even in their consolation, believe only in the God idea, not God Himself”
Miguel de Unamuno
Oohh interesting Semety, thanks for sharing that.
JohnFom…it seems that dissidens is unwilling to grace us with a proper reply, so If I may reply to your statement….
“If, in our questioning, we go to the opposite extreme and question everything, always, then we may find we can’t accept truth once we have discovered it and we fall into the equally invalid habit of merely seeking things/thoughts that are new rather than actually seeking truth”
I wd agree…’true’ is better than merely ‘new’,but why the bias toward new? The new may be truth and the old not.
faithless:
Would I be correct in assuming that it hasn’t occurred to you that it reflects poorly on your intelligence that you are involved in a discussion of “Better to Question Than to Answer”, and you are not just answering, you are answering for someone else?
The nakedpastor.com has a reputation as something of an ADD/ADHD Convention of the World Wide Web, so if you can’t follow the train of thought here, where will you be able to follow a train of thought?
Would it be possible for you to put your rag-tag opinions in the form of a question?
Well dis, I thot I did…as in, “Is metaphysical truth all water under the bridge” or in other words…Is Truth so Divine(in yr understanding)as to be beyond questions? But you gave a flippant answer about Tiggy.
Well, I think goofball questions deserve goofball answers. It’s actually part of my religion.
Proverbs 26:5.
Diss you are being very snotty-nosed toward Our Lady Fatima. Is that part of your religion too? What is this bridge I’m supposed to live under?
‘It’s not the river that flows, but the bridge that moves o’er.’
Tiggy, are you currently under the care of a mental health professional?
Dissidens, are you always such a wanker?
Fishon, please come back, we miss your measured and reasonable style of discourse