The first divinity school I attended was a fantastic place of questioning everything, and I mean everything. I went to divinity school later in life having already questioned a good deal and having come to some conclusions about my faith. What was fascinating in this exercise was not the questioning but what I perceived to be as little desire to find answers. That bothered me.
I believe that we should question thoughts, beliefs, emotions, statistics, opinions, and sometimes even facts. I also believe that some degree of denial, ignorance (in a “I’m ignoring this” sense), unreasonableness, and irrationality are a necessary part of our ability to deal with the wackiness of life. I believe that defiance has its place as well.
At this point in time, though, there are a lot of people cultivating a questioning culture from all sides of any given topic, issue, fact, belief, whatever. There are many for whom questioning seems to have become the answer in and of itself. There is no desire for actual answers. And that bothers me.
It sounds a bit counter-intuitive, but maybe there are a set of questions that can help process some of these questions to answers with which we can live.
- What facts or additional information do I need or not need to come to a conclusion that I am comfortable with?
- What explanations are reasonable, logical, and most likely?
- What questions and answers appeal to my logic, intellect, knowledge, experience, values, and background?
- What questions and answers are influenced by an intense emotional response – excitement, validation, righteousness, anger, offense, outrage, vengeance, hurt, rejection, fear, anxiety, stress?
- What resources do I trust and why? (Note: The ‘why’s is particularly important to avoid blind trust.)
- What resources don’t I trust and why? (Ditto on the note above applied to blind mistrust.)
- What am I ignoring with my questions or answers?
- How honest am I being with myself?
- What answers make my life – job, relationships, beliefs, actions, thoughts, emotions – better?
- What answers improve my life, outlook, belief system, knowledge, etc.?
- What can I learn from answers I don’t agree with?
- What questions can go unanswered that I will be OK with?
No matter the question or the answer I draw from it, exploring how I got there is what will help me live content with who I am and what I believe.
Sometimes my explanations will be logical, reasonable, and rational and sometimes they will simply not make a lick of sense. And I need to be OK with it and honest with myself about it either way.