QNA

I've often been told that my thought progression is typically non-linear. A week ago, I was trying to remember a phrase that I was going to write down that could serve as a simplification for how we meander through problem-solving life, and another question occurred to me: is life a question that begs an answer or an answer that begs a question? And of course, that was a much better thought than the one I was originally trying to recall.

Of course, you can substitute anything meaningful for "life" in that question: is truth an answer that begs a question or a question that begs an answer? What about God? I know people who have come to faith in Jesus Christ because He was the answer to a long series of philosophical and ontological questions: people who started by asking what sort of God might exist, and what sort of God would need to exist for the world to make sense, and what real love might look like in demonstrated form, and how a universal sense of justice and mercy might play out, and they ended up discovering the gospel as an ultimate answer to their sojourning and a completion to what they were missing. This sort of thinking is well found in C.S. Lewis nonfiction. Life was the question that begged an answer. But I also have known of people who have encountered Jesus Christ, in some form or another, and been pressed to something deeper, to ask questions and consider aspects of life they had never before considered or seen. Maybe Paul is a great example: in his encounter with Jesus, Jesus's glory and presence literally blinds him, and based on the reality and magnitude of his experience with Jesus, Paul goes on to ask (and address) questions about his eternal status, how Christians should live, how the church should act and govern itself, and where the young set of believers stood in their faith and their theology. As far as I can read from his writings, Paul did not initially approach life with questions: for him, God was the answer that begged the questions.

There are decidedly people in both camps, and I think nowadays, I sympathize more with the answer-begging-the-question camp. Having gone to a small, private high school, I was exposed to a lot of innovative teachers who were always trying new pedagogical methodologies. The first three days of a physics class might start with an open-ended discussion on the subject, "What is science?" One semester exam for a math class was simply the question: "Is mathematics created or discovered? Explain why." The starting point for learning, for the search for truth, was the big questions, and the value was in the experience of formulating frameworks and testing answers. But there were also the science teachers who were effective by simply making something explode in a beaker on the first day of class, demonstrating to us beyond a doubt that science existed and that it was something to be reckoned with. And based on watching a volatile exothermic reaction or nodes materialize out of nowhere in a vibrating transverse wave on a piece of string, we had to figure out relevant questions and probable answers. And it seems to me that a lot of the Old Testament is God taking that same show-me approach. Bam! Burning bush. Bam! The Red Sea parts. Bam! Pillar of fire. Here I am, I am God, you know beyond a doubt that I am out here, real and in your face. Now that you've seen me, I'm sure you have some questions because I am the Answer that begs the questions.

This demonstrative approach surely finds itself also in the incarnation, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, to where the apostle John declares, "This is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and send His only Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins."

When I was growing up, I read almost all of the prominent child psychology books of the 1990's. It's weird, but it's true. My mom would borrow these parenting books from the library, and I'd read them to stay ahead of her so I could see what new parenting techniques or attitudes were forthcoming, so I ended up reading Reviving Ophelia, The War Against Boys, and numerous others, including Why Johnny Can't Tell Right From Wrong. That last book addressed trends and implications in moral education in American schools, and in particular, it advocated the old-school William Bennett approach of teaching virtues like honesty, courage, perseverance, and using stories to reinforce the points. The book contrasted this recommended approach with the more recent tendencies to present children with ethical scenarios and have them formulate a sense of morality based on their conclusions: if your family were starving, would it be morally permissible to steal bread to feed them, and so forth. Why Johnny Can't Tell Right From Wrong made the point that children are not naturally good -- they have to be taught morality -- and presenting them with complex ethical scenarios before their moral sensibilities are established is disorienting at best and damaging at worst. The book made a lot of ancillary points that were stupid and obsolete in its thinking, but it gave more credence to the notion that sometimes answers should precede questions.

I'm not saying that my proclivity towards the answer camp is more correct (that conclusion is left as an inference to the reader), but it's probable that this classification might serve as a helpful way to understand people better: whether they begin with questions or whether they begin with answers. I think conversations will make more sense. I think life, truth, God can work with either.