It is better to have many questions than many answers. Many a Christian subculture thrives on having “the answer.” Such an attitude is fatal to a healthy faith. If you don’t want to hear only previous answers, you have to learn to question things.

I know from my own experience how difficult it is in some circles to be allowed to think for oneself. Questions must often lead to the already known answers, otherwise you go beyond the allowed scope. It may feel like an “invisible cage” that you are in. That’s part of this “tightness” that many people feel. Quite a few communities live on supposed “uniformity”, although, strictly speaking, this cannot exist anywhere. When you learn to ask questions, even supposedly “heretical” questions, you give yourself room to breathe, to think, to rethink.

Questions are therefore more important than answers because they allow and enable thinking. Answer each question with a counter question and the conversation stays open.

Questions and answers

Questions are better than answers. They continue. However, those who want to ask questions also need people who listen. In a faith community, sincere, unprejudiced listening is a prerequisite for a sustaining community. If you want to break out of evangelical circles, for example, you need people who are willing to listen to serious questions. This is not a license for people with self-righteous opinions who are looking for a stage for their special doctrines, which they want to impose on everyone at any cost, but merely a prerequisite for truthful conversations.

Conversations in which questions can be asked over and over again and you move from question to question. Those who succeed are in a process of change and learning. Answers can be viewed as hypotheses, namely working hypotheses that represent the current state of affairs. Answers need not and usually cannot be considered absolute. Realizing this is also a liberating blow if you come from communities that defend “absolute” truths.

It seems much more realistic to acknowledge that you may recognize some things, understand some things, but you don’t own the truth. Because then, you can ask questions, learn and grow. One cultivates a culture of learning. Everyone who asks questions in the community is not dangerous, but contributes significantly to a better community.

Honest listeners can move worlds because they are standing next to others and traveling together.