The Riddles of God

Radical Spirituality focuses on questions, not answers

Photo by Tachina Lee on Unsplash

A few weeks ago, I was invited to speak to a middle school World Religions class in a town two hours away. Though I will happily talk about religion and spirituality to anyone, my initial reaction, was “Thanks so much, but no way.” Not only was the weather predicted to be dangerously snowy, but in my earlier years, I was a school teacher, and my experience of middle school was like being sentenced to an antechamber of Hell. They won’t listen to anything you say. They will never get through puberty. And you are stuck with them for all of eternity (or at least until the bell rings). I have deep, deep respect for anyone who teaches middle school. You are all saints.

But I agreed to go. Maybe I just like challenges.

When I arrived, there were eighty antsy kids crammed into a classroom for the last period of the day, far more interested in their cell phones than the sacred. Their teacher explained that they had a list of questions about life, death, suffering, afterlife, how to be a good person, etc. and they were required to fill in the blanks with how each religion answered those questions. As an interfaith minister, I was to give them the answers. I had forty minutes.

I could have done a quick survey and given them the answers, but that’s not my style. I am more interested in the questions. After all, spirituality is about questions, not answers. That’s why many of us are called “seekers,” not “finders.” Though often, we don’t really know what we are actually looking for.

So, I started with a question: “What is the purpose of religion?” Silence. I waited.

Finally, one student timidly raised her hand. “To answer the questions we have on our sheet?”

“Exactly.” I said. “All religions of the world try to answer those questions, and they all answer them a little differently. That’s interesting, but it’s not the most interesting part. Where do you think those questions came from?”

Some snarky kid whispered, “Our teacher,” and a group burst out laughing. Oh, Middle School.

“OK.” I said. “Let’s play a game. Imagine you are all cavemen and women, looking at each other, out at the world around you, the animals, the sky, the bright lights twinkling in it. What might you be thinking?”

“What are they?” yelled a bespectacled boy.

“Yes! Exactly! What else?”

“How did they get here?” offered another boy.

“Yes!”  Now they were with me. “And now, as you look at yourself and think about yourself? What might you be wondering?”

“What am I?”

“How did I get here?”

“Yes! Now imagine that another caveman or woman died. What would you wonder?”

“Why did they die?”

“Where did they go?”

“Ya’ll got it!” I applauded. “That’s where the questions came from. We humans looked out at the world, and ourselves, and it was all a big mystery. It still is.”

“We humans looked out at the world, and ourselves, and it was all a big mystery. It still is.”

I spent the rest of the time talking about the importance of questions. Of wonder. Of mystery. Instead of being focused on filling in their forms with answers, they got curious. I asked them what questions they had and what they thought about life, death, and how to be a good person, not what religion told them to think.

We never got to the answers they were supposed to have (whew!). I don’t think the teacher was totally pleased, but we had an amazingly engaged forty minutes. I changed my mind about middle school. Maybe the kids changed their minds about spirituality and religion, too.

Seminary is where I got my questions answered and life is where I got my answers questioned. —Journalist, Bill Moyers

Questions point us toward the mystery, to the unknown. Who am I? What’s all this? Is there anybody out there/in here? What’s true? Do we really know anything for sure? The spiritual journey is one of deepening questions. We question, we learn, we question again. We ask better questions. Harder questions. We accept that we may never know, but we stay in the unknowing.

For many, not knowing is uncomfortable. That’s why religions try to give us certainty. If we believe the answers, things are easier. And yet, every tradition – at its spiritual root - teaches us to question.

Judaism is based on questions. Jacob is renamed Israel, He Who Wrestles With God, after wrestling (asking questions). Abraham, Moses, and Job all question God, and God questions them back. The Talmud has blank space around the text for our own questioning and interpretations, and rabbis are notorious for answering questions with more questions. Faith is only real if it has been earned through questioning.

In the Gospels, Jesus (who was a rabbi) is constantly posing rhetorical questions –at least 307 of them, according to one count –asking his followers to dig deep for their own answers. One of the most potent is “What do you seek?” (John 1:38). In Islam, followers are encouraged to use their reason or ask questions if they have doubts about the teachings. As the Qu’ran says, “Thus Allah (God) explains His signs to you, so you may use your reason.” (Qu’ran 2:242). Buddhism, Daoism, and Vedantic Hinduism all are fundamentally inquiry-based: we begin with not-knowing and probe our own consciousness for truth.

Ultimately, the spiritual path is one of ongoing inquiry with ourselves, our experience of life, what is happening around us, and whatever-we-call-sacred. It’s about formulating and asking the right questions. Questions are how we learn, how we grow, and how we get closer to something we might consider truth. But Radical Spirituality says that even if we are fortunate to get a glimmer of knowledge, we don’t rest there. Like ever inquisitive children, we keep asking: there are always more questions.

Ultimately, the spiritual path is one of ongoing inquiry with ourselves, our experience of life, what is happening around us, and whatever-we-call-sacred.

Questioning might not be safe, but it is absolutely necessary. Either we do the questioning ourselves or questions will be thrust upon us. Crisis often raises hard questions that force us to come to terms with our understanding. Sometimes, we might find that what we thought we knew isn’t true, and that can be difficult. Disillusionment can be painful, but the mystics all talk about the importance of those Dark Nights of the Soul to let the light in. How can we know what’s true without asking questions, even if we don’t like the answers?

Radical Spirituality requires that we be willing to sit with the discomfort of not-knowing. Easy answers shut out deeper truth. The mystery is far more interesting. As Christian philosopher, G. K. Chesterton, wrote in his essay, Introduction to the Book of Job, “The riddles of God are more satisfying than the solutions of man.” In many ways, the questions themselves are the answers.

What are your questions?