Questioning God
I’ve almost found it amusing recently the amount of “advice” I’ve been given about my relationship with God. It seems that friends and family hear about my recent health problems and our issues selling our house and they assume I must be bitter and angry at God. I’ve been reminded over and over how I just need to trust that God always has my best interests in mind and that I should never question him. Others comment that God promises that life will be difficult so one shouldn’t feel entitled to things going right.
While I agree that bitterness sprung from misguided feelings of entitlement is dangerous, I am disturbed by the underlying assumption present in most of this advice - that one can never question God. This is an assumption that I’ve been taught my whole life. To many, faith simply involves unthinking trust and acceptance of God, the Bible, and the basic vicissitudes of life. To question any of those things is to demonstrate at the very least a weak faith, if not a blasphemous heart. The story of Job was always the standard lesson for this no questioning rule. The reality of Job’s questions was ignored and Job’s choice not to curse God was interpreted as a choice not to question God. The moral of the tale was that we shouldn’t question God either.
So I was intrigued recently as I started reading Peter Rollins’ new book The Fidelity of Betrayal which proposes the necessity of questioning God for the truly faithful. As with Jacob wrestling with the angel, the faith of the Israelites is paradoxical in that “absolute commitment to God involves a deep and sustained wrestling with God” (p.32). The idea is that faith grows not through unthinking submission but through the process of questioning and understanding. And this was something the Israelites felt they could engage in. As Rollins points out, when Abraham pleads with God to save Sodom, Abraham not only felt able to question God, but that God didn’t seem to mind either.
This perspective on questioning presents a different take on our relationship with God. Instead of presenting God as an impersonal master we must submit to and obey, God is presented more as a good teacher. The sort of teacher that not only allows but encourages discussion and debate in the classroom knowing that the best sort of learning occurs when students are able to think through and discover things for themselves. Needless to say, I prefer this perspective. I never enjoyed feeling guilty growing up if I wanted to ask questions. And these days I am understanding that suppressing questions can be just as unhealthy as allowing questions to lead to bitterness. Blind trust and submission feels hollow to me - like I am worshiping an idea instead of a reality. Wrestling with God in some ways makes him more real - more tangible so to speak. I feel more assured in my faith as a result of those struggles.
So to all who are wondering and making assumptions - no I am not feeling bitter. But, yes, I am questioning and hopefully strengthening my faith in the process.
Tags:
Julie Clawson
Topics: Theology |
July 18th, 2008 at 11:51 am
Julie, this whole issue - how we relate to God - is why I love to pray the psalms. If David can pray, pleading God to crush the heads of his enemies’ children - and God received that prayer and also gave us this prayer in the Psalter, the church’s prayer book - then I certainly can question God.
July 18th, 2008 at 12:55 pm
Your post reminds me of the quote:
“I wouldn’t give a fig for simplicity this side of complexity. But I’d give my life for simplicity the other side of complexity.”
Too many well-meaning folks who give the kind of advice you’ve been getting have never even acknowledged the complexity - or they see it off in the distance, fear it and retreat from it, never entering into it. That’s no good, at least not for me. I agree that God calls us to wrestle with the complexity, to question him and his ways and the things we’ve been taught about both. But getting lost in the bewildering complexity, or remaining there permanently as if it were an end in itself, isn’t (I think) the most desirable thing either. Emerging from a real wrestling with complexity changed, chastened, realizing I don’t have all the answers but simple, with a childlike trust in a good and loving father, is where I’d like to be. Simplicity on the other side of complexity. Most of the time though, I still feel like I’m in the midst of the complexity.
July 18th, 2008 at 2:51 pm
YES! If I had a quarter for every time I’ve been told, “Don’t question God,” I’d be a rich woman.
Coming from a really conservative, fundamentalist community, I’ve gone through my fair share of doubt…And if there is anything I’ve learned from the experience it’s been that asking questions is a necessary part of spiritual growth. Without it, I would never have learned to make the distinction between God and my theology of God…between doubting Him and doubting what I’ve been taught about Him…between “God says so” and “Calvin says so” or “Jerry Falwell says so.”
(Although I guess no one ever really completely masters that, huh?)
Job’s friends thought they knew why God was allowing those terrible things to happen to him…but they were all wrong.
This is not to say that your friends don’t mean well. I’m sure that they offer advice out of genuine love and concern. But I know how frustrating it can be when all you need is a hug and you get a mini-lecture instead!
I know this is probably a stressful time for you guys. Hang in there!
July 19th, 2008 at 2:06 am
The one thing I know God can handle is a few honest questions from a finite mind. He does promise to never leave or forsake us but sometimes His hanging on to us looks a whole lot different than we expect it to.
July 19th, 2008 at 12:24 pm
I love Rainer Maria Rilke’s advice on questions:
“You are so young, so much before all beginning, and I would like to beg you, as well as I can, to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don’t search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.” (Letters to a Young Poet)
If I had been given this kind of advice about my questions growing up, there would have been a lot less guilt and anxiety.
July 19th, 2008 at 2:23 pm
Julie,
thanks for your excellent post. I have been going through a lot lately too, though I am fortunate to not experience the same kind of feedback you are hearing. The last couple of years I have started interpreting Job as a tale of the acceptance of questioning God. I feel like it was ok for Job to question God, and that it was his idiot friends that were the ones committing evil by trying to equate Job’s suffering with some kind of sin or wrongdoing: it is a fact that people suffering undeservedly so. Yeah people can we are all sinners and don’t deserve anything, but I don’t believe God hates us that much.
I believe God loves us and sometimes things just happen. Why doesn’t God stop them from happening or allow them to happen? Who knows, but when i read Job, I see that it is ok to question, to be angry, to be right about things being unfair, and to cry out to God about injust, and Job’s situation was unjust, even if God allowed it. So was God wrong? I think the point is God is God. I think there is still enough mystery in our inability to know that there is plenty of room for anger and questioning, along with feelings of love for God. I think all of these things are ok.
Just some rambling thoughts. I love the Rilke quote from the person who posted above by the way.
peace to you
July 19th, 2008 at 8:02 pm
Amen, Julie. There is no need to never question God. In fact, I would argue that a refusal to question God is a refusal to truly enter into the relationship he has set up for us. Many of the previous comments mention the psalms and their rich expressions of complaint and questioning. These are so powerful because they are expressions of the community of the faithful (both individually and communally).
Bruggeman argues that the strong language in the psalms is more than just rhetorical, it is more than simply expressing frustration while leaving it all in God’s hands. The questions, complaints, and demands are meant to remind God of his covenant obligations to his people and to prod him into action.
I know people are going to argue that this is going a bit far. God does not need reminding of his covenant obligations. He does not need to be told that he needs to honour his commitments. This description makes it sound as though our prayers actually cause God to do things!
Isn’t that exactly what we think happens.
Keep wondering, keep questioning, but most of all keep praying it all to God.
July 20th, 2008 at 11:16 am
Questioning, arguing, wrestling - aren’t these all at least a part of how connection and intimacy grow? It seems to have been an hugely important place for me to have experienced deepened trust and love for God beyond all the political and religious tags placed upon him by so many. I love your line “Blind trust and submission feels hollow to me - like I am worshiping an idea instead of a reality.”
Exactly. No questions allowed reduces our idea of God, and therefore any real relationship with his living personhood.
Thanks.
July 20th, 2008 at 1:21 pm
I agree with your conclusion: that it is perfectly OK to voice our feelings to God. I do not agree with your reasoning behind it. God is God. Yes the whole point of Job IS to point out that we are NOT God, we do not know the big picture even down through generations. We may not know the reasons why God allowed certain things to happen. In some cases we may NEVER know. Ultimately, that does spell a sort of surrender.I resisted this for a loooong time because I have been though some VERY tough times in my life. I finally gave in to the advice of the folks in the twelve step group I was attending and SURRENDERED. This pretty much spells out a higher wisdom than ours that knows what we don’t.
That said: God wants to know what we are REALLY thinking and feeling, not how we have sanitized it. Since God already knows what we are thinking, God wants us to tell Him, not so he can know what he already knows, but so that He knows that WE know it too: its called confession. And lets face it, life is very confusing at times and just venting at God is very cathartic. And God knows it. But its not so we can undergo some sort of dialogue among almost equals where we are the ones in the throne trying to decide what is true or not.
July 20th, 2008 at 10:24 pm
Not much more to add except that Stephen Mitchell wrote a rich and helpful poetic reflection on the book of Job: Out of the Whirlwind. And as he notes, it is only when Job gets totally honest with the One who is Holy that a relationship develops. Before, he was going through the motions, but afterwards… he begins to “know” God intimately. Keep on, as U2 says, because we “still haven’t found what we’re looking for” (completely.)
July 21st, 2008 at 7:01 am
No wonder we need an emergent church if folks out there have been raised in the church thinking they are not to question God.
1. Job is not the only questioner in the Bible
2. If we do not question we are not being honest- do we think God doesn’t know?
3. Questioning teaches us more about our selves- our hopes, our concept of God, and our role in the world than anything
4. Questioning keeps us in relationship when reality seems to shut the door.
July 21st, 2008 at 7:32 am
I am another going through my share of “stuff” right now and my share of questioning. I think sometimes we are less comfortable with the questioning and uncertainty than God is. (Job’s friends were bothered by the questions, but it did not seem that God was.) I like neatly organized beliefs and so forth, but often life defies neat organization and that has caused me some degree of angst. Right now the “shelves” of my life are in need of some reorganization and so I can’t easily find the answers to the questions. It might feel like God has changed, but actually I have — or I am. I think difficult times force you to a deeper level of understanding … or dare I say comfort in admitting there is so much you don’t understand about life… and yet it’s okay… I am more at peace with the “mystery” as time goes on.
July 21st, 2008 at 9:05 am
RJ - thanks for mentioning the U2 song. I love it for how it represents that faith is always a journey. We never arrive in a place of complete belief or perfection or knowledge - but are always learning and growing closer.
alan - good point about us usually being more uncomfortable with questions that God is. We project our feelings onto God and assume he thinks/feels like we do.
July 21st, 2008 at 12:03 pm
Julie, an excellent post. I recently preached on being angry at God for allowing a 22-year-old friend die in a swimming accident. I wanted to let people know that it is not only okay to question God, but it is okay to be angry at God. This doesn’t mean that I don’t believe in God; obviously I believe in God. But I sure don’t claim to fully understand God.
July 21st, 2008 at 3:30 pm
No wise words, just want to encourage you by saying here’s one listening heart. Thanks for your willingness to live through questions, even big ones.
July 21st, 2008 at 6:38 pm
Julie,
thanks for your clear critique of glib words we as Christians are too often quick to offer. I just read a book where the author points out that we as Christians too quickly judge each other’s faith by how we respond to struggles. It is something that is frustrating to me because I feel like it is hard to be real with those type of people. Any time we have to conjure a super-spiritual mask to “look good” spiritually means we cannot live incarnationally. For the nature of the incarnation does not despise our human-ness, rather understands it and responds with love, not judgment.
For me I love the pictures of Moses and Adam and Eve. I can’t imagine that Adam and Eve’s conversations with God, as they walked through the garden, were without questions and curiosity. And Moses’ confrontations of God when God wanted to wipe out the Israelites for their unfaithfulness are inspiring. Moses was quick to remind God of His promises. He argued and pleaded with God on behalf of the people and their various needs. Now that’s a real relationship!
I agree with those who commented that it is all about relationship. Real relationships involve interaction, giving and taking. Even Jesus begged that the cup of the cross be taken from him. In the end he was willing to submit to what God wanted him to do, but the human questions, fears and struggle were all there, yes, even in Jesus.
July 22nd, 2008 at 9:52 am
I think it is fine to question God, like you I have been the recipient of all sorts of good advice, and some very bad theology!
Keep asking, keep trusting and keep stretching us through your honesty!
Thank you
July 26th, 2008 at 5:21 am
[...] Clawson wrote on her blog, Onehandclapping, about Questioning God. I loved her thoughts on this. I have for a long time been a firm believe that questions God and [...]
July 26th, 2008 at 7:25 pm
Julie:
I’ve decided not to read other people’s comments before I post, so forgive me if my brief comments duplicate someone else’s.
Anyway, I LOVE this post. Your honesty is so refreshing. I have spent the last ten years of my life questioning God (and the first eighteen following God in blind obedience), and I would say that my faith is stronger and more real than the faith of my teens, it’s one others (particularly non-Christians, I think) can relate to. I don’t trust God to fix every little thing in my life and make it all better in the here and now, but I do believe that he will do that in the “not yet.”
And while, I sometimes question God to the point of bitterness, allowing myself to feel that anger (and then assessing the situation intellectually and theologically) and grieve over the wrong things that I’ve been taught about God helps the bitterness flow out of me like tears. I hope that makes sense . . .
Thanks again for being a breath of fresh air (despite that phrase’s cliche)!
July 31st, 2008 at 6:15 pm
I love this post. My pastor, Phil, had a similar experience with the words of Jeremiah, after Hurricane Katrina. He and our church decided to become part of the response to the tragedy in a positive way, rather than reflect on our losses. It changed us as individuals and as a church. Good post!
August 16th, 2008 at 6:46 pm
Have you read Where Is God When It Hurts?
I have had my share of physical problem, and am ahead of you in this earthly walk. We serve a big God. He can take all the questions you have. Sometimes we find out the answers here, and sometimes we will just have to wait. But ask away. His love never ends.
December 3rd, 2008 at 6:42 pm
I need evidence besides some “bible” that was written a long ass time ago. The bible seems to tell what happened not really explain how it happened in detail. Ok God told Mary she was gonna get pregnant. its not realistic enough for me i need proof.