Curiosity

Curiosity

Genesis 1:26-27

            For the first time in a very long career I’m teaching philosophy.  I’ve never liked philosophy, because the only way philosophers seem to relate is to shoot each other down.  One makes a statement.  The next one says, “You can’t possibly be right.”  Both of them are challenged by a third, then a fourth.  Then the first one weighs in and the process begins over again.  This produces a never-ending cycle of statement-criticism-criticism that seems to go round in circles without getting any nearer a solution.

            That’s the way I saw philosophy until I began to teach it.  Now I see how kernels of truth come out in each philosopher’s writing, not necessarily getting to the truth, but stating parts of a truth.

            My classes have been struggling with the question, “Does God exist?”  This has been difficult for some who have been taught the truth all their lives.  Now they must question their version of the truth to discover how true it is.  In the response papers they turn in at the end of class I’m beginning to see comments like, “I’m confused.”  This lets me know I’m making progress—not that I want them confused, but I do want them thinking.  Out of that confusion will come a truth that will lead them closer to the truth, which is that we can only speculate on what God is like, and only see a little part of God’s infinite greatness—and that will have to be enough.

            Some of these students have been told they should not question God or anything about God.  The first thing I teach them is that it’s alright to question God about anything, including God’s existence.  Bertrand Russell said it best: “And if there were a God, I think it very unlikely that He would have such an uneasy vanity as to be offended by those who doubt His existence.”  God wouldn’t be much of a God if offense was taken so easily. 

            Humans struggle with what it means to be created in God’s image.  We know we don’t share a physical image.  How, then, are we like God?  I’ve heard a few answers that I like. 

One is our ability to reason.  The ability to think things through and come to a logical conclusion seems to set us apart from the rest of the animal kingdom. 

Throughout the Hebrew Scriptures God is the only one who is creative, yet humans also possess that ability.  We create works of art, invent marvelous machines, design buildings, develop new medicines—all signs that we possess this God-like ability.

We can feel compassion.  Unfortunately, most of are not as compassionate as we should be, either in depth or in breadth, but we do possess the ability to care.

Let me share one more way I believe humans are like God:  curiosity.  I believe God must have been curious to see how the universe and all the varieties of creation would turn out.  I also believe that God, existing outside time and therefore able to see the entire scope of history—past, present and future—in a panorama, is still curious to see how we rational, creative, sometimes compassionate humans will use our God-given abilities—to work things out.

Samuel Johnson said, “Curiosity is one of the permanent and certain characteristics of a vigorous intellect.”  It’s also, I believe, a quality given to us by our Creator.

I design my courses to reward, as far as possible, the student who is curious and believes in hard work.  Surely God will reward the curious as well with answers to their questions.