My good friend Denny Burke gives a quote from Abraham Piper about the postmodern ethos of our day: “If you ask questions but you reject answers, you’re not actually asking anything. You’re just festooning tired, old propositions with trendier punctuation.” I agree entirely. I am highly unimpressed with the pomo obsession with questions that no-one answers and being-on-the-journey that doesn't go any where (or any where worth going to). Don't get me wrong, questions are a great way to do theology (see Thomas Aquinas no less), but without stating answers, even provisionally, it comes down to a meaningless word game. I say this because questions without answers (1) lead to indecision, inaction or inconsistency since the rationale to act is never established, and (2) little pomo popes wonder the country thinking that the more people they can confuse with their word games the greater their acumen and intelligence. Teachers should teach. They shoud not try to clone themselves nor aim to confuse. As Karl Barth once said to a student, we don't have time to play the devil's advocate!
Jesus used questions very effectively in his didactic ministry. Consider these two:
- Mark 10:18 Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone.
- Mark 10:18 Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone.
- Luke 10:36 Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?
Jesus can guide people into answers through questions posed about story and scripture. Or else, he lets them discover the answer that is right on their nose after he has spoken the truth to them. But questions are never an end of themselves. In other words, questions are a good methodology but a poor epistemology!
Lest I be accused of pomo-bashing, there is a place for self-criticism and questioning the questions in theology. A question can often be loaded with assumptions like "Are you still beating your wife?" or pose false antitheses like "Are you a pre-mill KJV-only anti-ecumenical pro-segregationist man of God OR a liberal?". We can ask what is the agenda in the question and who does the implied answer favour. We can question the questions, but not indefinitely. We can deconstruct the question, but we must construct another one. In addition, we have to recognize that all answers are provisional since theological questions are posed through the limitations and contingencies that we have (linguistic, cutlural, historical, cognitive, etc) just as much as the answers are. As we sharpen up our questions so we sharpen up our answers as well. We begin to know God and to know ourselves better, which after all, should be the ultimate end of theology. That's my post-postmodern spin on theological method.
There endeth the lesson!
