I Was Just Thinking by Don Huntington   Question Everything www.donwriteforyou.com 925-634-7927

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One of the important qualities that makes it possible for me to put my whole self into relationships and tasks lies in a continual reassessment... of my viewpoint of life and of my understanding of what is true. I question everything. I willingly comply with Thomas Jefferson’s ringing admonition:

Shake off all the fears of servile prejudices, under which weak minds are servilely crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call on her tribunal for every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear.

Many notable and brilliant people agree with Jefferson’s attitude. Marilyn vos Savant, who is listed in the Guinness Book of World Records Hall of Fame as having the highest recorded IQ (228), once made a comment that appealed to my uncertainty about even fundamental beliefs: “I question myself more than anyone I know. Some might consider this a weakness, but I believe it is one of my greatest strengths.” The English historian and renaissance scholar, Bishop Mandell Creighton, posed an observation that was as thoughtful as it was surprising (given his rank and position): “The one real object of education is to have a man in the condition of continually asking questions.”

Always being willing to question even my fundamental beliefs preserves me from the terrible fate noted by the Jesuit priest and psychotherapist, Anthony de Mello:

There is only one cause of unhappiness: the false beliefs you have in your head, beliefs so widespread, so commonly held, that it never occurs to you to question them.

A habit of questioning also delivers me from the even more terrible judgment noted by an Afrikaner renaissance man named Laurens Van der Post, “Human beings are perhaps never more frightening than when they are convinced beyond doubt that they are right.”

“A big problem in this world is that the idiots are convinced that they know everything,” Bertrand Russell observed, “and the intelligent people are full of doubts.” As Voltaire noted, “Doubt is not a pleasant mental state but certainty is a ridiculous one.”

I find it reassuring that these brilliant people acknowledge the importance of questioning life, since I also feel compelled continually to evaluate my positions and continually to “tweak” my worldview. If I am rationalizing my position, at least my rationalizations have deliberate and ongoing connections with my actual experiences.

The fact is that, as Gordon Atkinson, who writes under the pseudonym “Real Live Preacher,” noted, “Fidelity to commitment in the face of doubts and fears is a very spiritual thing.” Then he went on to note, “People who doubt can have great faith because faith is something you do, not something you think.” And then added a final punch line, “In fact, the greater your doubt the more heroic your faith.”

Even though I could doubt even the ultimate goodness of the universe as created and sustained by a benevolent God, I’m continually reassured by actual experiences that, even though the world is full of suffering, it is also filled with stories about the overcoming of it.

The world is filled with sources of grace. A Presence is with me to guide me; a Divine Companion who loves me and who fills my heart with love for others. I don’t just “feel” this to be true — I question it all the time — but the response is one of continual validation. I am having an experience that the Bible promises to pilgrims who are coming to Him:

Blessed are those whose strength is in you, who have set their hearts on pilgrimage. As they pass through the Valley of Weeping, they make it a place of springs; the autumn rains also cover it with pools. They go from strength to strength….

I really am going “from strength to strength.” I’m on a pilgrimage to an amazing destination, learning by experience the truth the Bible speaks of:

His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises….

Those “very great and precious promises” continually become demonstrably true in my life. God turns every question mark I hang on those promises into an exclamation mark of His reassuring presence.