These four words are essential to this story and to our own quest for understanding. I found this quote on Book of Mormon Central this morning. "Legitimate questions are not necessarily attacks on the faith but opportunities to explain divine understanding."
Every mother remembers the "why stage" when that young child wants to know the whys of everything. Humans have this built-in built desire to learn and to grow. It will continue as long as it is not squelched by the adults in their lives
Why would we expect it to be different in the realm of religion. Sometimes we act as if questioning anything about church is an attack. But legitimate questions always are appropriate. Asking questions is how we learn.
In November of 2001 Cecil O Samuelson gave this address at BYU: The Importance of Asking Questions. You can read the whole address since I put the link in but here are just a few key points.
"One of the key ways that we learn—not only here at BYU but throughout life—is by asking questions. I am sure that your parents can attest to the fact that you have been asking questions—some of them difficult to answer—since your first capacity to utter coherent sentences. Your questions have continued, as they should, and even your professors learn about you by asking you questions.
There are three great questions which in life we have over and over again to answer. Is it right or wrong? Is it true or false? Is it beautiful or ugly? Our education ought to help us to answer these questions. [Sir John Lubbock, The Use of Life (1894; reprint, Freeport, New York: Books for Libraries Press, 1972), 102–3]
Had Sir John Lubbock known, perhaps he might have best said, “Our education at BYU especially ought to help us answer these questions.”
Some seem to believe that faith and questions are antithetical. Such could not be further from the truth. The Restoration itself was unfolded by the proper and necessary melding of both. The Prophet Joseph Smith had both faith and questions. Indeed, the passage of scripture that led Joseph to the Sacred Grove experience includes both a question and the promise of an answer based on the asker’s faith.
May we be thoughtful and wise in framing the questions we ask and, as we ask, always express appropriate gratitude for the privilege of not only asking questions both great and small but also receiving necessary and wonderful answers from Him who knows all that we really need to know. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen."
"One of the key ways that we learn—not only here at BYU but throughout life—is by asking questions. I am sure that your parents can attest to the fact that you have been asking questions—some of them difficult to answer—since your first capacity to utter coherent sentences. Your questions have continued, as they should, and even your professors learn about you by asking you questions.
There are three great questions which in life we have over and over again to answer. Is it right or wrong? Is it true or false? Is it beautiful or ugly? Our education ought to help us to answer these questions. [Sir John Lubbock, The Use of Life (1894; reprint, Freeport, New York: Books for Libraries Press, 1972), 102–3]
Had Sir John Lubbock known, perhaps he might have best said, “Our education at BYU especially ought to help us answer these questions.”
Some seem to believe that faith and questions are antithetical. Such could not be further from the truth. The Restoration itself was unfolded by the proper and necessary melding of both. The Prophet Joseph Smith had both faith and questions. Indeed, the passage of scripture that led Joseph to the Sacred Grove experience includes both a question and the promise of an answer based on the asker’s faith.
May we be thoughtful and wise in framing the questions we ask and, as we ask, always express appropriate gratitude for the privilege of not only asking questions both great and small but also receiving necessary and wonderful answers from Him who knows all that we really need to know. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen."
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