Every Question has a Motive

We live in a society that seems to feed on negativity. Turn on any cable news program and reporters and panels are constantly trying to trap people into making statements they will later regret. It is done mostly with politicians, but I have noticed lately that nobody is immune to this treatment. Even young athletes are trapped into making statements that will be used against them. At least the police warn you first when they read your Miranda Rights.

The Lord said to the Jews who had come to him, “Woe to you! for you build the tombs of the prophets whom your fathers killed. So you are witnesses and consent to the deeds of your fathers; for they killed them, and you build their tombs. Therefore also the Wisdom of God said, ‘I will send them prophets and apostles, some of whom they will kill and persecute,’ that the blood of all the prophets, shed from the foundation of the world, may be required of this generation, from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zacharias, who perished between the altar and the sanctuary. Yes, I tell you, it shall be required of this generation. Woe to you lawyers! for you have taken away the key of knowledge; you did not enter yourselves, and you hindered those who were entering.” As he went away from there, the scribes and the Pharisees began to press him hard, and to provoke him to speak of many things, lying in wait for him, to catch at something he might say. In the meantime, when so many thousands of the multitude had gathered together that they trod upon one another, he began to say to his disciples first, “Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy.”

Luke 11:47-54; 12:1

Saint Basil warned us about such traps. Many ask questions not to learn the truth, but to argue. Saint Basil’s advice was not to engage with them. If they are seeking the truth, they will find Christ, Who is the Truth. Here, Saint Basil opens his famous treatise On the Holy Spirit.

Your desire for information, my right well-beloved and most deeply respected brother Amphilochius, I highly commend, and not less your industrious energy. I have been exceedingly delighted at the care and watchfulness shown in the expression of your opinion that of all the terms concerning God in every mode of speech, not one ought to be left without exact investigation. You have turned to good account your reading of the exhortation of the Lord, Every one that asks receives, and he that seeks finds, Luke 11:10 and by your diligence in asking might, I ween, stir even the most reluctant to give you a share of what they possess. And this in you yet further moves my admiration, that you do not, according to the manners of the most part of the men of our time, propose your questions by way of mere test, but with the honest desire to arrive at the actual truth. There is no lack in these days of captious listeners and questioners; but to find a character desirous of information, and seeking the truth as a remedy for ignorance, is very difficult. Just as in the hunter’s snare, or in the soldier’s ambush, the trick is generally ingeniously concealed, so it is with the inquiries of the majority of the questioners who advance arguments, not so much with the view of getting any good out of them, as in order that, in the event of their failing to elicit answers which chime in with their own desires, they may seem to have fair ground for controversy.

Chapter 1 On the Holy Spirit

I understand we live in a society that has great pride in education. One symptom of this pride is those who believe they ‘read themselves’ into paradise. We think we can read just the right book, or study just the right canon, and presto……we are saved. I have learned to filter questions through the prism that Saint Basil warns against.

Before you ask a question about faith, you should ask yourself why you are asking the question in the first place. Do you really want to know the truth, or are you asking to argue and present yourself as smarter than the person next to you?

Imagine how different our dialogues would be if our questions were about our repentance and our sins rather than rules and judgments? Instead of asking why one priest allows something and another does not, ask yourself why you care?

Before you ‘get on your high horse’ and judge every bishop you disagree with, ask yourself what makes your qualified to assess the bishop’s position. Chances are better than not, you know neither the context of the debate, nor the history of the answer.

Orthodox Christianity is a lived experience with more than two thousand years of history. Before you jump to conclusions about a practice in 2023, consider why you think you know better than the one making the decision.

These are all matters to discuss with your spiritual father, and not coffee talk among friends. If you have a good spiritual father, he will challenge you on why you are asking in the first place. Once you have identified your motive, then you can begin to live with the answer you will receive.