We are all born philosophers. Our children are philosophers. That’s why children delight in playing the Why Game. It is what philosophers do. Socrates spent his life playing the Why Game. The city fathers couldn’t take it anymore and finally sentenced him to death. Somewhere along the way most of us ceased asking why and changed it for what. Maybe it happens when we go to school. Teachers rarely ask children why. Often we ask for the information we have poured in and hope it can be poured back out. Thus children with good memories get good grades. Alas, good grades don’t always mean a child knows why.
Maybe this is what Jesus meant when He said in order for us to enter the Kingdom we have to remain as children. Maybe He wants us to keep asking why. Now that we have Google the answers to “what questions” are just a few keystrokes away. But Google doesn’t do as well when we ask why.
Why is there anything? Why are we loved? Why does life seem to need death? Why can’t we mature and maintain? Why has God redeemed us? Why do we have choice? When I was small and asked my Sabbath School teacher “why questions” he told me I wasn’t to ask such things. I guess he just didn’t know the answers. Maybe that’s one reason children stop being philosophers. We tell them not to ask such things.
Why do radicals believe God is pleased when they blow themselves up and take other lives with them? Why do they think they are pleasing God when they spread death and terror? Perhaps it is because they have chosen the easy way. It is easy to kill. It is easy to destroy. It is hard to build. It is hard to save humanity from disease, hunger and ourselves.