A God Who Asks

In the beginning, God placed two trees in the garden. The tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil was named, explained, and forbidden. God described it, defined it, and drew a boundary around it. It became the only explicit command. The tree itself was not evil, but eating from it would change how life was experienced. Once eaten from, nothing could simply be received anymore. Everything would have to be explained. Measured. Justified. Evaluated against something else.

The other tree, the Tree of Life, stood without explanation. No prohibition surrounded it. No test was attached to it. It was simply there, within reach, waiting.

This contrast matters. One tree invites analysis. The other invites presence. The story that follows will hinge on which posture human beings choose, and which posture God maintains in response.

The first question in Genesis is not from God. It comes from the serpent: “Did God actually say…?” It is a question designed to destabilize, to introduce doubt by putting received truth up for review.

Then God asks questions.

“Where are you?” “Who told you that you were naked?” “What is this you have done?”

Human questions appear differently. 

Cain’s question, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” is not a search for understanding. It is a deflection; a question used as a wall. 

The first genuine question directed to God comes from Abraham: “Will you indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked?” 

It is a question born of moral shock, of a world that has stopped making sense.

This is where human questioning begins. Not in philosophy, but in rupture. Something does not fit. A pattern breaks. Suffering, injustice, and loss are not just painful. They reveal a deeper disruption in how we expect the world to hold together. They are disorienting. A question is an attempt to restore orientation. To explain. To recover solid ground.

Which raises a different question entirely. If that is what we are doing when we ask, what is God doing when He asks?

To answer that, it helps to see how questions function in other traditions.

In the Qur’an, questions are numerous and largely rhetorical. They are not seeking information. They are declaring it.

“Which of your Lord’s favors will you deny?” was repeated more than thirty times in a single chapter. “Did We not expand your breast for you?” The answer is always already present. These questions affirm truth, establish divine authority, and call the listener to acknowledgment. They function as a proclamation in question form. The question points directly to its answer.

In the Bhagavad Gita, questions work differently. They initiate. Arjuna, overwhelmed on the battlefield, asks Krishna: “Tell me decisively what is good for me.” That question opens a sustained teaching that moves through duty, action, knowledge, and devotion. The question is a door, and the answer is the room behind it. The question leads to an answer.

In the Pali Canon of Buddhism, dialogue follows a clarifying pattern. “What is suffering?” receives a direct response: “Birth is suffering, aging is suffering…” Questions exist to remove confusion. The aim is precision, bringing the listener to a clear and workable understanding. The question clarifies the answer.

Across these traditions and in the Sikh, Zoroastrian, Confucian, and Taoist texts as well, the movement is consistent. A seeker asks. A teacher or divine figure answers. Questions lead toward resolution.

Then consider the Bible.

The Bible contains over 3000 questions. Around 400 of these are asked by God the Father or Jesus. And a striking portion of them do not lead to direct answers. In some cases, the question itself is the response.

God the Father asks over a hundred questions. “Where are you?” asked of Adam, who is hiding. “Where is your brother?” asked of Cain, who has just killed him. “What are you doing here?” asked of Elijah, who has fled in despair. These questions do not need answers. God is not gathering information. Something else is happening.

In the book of Job, Job cries out for explanation. He wants to understand why his suffering is happening. God’s response is over sixty questions, delivered in a whirlwind: “Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Have you entered the storehouses of snow? Can you bind the Pleiades?” No explanation follows. The questions do not resolve Job’s situation. They change the ground beneath him.

Jesus, in the Gospels, asked more than three hundred questions. He was constantly being interrogated by Pharisees, scribes, disciples, and crowds, and he rarely answered directly. He responded with counter-questions, with parables, sometimes with silence. “Why are you afraid?” he asked his terrified disciples in the storm. “Do you love me?” he asked Peter on the shore after the resurrection. “What do you want me to do for you?” he asked the blind man on the road to Jericho.

These questions do not function as rhetoric. They are not seeking answers to questions that already have them. They function differently depending on what the moment requires.

Some are revealing. These are not requests for information, but for self-encounter. When God asked Adam, “Where are you?” He is not asking about his location. It is an invitation or a compulsion to see himself as he actually is. God already knows. Adam is the one who doesn’t.

Some are probing. “Why are you afraid?” brings a hidden inner state to the surface. What the disciples are carrying internally is named and exposed, not to shame them, but because the fear cannot be addressed until it is acknowledged.

Some are confrontational. “Where is your brother?” does not invite Cain to explain himself. It places him before his own action. It does not resolve the moment. It holds him there.

Some are relational in a way that resists reduction. “Do you love me?” cannot be answered in a way that settles the matter. To answer is to step further into relationship, not to complete a transaction.

And some are disruptiveat the deepest level. “Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?” does not clarify Job’s situation. It removes the framework from which Job was asking. The question is not answered because the question itself was standing on unstable ground.

Notice what is absent? The pattern common to every other tradition. The movement toward resolution. The question leading to an answer. In the Bible, God consistently chooses questions over explanations, not as a rhetorical device, but as a pattern. He asks when the answer is obvious. He asks when the person is in pain. He asks when an explanation would seem most warranted.

When we approach God, we tell ourselves we want clarity. Answers. Direction. But underneath those requests, deep in our hearts and minds, what is happening? What are we actually seeking? 

And when God responds with a question, when He does not give us ground to stand on, what is He actually doing? Why is He not giving us information? What is He preventing from happening? 

The two trees in the garden were never simply about fruit or knowledge. They were about two ways of being in the world. One way makes everything subject to explanation, measurement, and justification. The other simply receives what is present, trusts what cannot be fully grasped, and remains in proximity to life.

God has not stopped asking. The questions he asked in the garden, in the wilderness, in the whirlwind, on the shores of Galilee are still the questions that arrive at the edge of our understanding.

Where are you? What do you want me to do for you? Do you love me?

For discussion today

1. Think of a time you demanded an explanation from God, from someone you loved, from life itself. What would having that explanation have actually given you?
2. Now look at the biblical pattern. God consistently answers questions with questions. If he is not withholding out of cruelty or indifference, what is he doing instead? And what would have been lost if he had simply answered?

C-J: I think the person who frames the question is really asking out loud to help the other person see who is asking the question, and to reveal the relationship between those two people. When I ask someone a question, it is usually about our relationship or the context of what we are doing. It is because I lack knowledge. I do not know how to apply the information I have before me.

I want collaboration. I want reassurance that the relationship has value and is mutually beneficial. And I want to grow. At the core of it is: Teach me what I do not know but may need to know. I think that is true of anyone. It is not about, “I’m right; convince me I’m wrong.” I believe a well-formed question seeks knowledge with understanding. 

Don: I think there is another aspect to this, and that has to do with data. One thing we know is that as the world progresses and as time progresses, information becomes more abundant, explanations become clearer, and what we believed to be true a thousand years ago is not what we believe to be true today.

One of the advantages of having questions, particularly existential questions, as Kiran so nicely outlined, is that as time goes by, the questions remain the same, even if the answers may be different. So the notion that we have immutable answers, good for all time, is replaced by the concept of questions whose answers change as time goes by. But the questions remain relevant and timely, even though the times are changing.

Donald: I am just wondering, in terms of the way human beings operate, if I were trying to build a relationship with somebody and establish parameters, and that person kept responding to me with questions rather than answers, I am not sure I would tolerate the relationship very long.

We need a few baselines, or pressure points, or pinpoints, to be able to go on. I understand what Kiran described this morning in relationship to how the Bible responds to questions, or the volume of questions that are asked in the Bible. But it seems as if human beings would get very frustrated: Okay, I’ve asked this question a couple of times now, and I keep getting another question back. That does not seem very satisfying.

Maybe that is about as far as I would take it. It is not satisfying. It is open-ended. It is jarring. It is uncomfortable. I know it is supposed to be introspective. When Jesus asks, “Do you love me?” then I have to take that on and say, Okay, but what does that mean if I say yes? But at some point, I think that as human beings, in our human relationships, we are not very comfortable with too many questions.

In fact, I think it is rare. It would be interesting, as you go through a day, to ask questions and notice how many times somebody answers your question with a question. In my estimation, it is rare, so we are not familiar with this territory.

C-J: I disagree. I ask questions all day long in my head as I look at the world and interact with people—not just because I am curious, but because I value what I am seeing.

Donald: I ask questions too, but when I ask questions in my head, I am trying to ponder what the answer might be.

C-J: Well then, seek it out. I do not ask questions just to hear myself think. I want to know the answer. If it is about something in nature, or if I am listening to NPR and they make a statement, I think, Really? I want to know more about that.

Questions are a compliment. They show that you are paying attention. And there is also an expectation that you will invest. There is nothing worse than walking down a path with somebody you have known for fifty years and the conversation is superficial: How are the girls doing? Did you finish that project? There is no depth. There is just the expectation of superficiality.

But nobody asks, I know you were having a problem with this. How did it turn out? How did you find resolution? That is insight. That is care. I care. It is very important to me because I feel within myself a mandate that God has given humanity: to place great value on creation and everything within it. Therefore, I am responsible to creation, to honor it.

So if somebody says, “Can I talk to you about something?” and I say, “I’m really busy right now, but I’ll see if I can get back to you at another time,” the translation is: You don’t care. Your priorities matter more than mine. Instead, I could say, “I have some things going on, and I am not sure I can give you one hundred percent of my attention, but I am willing to listen. And if you are able, because I do not know what you are going to share, I would like you to help me work through this and maybe see my own blind spots.”

What a demonstration of faith that is—the other person being valued, honoring that person and their opinion. You trust that it will remain private and that they will do their best. And when they say, “I don’t know,” it is not a handoff. It is, “Let me think about that. I am really focusing on what you said. I am hearing this.”

“Where were you?” That is what God was saying. “Where were you? I know where I am. You never sought me out.” And even when I asked you a direct question—yes or no—there was silence.

So I would rather hear, “I am not sure. I feel very vulnerable. I am angry right now. I am scared.” I would rather hear that than, “I don’t know.” Because if you know nothing else, you know who you are and where you are standing, even if it is incorrect. It is a trust factor extended to a person you trust to hold you in sacred space.

I will pray with you. If I do nothing else, I will pray in agreement that God will reveal the intentional purpose of this time. I will hold you in sacred space—that God says He loves us and will protect us, and that He is always teaching us. I will hold you in sacred space—that life comes with bumps, but I love you.

I do not think that is an unreasonable expectation or impossible, especially if we are walking with the mandate of grace, which means forgiveness. I could not get through a day if I did not believe that and practice it, even if it puts me in full exposure and vulnerability to somebody slapping me down. I do not really care.

David: I would like to thank Kiran for a fascinating talk. His characterization and categorization of the kinds of questions, according to the responses they provoke or produce, was something I found enlightening and helpful.

I was particularly struck by his comment about there being two ways of looking at the world. It occurred to me that the two ways he described equate to the two ways we have often discussed in this class, to wit, that one way of looking at the world is as a world of cause and effect, and the other is as a world in which grace is the operating principle.

That led me to think of Daoist questions, which are very Zen-like, and the Dao De Jing makes puzzling statements that provoke questions. The very beginning of the Dao De Jing says, in effect, that the way you can travel is not the real way, not the eternal way, not the divine way. You have to stop and think about that. There is almost nothing in the Dao De Jing that you do not have to stop and think about.

I am not sure, frankly, whether the Bible or the DDJ is better at forcing us to look beyond the world of cause and effect toward a world of grace. I think in some ways the Bible is a little more explicit in making that distinction than the Dao is.

Donald: I not suggest that in a conversation with a fifty-year friend—and I have many, and I am grateful for lifelong friends—there is no need for what Tommy might call superficial conversation. I think there is a need for that, and then there is depth. I think it is necessary to get to that point. But once the conversation gets going, then yes, you start asking questions back and forth. My point was that if somebody asks me a question, and I always respond with a question but never really reveal what I am thinking, then I think if someone asked me a question, they want to understand me. They want to deepen our relationship.

It is not necessarily that I need to answer with another question in order to be more thought-provoking. I want to understand that person. And if they do not understand, then they can ask a question back. But it is a sense of coming to something. Open-endedness is just fine for a while. Creativity is that way. You do not define creativity by step one, step two, step three. You can point things out, but then you have to leave it to the person trying to apply creativity in their own context.

I am just trying to make the contrast with the volume of questions. I think Kiran said the Bible has 3,200 questions, God asks 400, and Jesus asks 300. And that is what has been recorded. That is what we are reading. There is a lot of Christ’s life we would like to know more about, but these are the things that have been recorded, and apparently the authors thought were most important to include, or were inspired to include.

C-J: When I was teaching and saw my students drifting, I would just stop and ask, “Why do you think this is important?” I think that is at the core of every question we see in the Bible. The first thing I ask is: Why do I need to know this? How should I be interpreting this in this context? Why am I reading this at this point? What made me gravitate toward this information? What was the impetus? All those questions lead you back to the divine.

Stop thinking only with your own brain, because you will mess it up. Start thinking in terms of how God operates—not how you operate, not how humankind operates, not how politics moves on a chessboard. God is very direct: I am teaching you this. Climbing Jacob’s ladder—your endgame is to transcend this dimension and have a place of meaningful purpose and mission in the heavenlies, just as you did here.

If you read the Book of Enoch in its entirety—not just the couple of verses we have in Genesis, or the visions of Daniel—and if you really look into the books he is talking about, some people would say, “Oh, they are visions.” But in actuality, it is not just creativity. I might ask, What would I say to God? What would I say first? Does God have a form or image? No. That is not what is relevant.

What is relevant is that our relationship with God is not audible. Our relationship with God is intuitive, and we refer to it as our heart. When we say “mind,” it means that we have a revelation from reading the Word of God, or from a circumstance. We say, “I saw God’s hand in that moment,” because that could only have been changed by God’s divine intervention—holding the hand of someone who would come against me, giving me the grace to say, “I am sorry that I offended you,” even though I may not understand it. But the reaction indicates there was a disconnect.

God is always present. We say that God is always present, but is it tangible in this dimension? No. It is our relationship, based on our experiences, and for Christians, on the Word of God. But I use many other materials to help me understand what I am reading when I read the Word of God. We make comparisons here all the time. But my goal is not to remain in this dimension. My goal is to transcend into a deeper relationship. That is why I ask the question: Why? What are you doing?

Reinhard: In terms of human relationships, I would say we are talking about how to get along with each other. We share ideas. We share what we think is best for maintaining friendship. Knowledge and wisdom play a big role. We compare perspectives—what you think, what I think—because the goal is to get along. Sometimes we even agree in disagreement. But in terms of relationship with God, God is the Creator. He is the one we worship, the one who created us. The question began in the Garden of Eden: “Where are you?” That question, to me, has been reverberating even to this day. God wants to know our position in relation to Him.

If we go back to Genesis 3, there are many interesting aspects. We know that when Satan was cast out of heaven, one of his accusations was that God was too absolute, not fair. Then the events in the garden showed that human beings, the most intelligent of God’s creations, also had freedom of choice—just as in heaven. The accusation of Satan was proven wrong. Human beings rebelled. That shows that freedom of choice exists. At the same time, God was saddened because His law was not followed. There are times, even before the flood, when the Bible says God regretted creating humanity. We do not fully understand that, but it is there.

Another interesting moment is when the serpent approaches Eve. He asks, “Did God say…?” He is very clever, appealing to her perception and emotions. Then Eve responds, and her answer is also interesting. God said not to eat, but she added, “Do not even touch.” She overstated what God said. And then she understated the consequence. God said, “You will surely die,” but she simply said, “We will die.” This shows how human beings tend to exaggerate some things and underestimate others. Adam follows as well. Perhaps he did not want to lose her. And when she had already eaten and did not die immediately, it may have influenced him.

So here, I think God teaches us that He is in control. The question “Where are you?” continues even now. All the questions God asks are meant to improve our relationship with Him, to help us understand what He wants for us. Sometimes Jesus asks questions we do not answer directly, but we are meant to reflect. The knowledge of God—what God wants—is what matters. When we follow that, we become better followers of God. We live better lives and have better relationships with others.

What we want is peace, and with the grace of God, these questions we cannot answer will one day be answered. The mysteries of life—what happens in this world—often lead us to ask, “Where is God?” But again, God is always with us. He may not answer with words, but with action. In our lives, we can see His answers. Overall, I think the Bible gives us all the answers we need for how to live in this world.

Sharon: I am thinking about the issue of questions in relation to pedagogy. As a professor, I can lecture to someone, or I can ask questions that cause them to pause and reflect. They can repeat back anything I have told them from memory, but that is not what I want. I want critical thinking, and critical thinking is rooted in questions.

We rarely use exams in graduate education anymore. Instead, we assign reflection papers. We want to pose questions that move people out of their comfort zones and expand their understanding of reality.

I do not know why God would not use the same pedagogical approach—to prevent us from giving quick, meaningless answers, and instead to pause us as complex thinking human beings, to challenge the status quo and what we have been taught.

Questions cause us to pause. They prevent us from offering quick, performance-based solutions. Instead, they move us toward meaningful responses that take us somewhere we have not been before.

So I am very excited about the next few weeks of discussing the role of questions in our walk of grace and what that might mean for each of us, as we allow those questions to become more than just prompts for easy answers. Thank you, Kiran, for this topic.

Carolyn: My understanding of questions is that they break down the barrier between two people approaching something together. We do not have to have perfect answers. What matters is that we listen. Part of it is listening to someone and then saying something that makes them think. It is not our power—it is the Holy Spirit. We have grace.

When that barrier comes down, and you are thinking together on that level, there is a different demeanor. You want the other person to come to a conclusion that is meaningful and satisfying, but also one that they feel they have reached themselves. It draws out something deeper in a person. It is creative, as Donald said, but it is happening in their own mind. This is very important.

Donald: I am certainly not suggesting that I wish God would operate differently. God does not operate in superficial ways; He operates at a serious level. My point was simply that if Becky and I went back and forth all day, and I answered every question she asked with another question, it probably would not go over well. It would become frustrating.

But Sharon’s point about graduate-level thinking is important. You have to reach that level. You need some foundational points of information. I remember clearly, as a professor, giving a lecture and then spending five or six minutes at the end asking questions before dismissing class. But if the students did not understand the material and I just asked questions, that would have been confusing or even alarming.

So yes, the Bible does provide foundational information—“love thy neighbor,” the Ten Commandments—these are direct. They give us orientation points around which we can think creatively.

Don: We have talked in this class about stages of faith. We know that people at certain stages require answers and feel uncomfortable without them. Others are more comfortable with mystery, open-endedness, and creativity. So it may depend on the stage of faith of each individual. That may be why the Bible provides both—clear guidelines for some, and openness for others who are ready for a more mysterious approach.

C-J: I think people who do not mutually engage are trying to control the conversation. I’m not answering that now. I’ve already answered that before. Why are we doing this again? That is control. They want to have the first and the last word. I am not responsible for explaining my answer endlessly. You asked me to respond, and I did. If you do not like the answer, that is on you. Or you can find a better question that helps both of us become more enlightened.

I dislike conversations like that. It feels like we are doing the same dance again. You see that in immature or false relationships. But people who truly care about one another will recognize when someone is trying to put them in a box—this is your role, this is my role—and they will move beyond it. It is not about me; it is about we, us, and our. That is the beauty of what God is constantly teaching us. When we live that way—whether environmentally, spiritually, or in how we interpret something we have read before—we begin to notice things differently. You might say, I never saw that before. That is illumination by the Holy Spirit.

When we put people in boxes, it is arrogance. It is presumption. It reflects fear—fear of losing position, authority, or control over another person or situation.

Bonnie: I was thinking about when God asked, “Where are you?” That phrase, to me, carries a single idea: a call to responsibility. God approached Adam gently, even though it was going to be a difficult conversation. “Where are you?”—to me, that means, Where do you stand? What happened?

It was so beautifully presented by Kiran. I kept thinking about that word. Adam could have said, “Here I am.” Instead, he shifted blame—to God, to the woman. It made me reflect on my own life. If God asks, “Where are you?” how do I respond? It connects directly to how we treat others. That is what I took from this. It really made me pause and reflect. To me, it is a call to responsibility.

David: As she so often does, Carolyn has identified the heart of the issue. These questions make us think, and they make us think at a deeper level. We can go through life thinking only at the physical level—the world of cause and effect. If you touch fire, you get burned. That is straightforward. But there is also a spiritual level beyond that.

The questions in the Bible—and in many major religions—tend to provoke that deeper level of thinking. I was intrigued by the idea that in the Qur’an, questions often come with explicit answers. That made me wonder whether there is an intermediate stage. Perhaps we move from a purely worldly level to a religious level, where we consult institutions and doctrines for answers, and then beyond that to a spiritual level, where those institutional answers no longer satisfy and we must go deeper.

I have also been reading The Pilgrim’s Progress for the first time. It describes a journey toward the heavenly city, and along the way, the pilgrim encounters many people, asking and answering questions. It is, in a sense, a book of questions.

Don: I wonder whether it is possible to have a human relationship based solely on questions, or whether that only works in a spiritual context. If someone asks, “Do you love me?” and the response is, “Do you love me?” that feels like a dead end.

Donald: Yes, I do not want to overstate my point. I was simply saying that it is comforting, especially in long-standing relationships, to run something by someone and receive some indication of whether you are thinking clearly. I have no problem with someone responding with a question, but if the entire conversation consisted of that, it would feel disorienting.

I was also thinking about the concept of knowledge. What does knowledge suggest? What image comes to mind? What would a symbolic representation of knowledge look like?

C-J: Knowledge is content, but it requires context and purpose.

Carolyn: I would combine knowledge and wisdom.

C-J: You can have knowledge without wisdom. Knowledge is fluid. It is relevant to time and place. If you give me a situation with context, then I can respond appropriately. For example, if you say, “I’m moving this weekend,” and pause, a friend might understand that help is needed. Another friend might ask, “What time should I be there?” That is knowledge applied with understanding and responsibility. If you say you are my friend, then show up.

Donald: I was trying to approach this visually. When I ask what knowledge looks like, I am asking for a symbolic representation. For some people, it might be a bookshelf—something tangible that represents accumulated understanding.

C-J: I would say knowledge is like a tool in my hand. It has potential, and how I use it determines its value. A screwdriver is designed to drive screws, but it can also hold up a window or be used to dig in the ground. Knowledge depends on the situation, the understanding of that situation, and how it is applied to create change. It is not an image—it is a concept until it is activated.

Anonymous: Recently I have been asking myself the same questions: What is knowledge? What does it look like? What is its purpose? Interestingly, insights come to me at night, when everything is quiet. It feels almost like an appointment with God. Thoughts and answers come—not directly, but through reflection.

I have many questions for God, but I do not necessarily expect direct answers. When I reflect on the questions God asks in the Bible, especially those asked of Job, I see that they are meant to reveal God’s greatness rather than provide explanations.

To me, knowledge is everything we accumulate through life—what we see, hear, read, and experience. But I have begun to question its value. Why do we carry so much information? It can feel like a burden. The only knowledge that truly matters is knowledge of God. That is what Scripture emphasizes. Other knowledge may help us navigate life, but it does not determine our ultimate purpose.

There is something powerful about simply being still, asking questions, and allowing understanding to emerge—not through direct answers, but through experience.

Donald: I would agree. Much of what we accumulate is not important in the larger scheme of things. When you step back and ask, How important is this, really? often the answer is: not very. What matters are eternal perspectives. You do not need endless data points for that. You need a heart oriented toward God.

But then we return to daily life and start again. So there is a tension—back and forth between the immediate and the eternal. My point was not that questions are problematic, but that if everything becomes questions, it can feel disorienting. Perhaps that is why people turn to institutions—to provide structure.

Bonnie: I keep coming back to the idea that understanding might come before knowledge. I think of the disciples walking with Jesus. They received understanding first—through presence, through experience—before they fully grasped knowledge. Understanding, wisdom, counsel, and then knowledge seem to follow. It becomes written on the heart before it becomes articulated.

Don: Let’s leave it there. We will pick this up next week and continue discussing the questions God asks—and why He so often responds as an interrogator rather than an answerer.

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