Answers preceding their questions
Academics are especially well acquainted, I think, with the difficulty of formulating a proper question when you first encounter a subject. Knowing nothing, you can’t even ask the right questions. A good question already depends on the hidden knowledge of a good answer to that question, or at least–to put it more circumspectly–a knowledge of the frame of reference within which a good answer will have to situate itself.
This aspect of the genuine question lends some credence, in my mind, to Barth’s insistence that one has to “begin” thinking not with human experience but with the concrete self-revelation of God. The reason for this is not that human experience is irrelevant to good thought; on the contrary, even for Barth, a theology that ignores the particular reality of human experience is blindly speculative and ultimately useless. But Barth sees that in order to ask the right questions about our existence, there must already be the outlines of a “secretly preceding answer.” In order to ask the right questions about our existence, that is to say, our existence must already have been claimed and to some degree ordered by our origin. Lacking some frame of reference for an answer, the world only presents us with an infinitely manipulable palette of experiences.
5 March 2009 |
Comments (5)
Tags: Karl Barth, Method
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Hello Brian, i have been wanting to ask you, why the bookmark on “opening theory in chess.” do you play? on-line? thanks, daniel.
Yeah, I’ve been trying to learn how to play. That little wikibook is fantastic; if you play, and don’t already know this stuff, you should check it out.
thanks for the reply. i have been playing chess for awhile. the best site i have found on-line is ‘chessworld.net’ for both beginners and grandmasters. it’s free but if you subscribe there are some great features. if you decide to check it out send me a game invite, my name on the site is “rosenzweig,” (after the philosopher). on another note, i am still thinking about your writing on ‘answers and questions.’ I am wondering how it might relate to the Talmud? thanks and best. daniel
How can you “encounter a subject” and also have “no knowledge” of it? Any encounter would produce some knowledge. Perhaps one could not formulate an appropriate question without more knowledge, obtained from additional encounters; but then, that would depend on your definition of “appropriate,” wouldn’t it? We all begin somewhere; the issue is, when do we stop exploring?
The style of writing is very familiar . Did you write guest posts for other blogs?