Louis Roney: Questions from us ignoscenti

Here we all are scampering around aimlessly on one little planet that revolves in an insignificant solar system orbiting a small sun, in a commonplace galaxy. How, in the name of heavens, do we dare to ask universal questions: questions about the universe, that is?

Do we human beings know who we are, what we are, where we are, where we came from, why we're here, and where we are going? We are in quite a fix, aren't we? Haven't we perhaps dreamed up all kinds of colorful concoctions to soothe us in the flagging ignorance of our earthly existence?

Aren't our poor little human imaginations finite, being the products of finite minds, and therefore, by definition, incapable of conceiving anything that is infinite? Does this limiting factor slow us down even a whit in our bold haste to reach acceptable conclusions far beyond the reasonable boundaries of our understanding? Don't we live in an existence that is primarily only our own assumption?

Don't we talk a lot about God and presume to describe Him magnanimously, as some kind of Super Human Being who has all our own best qualities?

Don't we presume that "God is merciful, kind, and gracious"? Is it acceptable presumption that we imagine ourselves to have all those godly qualities "world without end”? Doesn't God love us, and forgive us, if we truly mean it when we ask Him for His love?

Do our favorite comforting grandparents seem to be rich in most of these godly qualities here on earth?

Shouldn't a true believer attest loudly to the gifts of God that have bettered his life?

Shouldn't we better ask, "What have we done for God in return?" – or is such a question superfluous when God already is, and has, everything that is?

Aren't we admonished to "behave ourselves" and "make something of our mundane lives”?

Do you think it fair that you did not create yourself, and yet are warned ex-post-facto to better the original product?

If the omnipotent God had wanted you to be perfect, why didn't he make you that way? Don't we spend a lot of time trying to explain why a perfect God creates only imperfect people like us?

Doesn't this concept ask: How can a perfect automobile manufacturer dare to produce only automobiles that are designed to need constant repairing? (Like the one you bought last year?) Isn't it nice that in handy, steepled workshops, spiritual mechanics labor to perfect our imperfectly functioning souls? These mechanics tell us they have spiritual imperfections of their own. (We are too polite to expatiate about that point!) Isn't living, in great part, a process of asking vainly for finite answers to questions that involve the Infinite?

Is what Mark Twain called "the human predicament" perhaps that we are roaming in a great maze and looking for the way out, when our paths only turn back upon themselves?

Isn't "faith" the “open sesame” to this confounding conundrum? Doesn't faith, if one has it, promise to do away with perplexing problems, not by solving them, but by making them seem to go away miraculously? (No fudging!)

If questions still linger anywhere in one's beliefs, aren't they said to be the fault of the person involved, and not of the divine process?

Does doubt about personal perfection send the individual back into the steepled workshops, where other amicable human beings comfort him, and appeal to his urge to "do something about himself”?

Round and round we go, and where we stop, will anyone ever know?