I’m all for asking questions. But it has very little to do with childlike faith.
I’ve seen this quote passed around recently. But it is emphasizing the wrong thing.
Yes, children ask lots of questions. But why? Do they just want information? No. They want relationship.
Asking questions comes from and leads back to keeping relationships.
The World of the Parent
Asking “Why?” (and the related “Look at this!”) comes from deep relational connections in which the child longs to inhabit the world in the same way that the parents do. Children long for their world to be just like their parents’ world, and they are trying to figure out how to make this happen, how it all fits together.
Not as a matter of the mind.
But as a longing of the heart.
So asking questions is an extension of the previous preverbal attachment bond and social referencing processes through which children figure out the emotional meaning of the world (which only later becomes a cognitive meaning).
Therefore, when it comes to “childlike faith”, it probably means more like having 1) a secure attachment bond with God so that we know we are loved, and 2) social referencing with God in order to know the meaning and morality of the world.
When Childlike Questioning Goes Wrong
Asking questions can be just as much a mark of a deficient attachment strategy learned in childhood as it is a mark of secure attachment.
SECURE QUESTIONS
Securely attached child develop a strong exploratory system (able to move from the intimacy of the parents’ orbit to a sphere of independence).
Asking questions is part of how exploratory system works with the attachment system so that intimacy and independence grow together so that the child can inhabit the parents’ extensive world and reality.
ANXIOUS QUESTIONS
But an anxiously attached child will not grow a strong exploratory system because the child is overly focused on securing intimacy from distracted caregiver.
Asking questions in this context (as a child and as an adult) might be a defensive strategy for knowing all the relational rules and all the relational duties at play in a situation as a means for securing (even coercing) intimacy with others. The gaining of independence is the farthest thing from their mind.
Or an anxious person may incessantly ask questions of themselves, trying to mine the depths of their thoughts, behaviors, assumptions, and beliefs for the causes of lost or lacking intimacy.
Either way, asking questions might not be the mark of mature, childlike faith, but the behavior of an anxious heart.
AVOIDANT QUESTIONS
An avoidantly attached child goes in the opposite direction with an overdevelopment of their exploratory system as a way of securing independence from a dismissing caregiver by minimizing intimacy.
Asking questions in this context (as a child and as an adult) might be a defensive strategy for widening the gap in relationships to defend against intimacy, or as a way to validate the loss or lack of intimacy.
In this context, asking questions might not be the mark of mature, childlike faith, but the behavior of an avoidant mind.
Keep Asking Questions
So like I said, keep asking questions.
But more importantly, keep building intimacy with God so that we can all creatively impact the world for God’s kingdom.