Questions Beyond Answers – Sunday, April 22, 1945
The questions asked by children are seemingly interminable, as those who have attempted to answer them know full well. “Why this?” “Why that?” “Why everything?”—and every answer seems only to suggest another question. As children we ask “why?” to many things which adults accept as a matter of course. We ask “why?” because what is obvious, to others is not obvious to us. And often those whose responsibility it is to teach and to train us in our youth rightly expect us to accept some answers which are beyond our understanding because wisdom and experience, and because God and men have found the answers to be good. In other words, as children, we are asked to have faith where our knowledge and experience are lacking.
In childhood, also, we find that beyond all the known answers, there are always unanswered questions, and so it continues to be throughout all our days. There are many perplexing questions in life, which to answer fully and satisfyingly here and now, defies all our wisdom, our understanding, our reasoning. True, some men can answer questions which others cannot. Some have acquired knowledge of greater breadth. Some have pursued further searching’s into the unknown. Some have been given insight and inspiration beyond the perception and understanding of others. But, no matter how wise or how learned we become, no matter how experienced or how richly endowed, there are many answers which no man knows, which all of us together do not know, which all the wisdom of all men in all the ages, present and past, does not comprehend.
There is still much. in this world—much of great importance—which must be accepted on faith—and those who rebel against this fact, those who will accept only what they can positively prove by their own objective experience, are closing against themselves the door that opens upon further light, more truth, greater discovery. Even as in childhood we were satisfied in part, we questioned in part, and we trusted in part, so now, still standing as children in the presence of the illimitable unknown, still standing as children before that God and Father who made us all, no matter how much we may yet discover, there will always be questions rising beyond the answers, as hills rise above the hills, on an eternal horizon.
But the fact that we may never know all would be a miserable excuse for not accepting gratefully what we do know, and with it working out our salvation, proceeding with knowledge where we have it, and with faith where knowledge fails us, to further and yet further achievements for humankind.
“The Spoken Word,” heard over Radio Station K S L and the nationwide Columbia Broadcasting System, from the Tabernacle, Temple Square, Salt Lake City, Sunday, Apr. 22, 1945. Copyright 1945.
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April 22, 1945
Broadcast Number 0,818