The End of Our Exploring: An Interview with Matthew Lee Anderson

We ask questions every day, but do we ask questions about our questions? Matthew Lee Anderson does and has written about it in his new book The End of Our Exploring: A Book about Questioning and the Confidence of Faith. Anderson’s work can be found in several publications including The Washington Post, Relevant, and Christianity Today. He is the Lead Writer at Mere Orthodoxy and is pursuing an M. Phil in Christian Ethics at Oxford University, where he lives with his wife of eight years.

I asked Anderson to share more about his book, philosophy, and how we might navigate friendship and questioning. Learn more about him and The End of Our Exploring in this Q&A.

One of the first things I noticed about your book, Matthew, is the absence of women. You don’t have women endorsers and the majority of people featuring your book, thus far, have been men. My questions are why this is and is the book for women also?

Anderson: I’ll take the last question first, since it’s easiest:  Yes and absolutely. Questioning and inquiring well have nothing to do with sex or gender.  My wife is the smartest person I know and asks incredibly good questions.  It was really unfortunate that there were no women endorsers as to careful observers it did give off the impression that it was focused on men.  It was strictly an unfortunate collision of me being late with my manuscript and the people Moody contacted not being able to for a variety of reasons.  There was no reason for it, though that doesn’t excuse it.

What is the basic premise of the book and why is it important?

Anderson: My main point is that questioning is the sort of thing that can be done well or badly.  Inquiry isn’t neutral–no one “merely questions.”  As one form that our love takes in the world, it’s possible for the desire that seeking answers expresses to be misdirected and to lead us astray.  And if we are not attentive to that possibility–like many of us are not–then we make it more likely that we will not question well.

 I thought we would zero in on one chapter, Chapter 8: Friendship, Disagreement, and Our Fundamental Commitments. Why did you think it was important to include a chapter on friendship in a book about questioning?

Anderson: Many of us who do have questions work them out with other people around us.  And I think that’s really important to do:  questioning feels like an individual exercise, but it’s best done in the company of those who already care about us.  And when we inquire well, we can also become friends with other people. Genuine inquiry with another person establishes a common ground–both people are trying to understand, trying to see clearly, and in that they both recognize that neither of them yet do.  That common ground and common pursuit is a fertile soil for friendship to emerge out of.

 You wrote that good emerges through tough conversations. How have you seen this played out in your life? Conflict and disagreement can be difficult for many, how might we catch a vision for tough conversations?

Anderson: Well, my brother has put me through the ringer of some of the most challenging conversations of my life.  He is one of the sharpest people I know, and one of the most unrelenting in his quest for understanding.  We had a several year period where all our holidays were spent hammering out everything beneath the sun.  They were difficult, but also incredibly rewarding for us both.

Such conversations will always be best, though, when they are not debates about whether something is true or false and instead are explorations.  The difference is crucial:  within a debate, everyone knows when they begin and throughout both where they stand and where they are headed. But in an inquiry, the mutual recognition of our lack of knowledge decreases the stakes for every comment.  Rather than providing answers, we put forward hypotheses that we then work through together.  That’s when conversations start to become rewarding and rich.

You quote William Blake, “Opposition is true friendship.” Do you believe that in order to go beyond surface and superficial friendships one must have some disagreement? Perhaps the deepest friendships are those that have worked through issues, have you seen this to be true?

Anderson: I don’t think friends necessarily have to disagree.  Blake’s line puts a sharp point on things, but it’s a deliberate overstatement.  In fact, I think the sweetness of agreement and unity is one of the things I look forward to most about the resurrection.  But I do think that such a unity must often be won.  And there’s a peculiar joy that comes in rigorous disagreements among friends.  People’s personalities and perspectives come to the fore when they take a firm stance and subject their opinions to critical scrutiny.

You say: “A posture of inquiry and exploration allows us to question along with others, even those whose commitments don’t match our own. Such a posture means not determining beforehand what we will discover when we set out.” As I read this my mind went straight to James 1. I wonder if what you are sharing in this chapter, and perhaps the entire book, is the Christian virtue to count others above ourselves and to be slow to speak and quick to listen. Would you agree that the great commandment and James 1 are applications in your book?

Anderson: Yes, yes, and yes.  I’m deadly serious when I say that questioning and inquiry are forms our love takes, and like all such forms they must be qualified by the cross.  It’s very, very easy to want to bludgeon people with what we know to be true, as it is often more satisfying to have said the truth than to see it be received.  But in momentarily looking along with our friend at the world, we have to put aside our desire to show and determine whether they are prepared to see.  That takes time and patience, and a good deal of self-restraint.

You mention that you and your friend, Tim, don’t hold back your rhetoric. Would you agree then that there is a limit to how much we disagree and maintaining friendship? Do you think there is a limit to the closeness one might feel with someone they completely disagree with on fundamental things?

Anderson: This is a very good question.  I think the answer depends upon what we include as those “fundamental things” that we disagree upon.  I think it’s Lewis who says somewhere he’d rather be friends with an atheist who was a gentleman than a Christian who cheats at cards. We might have a good deal more in common with a non-Christian whom we have known our whole l lives than someone who affirms the same doctrines we do.  And the feeling of warmth and closeness would be affected accordingly.  Which is only to say, it is easy in such discussions to prioritize the doctrinal commitments that people have and to identify how they are or are not the same along those lines.  And those are massively important categorizations.  But friendship is a different sort of thing than doctrinal agreement.

Much of your thoughts center on theological and philosophical questions. But how have you applied this method of questioning and listening to your daily life? How have you applied this to your marriage, to the day-to-day mundane decisions of life? What about to conflict within your marriage? 

Anderson: This is a question my wife should answer, as she’s a better judge of how successful I’ve been at it.  But thinking about inquiry and disagreement has helped me try to shift my posture more toward understanding her in those moments when we don’t see eye-to-eye, and impelled me to wonder whether we are actually disagreeing or are simply talking past each other.  Many times, our controversies don’t rise to the level of disagreements, and questioning instead of accusing or defending helps us (eventually!) see that.

You encourage us not to begin with assumptions. I think because of the nature of the Internet it makes it difficult not to have preconceived notions of people (because of their writing, interviews, etc.). How would you exercise this in the mind? How do you not go into a discussion with someone who you have little interactions with but you’ve read their work, without assumptions?

Anderson: I think it’s totally appropriate to enter into a conversation with someone else about something they wrote or said without pretending we are starting with a blank slate.  We have, after all, read what they have said.  And that is something!

I think I’m mostly worried about the tendency to treat such blog posts or books as the totality of what that person thinks or has said, or the final statement about what that person thinks.  Writing has a way of tricking us into believing that someone’s position is permanent, even when that writing happens in a mode as transient as pixels.  But if we recognize that the person exceeds their words, I think we can cultivate a more gracious disposition toward them even while holding them responsible for what they did actually say.  And people who write should take responsibility for what we do say, not only what we mean to say or intend to say.

You use the phrase “intellectual empathy.” You say it is a form of seeing how and use the example of “Oh, I see how you could think that. It’s wrong, but I can see how it might make sense.” What is the good of practicing intellectual empathy?

Anderson: For one, I think it helps us think more clearly.  Seeing how other people think can alert us to aspects of the world we hadn’t considered, even if they think about those aspects wrong.  Second, I think it is both the fruit and cause of a confident intellect.  The mind that is never able to meaningfully entertain what other people think will calcify.  Third, I think it helps us know where to press on positions that are wrong. If have always wanted to understand the core of positions that I think are wrong, so that I can see how the remedy applies.

You use “hospitality words” as you name them, to describe what it means to be intellectually empathetic. Again, this brings me back to the great commission. Do you think that much of this boils down to love—loving others?

Anderson: Yes, with the qualification that people are not the way they see the world.  One of the amazing things about inquiry is how it respects the person precisely by momentarily differentiating the person and their beliefs.  That allows a conversation to go forward and disagreement to occur without those disagreements necessarily being judgments on the person.  If we forget that, then all our inquiry will be reduced to inquisitions.

There are some things that we are convinced of—we are not going to budge on. How do we open ourselves up to questioning and listening when we are “convinced in our own minds?”

Anderson: I think it’s imperative to be confident about the right things.  I don’t think my understanding of the world or the Gospel is complete, and that means that I want to be constantly coming to this message anew and seeing again how it intersects with the world around me.  I recognize that I am not so old that I couldn’t walk away from Christianity at some point–it’s grace that’s led me safe thus far, and only grace will lead me home.

But somewhat paradoxically, that motivates my inquiry and gives me a great deal of calm about it.  If it is grace that leads us forward, even intellectually, then if this whole thing is true we are free to openly consider the possibility that it isn’t.  If it turns out not to be true, then “we of all people are most to be pitied,” and any of our efforts will be in vain.  But we do ourselves or our faith no favors by ignoring that possibility.

In the middle of the chapter you shift from friendships to the broader Internet world and church. Do you think we should be attentive to all questions and questioners? Is there are limit?

Anderson: This is also a very hard question.  I think there are limits.  Personally, I simply cannot take up every question that people put before me.   No one can.  And so I try to take up the questions that weigh on me heaviest and that weigh on those I love most.  And I think that’s a good way of sorting through what questions we should consider.

But we should also recognize that on a larger level, the church doesn’t simply take up questions that the world asks, but teaches new questions to ask as well.  And I think that’s something that often gets forgotten:  more often than not, our churches become places to find answers to pre-existing questions rather than places where new and better questions are being explored.

How do you think applying these ideas in your book would affect relationships?

Anderson: I really am grateful for this question, as questioning is a human practice and so is necessarily a communal one.  My hope and prayer is that as we learn to question well, our confidence in the Gospel will increase and the depth of our witness to it will become more evident to those around us.  I really want to see Christians learn to inquire, to seek, to search out the world.  And I think as we do that, our faith will become more vibrant and our conversations with each other will take on a new life.

Enjoy this book trailer:

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