We continue to receive "Why does God...?" types of questions:
and countless others.
I wonder if we ought to add this class of question specifically to the list of off-topic questions, and possibly add a close reason?
Considering the volume that we get of that, I'm okay with neglecting any taxonomic labels on it and just giving it a special close reason with a decent explanation for why we cannot (will not) answer questions like that, and hopefully alternatives or a meta post with alternatives.
I thing something like:
- Questions asking why God takes one action or another cannot be factually answered unless the Scripture explicitly says why, but it usually does not. There usually is an abundance of opinions from various traditions and asking what any of them think about this is factually answerable. Please see: [meta post title (my personal suggestion: We don't know what God is thinking or "For my ways are not your ways".)].
I suggest that the meta post expands on the logic of the close comment. It should point to other meta posts for why we avoid Truth questions (C.SE vs. Survivor and Brothers we are not Christians come to mind first).
It would be very helpful if the meta post also offers generalized options to reopen the question. I can see these questions being changed to (take "Why does God work through people" as an example):
Not every question like this can be remolded into one of the suggestions. Sometimes that is quite obvious. Also, some questions cannot be salvaged at all; the topic is just to philosophical and not enough theological.
On one of those questions you linked, I actually answered and started by tearing down the poor structure of the sentence:
The first thing I will note is an issue with the question. It is not fair to ask "Why does God ..." because it is wholly unanswerable unless the Scripture says explicitly why, but it usually does not explain God's actions. So I will focus more on "Why do some Christians believe ..." as there is usually an abundance of text where they explain their thoughts.
Same thing, different wording.
I absolutely think it should be off-topic. And I would support it being included as an example in the "General philosophical or sociological questions" close description. It's a combination of opinion-based, general philosophical question, too broad, and Truth.
At the bare minimum, it would be good to include it in the samples for "what not to ask" in the Help Center.
The tricky thing about these types of questions is that sometimes they can be trivially turned into an exegesis question or an explanation of doctrine question. But it's not straightforward:
I think we should encourage these kinds of questions to be quickly converted if possible. If they can be converted but get put on hold in the mean time, the community should promptly reopen them.
I don't think a new off-topic message or close reason is required, but it would be helpful to have a FAQ for how to convert them to exegesis or doctrine explanation questions.
They are an argument, not a question.
