In the midst of his affliction, Job said: “Surely I would speak to the Almighty, and I desire to reason with God.” (Job 13:3) He got the chance, and you can read what that looked like in the final chapters of Job.
Job was not unique. The Lord desires to reason with each of his children. It is a critical means of conveying great quantities of information. He says: “Produce your cause, saith the Lord; bring forth your strong reasons.” (Isaiah 41:21) He says: “Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord.” (Isaiah 1:18)
Reasoning with the Lord is a back-and-forth conversation where we present what we think is right and the Lord explains why something else is better. It is a process of searching for what best improves. The volume of information flow in this exercise is orders of magnitude greater than what can be conveyed in simple yes-or-no questions.
You should also exercise extreme care when it comes to vocabulary. Ideological jargon precludes open-mindedness. For example, every faith group has developed a vocabulary of words whose usage both invokes strong feelings and makes us think imprecisely. Words like authority, prophet, sustain, keys, and apostasy, for instance, have very charged meanings in LDS crowds. Using these words shuts down thought, making it very difficult for an adherent to think freely instead of along sanctioned lines. We should strive to use more precise words: instead of using nonspecific terms, use the meaning of the term that you intend. For example, when you say “prophet,” do you mean one who receives and announces predictions of the future from God, or do you mean someone who has been selected by a group of men from their ranks as the leader of a church? If you are asking “is so-and-so a prophet,” do you really mean “should I assume that everything so-and-so does is from you, God?”
How you frame a question makes a tremendous difference in the answers you receive. Say what you actually mean, and you will have a new source of questions to ask. A vague vocabulary makes for a vague awareness. Vague questions can only lead to vague answers. An articulate, precise question will lead to an articulate, precise answer.
One way to reason is to put questions into a hypothesis form, where observations or experiments might be designed to prove them wrong.
This technique is the essential way to control for absurdities while remaining open-minded. Before adopting this approach, realize that it requires you to be willing to accept that something you believe is wrong. If you don’t believe in the possibility of counter evidence to something you believe, don’t bother trying to question it.
Framing as a hypothesis goes something like this: think of a belief. Now, phrase it in a specific way. This is important, because the automatic reaction to identifying a belief as false is to claim that the original statement of the belief wasn’t what you meant. As long as you don’t explicitly define what you mean, you can’t actually evaluate it.
Now, for each specific point, search to see whether you have observed a contradiction. If there is, then that point is false, and unless you can rephrase your belief without it, your belief is, too.
Let’s take an example. Suppose I think college is good. I should ask myself why. Suppose my answer is, “college is good because if you get a college degree you will have a better career.” Now I ask what I mean by a better career, and rephrase more specifically: “College is good because a college degree earns you more money.” Now, I look for contradictions. Do all college degree holders earn more money than all who do not have a degree? No. Now I have to rephrase my belief: “College is sometimes good because sometimes a college degree earns you more money.” That one checks out, but it is much weaker. The first belief suggests everyone should go to college. The second suggests that more is needed before deciding whether it is a good idea. You can continue with this specific example, and eventually you’ll end up with something like “College is good if you want to major in computer science. Otherwise, you shouldn’t go to college.”
This idea of specification and testing is called falsifiability. While something can never be proven right, things can be proven wrong, and this is what falsifiability is all about. If something is proven wrong, it is wrong. If it is not proven wrong, it is right enough, for now.
An unfalsifiable position is always the last position you will ever hold on any given topic. This is, essentially, damnation, because you limit yourself to the glory associated with the current law you live. You have drawn a line in the sand beyond which you are not willing to move, whether or not greater truth exists.
Falsifiability highlights the danger of dogmatic assertions unattached from specific evidences. Consider the college statement above. It is obvious that one who embraces the first version of the college belief will live a very different life than one who holds the last version.
Challenge your assumptions. If you don't challenge what you have, you can never get more than what you have. If you don't have what you want, you have to get something different. Set out to prove yourself wrong.