Reflections on Questioning Faith

Here's a question. Is it good to question the historic Christian faith? Many would say that questioning results in renewed spirituality and reformed practice. But, now I'm wondering whether it is wise to continually question aspects of our faith. Sorry if I'm sounding like an absolutist or foundationalist. But, maybe God wants us to be sure of some things.

From what I understand of philosophical thought, one of the Enlightenment's major weaknesses was that it sought to question everything. There was nothing that was out of bounds. The result was that no basis for knowledge could be established and philosophy slipped into hopeless and self-defeating relativism. The ultimate reason for this failure was that it was an individualistic view of knowledge, meaning that it was assumed that knowledge begins with us. Unfortunately, this man-centered view of knowledge continues in post-modernism.

What I believe Scripture supports is God-centered knowledge that is based on the assumption that God has delivered revelation that He wants us to clearly understand. In Peter's second epistle, he urges the believers to continually reinforce the fundamentals of the faith:

So I will always remind you of these things [God's precious promises in Christ Jesus], even though you know them and are firmly established in the truth you now have.

It seems that God wants us to stand firm in the truth that He has revealed to us in Jesus. Which would seem like there are some foundations of truth on which we can build our common faith.

A few caveats though: 1) I'm not speaking of authoratarian control of truth. This is examplified in the attitude of "believe this or else!" Such approaches are controlling and manipulative and far from the biblical example. 2) This doesn't mean we shouldn't question certain things about our faith in light of Scripture. Our knowledge is certainly not omniscient, and therefore we should not conclude that our stance is the end all be all of the Christian faith. 3) It also doesn't mean we shouldn't continually question our practice of the faith, which should be reevaluated in regards to its faithfulness to the Word of God and to the context we find ourselves in.

What it does mean is that there are certain things that we can hold on to dearly, like precious truths that ground our faith. The question become then, what are those precious things that we can be sure of?

Now, I may be totally talking out of my rear on this. It was just something I've been pondering this afternoon. Jessica - your comments about my post were insightful and accurate, and they made me think more on this idea. If what I'm thinking of has nothing to do with what you wrote, then you can ignore me.