Is questioning one's faith inevitable?

Questioning faith, no matter the definition of that word, is part of the process. It's just critical thinking. It doesn't have to be any more complicated than that. Through your faith you are presented with information, you analyze it, and come to a conclusion. Over time you're presented with new, possibly conflicting information and you analyze that as well. It's completely natural and important for one's spiritual growth. If one isn't confident enough in one's self and in one's faith to handle questions, especially from one's self, then I think a deeper level of questioning is in order. If you can ask yourself, "do I really believe this?" and give yourself an honest answer, no matter if that answer is yes or no, you have grown tremendously.

When it comes to questioning things about yourself, I've always felt that we always have the answers we're looking for. The trouble is, we don't always ask the right questions.

The fact that we have a word and concept for faith implies that we would question ours, as well as that of others, and would have our's questioned as well.

For me, it always boils down to a fact that I have trouble getting behind any large story. I have always found prayer absurd, and I was told that I felt that way because I lack faith. As a child I was a part of an Evangelical youth group called Awana's, like religious boy scouts. We spent a lot of time in the church, playing out door games and then would come it to memorize parts of the bible and talk about it with our youth leaders. You got awards and advancements for this. The youth leaders would always ask us a bunch of questions and test us, and in this way I found out for the first time that I did not have faith. I would always fall in to these logic traps that I could not get out of with out faith in their lines of questioning. It is not surprising, my family never attended church. I was in the program because there was a girl that I knew from school who was in the program and I liked her.

I have found that I only have a little faith in a few things, because I have spent a lot of time examining my beliefs to find what would rise to the top as faith. Faith is only there to back up why we believe something that is not explainable. I can not explain why I feel alone in a group, but never like I am by myself when away from others. I can't explain why I feel like I knew my children when they were born, or why I knew that my wife was the person I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. But I do have faith that those are things that exist. Everything else is up for questioning, those are just a few of the things that I have faith in that I ponder.

"faith" is the sum of the answers to our questions.

I think faith should be questioned. If it is not it would grow stagnant in a sense. Believing in something is a good thing but I think blind faith can be dangerous. Do you believe what you believe because you read it, thought about it, and chose it or do you believe it because a preacher or friend told you how it should be understood? Think about that question.... you just questioned your faith.

Edan wrote: As the title says, is it inevitable that one will eventually come to question their faith?

I wouldn't call it "inevitable", but rather "common".

questioning one's beliefs

It would be ludicrous, purposfully blinding and ignorant if you didn't.

Did I offend anyone?

Streen wrote:

Edan wrote: As the title says, is it inevitable that one will eventually come to question their faith?

I wouldn't call it "inevitable", but rather "common".

I donno, after living in the Bible Belt for so long I'm not too sure it's common either hahaha.

I don't think questioning your faith is inevitable but I do think it is very good practice. And one I try to follow quite often.

I remember as a young kid, I was sitting in Sunday School and being taught the 10 Commandments. I was told "Thou shalt have no other gods before me." meant "[Our Christian] God is the only one, true, God. All others are fake." I had already fallen in love with the mythology of the ages and I sat there thinking But...how could the Egyptians and the Romans and the Greeks have been so wrong? How can you go through life worshiping something that's fake? What makes us so much more right?

Unfortunately, I didn't have open-thinking role-models at the time and just accepted what I was fed for 20 years. I do appreciate the church I grew up in and the love of the congregation, and I do slightly envy those who don't seem to go through the angst of getting 'lost' while looking for answers to questions, but I feel like I'm a much better and stronger person for getting lost and poking around at what I believe in.

It's as natural and inevitable as a snake shedding its skin, yo. In other words, humans are intrinsically metaphysical. As consciousness evolves, so must ones beliefs or "faiths" correspond to this evolution. Faith must decay before it can grow anew, and since growth is a a natural property of consciousness, it follows that all faiths must in some sense decay. This sense of "decay" could be elaborated further, but I would generally consider "questioning" one's faith to be either a kind of decay or a symptom of decay, depending on how you want to approach describing the phenomena.

What is essential never really dies, however. So one may qualify my original answer with a few other distinctions and terms, etc.

I honestly believe if one is diligent about their studies they will take what they once learned from the frame of new knowledge (which may then be applied). This usually means completely reevaluating most personal outlooks in life and everything GOOD that will come from that.

On a side note, I question my faith of task everyday as everyday for me is a new challenge at university. Always be working on something that fulfills you and it will only help to align you to your innermost faith, the one which resonates the most for you.

Not really. Some people just go with it, never stopping to ask themselves 'why?'. A word of advice: there is no definitive answer to why we're here. At least I don't believe so. The only thing I know for certain is that I'm here, right now, and I'd rather not be spending all my time thinking about a possibly imaginary hell that I could or could not end up in because I didn't believe in something that was telling me how to live my life...