Without questioning, faith is idolatrous. Just as patriotism without questioning risks becoming idolatrous nationalism, so faith without questioning risks becoming idolatrous religion.
To explain: when faith is defined as unquestioning acceptance of “tenets or traditions,” whether drawn from the Bible or doctrine or both, then the object of faith is no longer God, but the tenets and traditions themselves. Something other than God has been given an absolute status – which is what makes it idolatrous.
Of course, there are different kinds of questioning. Some is unproductive, trivial and silly: “If God is all-powerful, can God make a square circle?” Only slightly more serious is the sophomoric, “If God made everything, who made God?” Some questions are based on misunderstandings that can be corrected.
And sometimes perpetual questioning becomes a justification for eternal fence-sitting and indecision.
But questioning also serves a necessary religious function: it prevents us from thinking that there can ever be a final formulation of “the way things are.” Our words and concepts, no matter how sacred or scientific, can only point to a stupendous and wondrous Mystery beyond all language. That is their function: they are pointers, and some point better than others. Sometimes language can even mediate the Mystery, the sacred.
But none of our “tenets or traditions” can be the last word, the final word. They are creatures, creations. To think of them as absolute is to give them a status that belongs to God alone.
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