"Making a Self" and Questioning Your Faith

Brooke has been thinking a lot about the process of "self-making." Some of this has been prompted by a reading from MIDS 101 by Jacques Barzun:

. . .when the will to self-searching has you by the throat, there is immense value in being able to find a Self: that is to say, a solid entity that you can trust, because you have made it yourself and made it well. A well-made Self is not a haphazard collection of habits and prejudices, of notions and fancies; it is an ordered set of reflections, conclusions, and convictions. [. . .]

It reminds you at critical moments that the present concern, the irritating predicament, the stupid mess created by an individual act or an institutional rule, is not the sum total of the universe. It gives you, as we say, perspective, a sense of proportion. These words in fact refer to that second Self, that solid Self, full of experience, which stands like a back-stop behind the every-day Self, which is engaged in dealing with the vicissitudes of life.

That second Self is of course a permanent acquisition. You don’t lose it like an umbrella and miss it the next time it rains. You carry your strong identity with you through the whole course of life.

But what if this quest to find or build a "Second Self" (or "solid self" or "strong identity") causes people to question their faith? Is this a good thing? A dangerous thing? A necessary thing?

Does "questioning one's faith" lead to a greater and more profound understanding of one's faith? What if it leads to the opposite?