Is faith provisional, a temporary tool to bridge the gap between complete ignorance and complete knowledge, perhaps otherwise known as enlightenment?

This is another way of describing the differentiation between faith and belief. These are waystations on the way to enlightenment. Belief is always a portion of what is possible. In other words, "no one knows everything." That is true for us as well. We continue to learn and grow along with you and you are contributing to our learning and growth as we endeavor to contribute to yours through these communications, and in supporting you indirectly with guidance, inspiration, healing, and protection when this is requested. Faith will keep you going because it is a yearning for a return to a closeness within the divine family. That is what you are suffering more than anything else, being away from us and your many light being colleagues you share, in togetherness as a human family along with Creator, in a close collaboration. For you, that is a state of perfection beyond measure because it is what you were created to experience and express. So enlightenment is truly being back in the fold, so to speak, and in touch with your true being and purpose on all levels, including the soul level, which is much, much vaster than you sense or know or can connect to from your place in the physical in the state of disconnection and diminishment imposed by your human physical body as a container of your consciousness. It is the only way you can experience and express your existence within the physical realm and it limits the consciousness largely to experiencing things through the normal senses, with non-local consciousness being usually quite fleeting or even absent for all practical purposes. It is the non-local consciousness that enables a communication with the divine realm as well as experiencing more of your capabilities you take for granted as a light being, but denied you in a physical form for the most part. Belief is an adjective and so may represent a specific set of information within your knowledge and awareness about which you have come to conclusions constituting beliefs. The average person has many, many, many beliefs and they vary with respect to their depth of awareness and knowledge and their relative strength in terms of vulnerability to being challenged and perhaps even overturned when subject to new information and its influence. Whereas enlightenment, in the true fullest sense, is reclaiming the awareness and access to everything you have ever experienced. Because you are not finished, having an immortal soul and thus an eternity to work with, your enlightenment is in flux so that, too, is relative as is true of belief. You can only believe in what you know. You cannot believe in something you have never thought of or experienced, or have had introduced to you as just a concept to ponder. There will be many, many new things that come your way, that is why learning and growth are eternal, and this is as it should be. There has never been a static universe nor will there be, because this is a quest for learning and growth with change as the agent and the prime intention for its existence—that is like a waterfall that is endless in bringing new things, new possibilities, new adventures, and an ever-expanding awareness.