Question IV: Whether the object of faith can be false

The theologians answer UNANIMOUSLY that falsity cannot underlie the object of faith. So the Holy Doctors here; Alens. 3. p. quaest. 79. membr. 1. Albert. 3. dist. 25. art. 3. Altisiodor. lib. 3. tract. 3. cap. 2. quaest. 3. Richardus 3. dist. 24. quaest. 3. and all the others, in Tanner disp. 1. quaest. 1. dub. 5. where he has nearly everything from the Holy Doctors.

IT IS PROVED by D. Bonav. first. Faith in the way belongs only to that of which there will be vision in the fatherland; but falsity cannot underlie the vision in the fatherland: Therefore.

SECOND. As Charity is related to good, so is Faith to truth; but Charity does not desire except the good: Therefore Faith never makes one believe except the truth.

THIRD. Everything that falls under faith falls under revelation from the first Truth; but nothing false can fall into the first Truth: Therefore neither into Faith. The major is proved; for the first Truth, as revealing, is the formal aspect under which that of faith itself [is believed]; but nothing falls into any habit except under the formal aspect of its own object, nor even into any potency. For nothing is attained by the visual potency except under the aspect of the luminous. The minor is proved by D. Bonav. For the false fights directly with the first truth, and is opposed to it as evil to good; and not being to being. This is the principal argument by which nearly all the others proceed, as Valentia says quaest. 1. puncto 3.

YOU WILL SAY, many things revealed depend on human faith, e. g. the authority of Clement X. from the fact that he is canonically elected. The Council of Trent, that it is canonically convened, and the like.

IT IS ANSWERED, these depend on human faith as on a disposition; But the election is certain, because in Matth. 16. it is promised that the assistance of God will not be wanting to the Church.

It is confirmed by the Holy Doctor. For the cognition under which falsity can lie is rather deception than illumination; But faith is the illumination of the mind, as D. August. says lib. com. epist. fund. cap. 14.

It is confirmed second by the Holy Doctor; for the Theological Virtue is more certain than every art and science; But falsity cannot underlie the sciences: Therefore.

IT IS PROVED by S. Bonav. in the body [of the article], because our faith relies on Divine cognition; but God comprehends all things, so that he knows even future contingents with certainty: Therefore. Here the Holy Doctor, taking his occasion from the Minor of the third argument, settles that question: Whether God can deceive; which question he also treats in 2. dist. 37. art. 2. quaest. 1. and Cano examines it on purpose, quaest. 3. de Locis Theol.

For if God can deceive, the way will not lie open to us for knowing this or that infallible thing; since they cannot be reduced to the first truth.

IT is the most certain assertion of all Catholics that it is heretical to say that God, by himself or through another, ever taught falsity, or that by ordinary law he can teach it. So Valentia admonishes. It is against the Priscillianists, in D. August. de haeres. haeresi 70.

IT IS PROVED first by the Holy Doctor on 3. Ioan. He who receives his testimony hath set to his seal that God is true, and it is added on Rom. 3. But God is true: but every man a liar. Thence he deduces there also that whoever speaks the words of God, or in the name of God, is truthful, and thus God cannot deceive through another.

The Holy Doctor proves the SAME on cap. 8. Ioan. with those words: He that sent me is true. There he also elegantly solves the doubt: Why the Father is called Truthful: But the Son Truth: I am the way, the truth, and the life. Ioan. 14. And the Church sings in the office of the Most Holy Trinity Truthful the Father, Truth the Son. This doubt moved S. August. tract. 30. in Ioan. For since Truth says something more than Truthful, just as Piety says more than Pious; for pious is said from piety, not the other way around: Therefore truth ought to be appropriated to the Father, from whom is the Son.

S. Bonav. ANSWERS from D. August. that the Father is truthful, because he spoke the true Word, which is Truth. And so he is not called Truthful by participation.

The Holy Doctor shows the same on 14. Ioan. with those words of Christ: I am the way, the truth, and the life, and he brings forward the exposition of Chrysost. homil. 27. and of D. August. tract. 69. and serm. 54. de verbis Domini. He shows it also on 16. Lucae, from Psalm 116. The truth of the Lord endureth for ever, and Psalm. 118. Unto generation and generation thy truth, and of mediated truth: But he that doth truth cometh to the light, that his works may be made manifest, because they are done in God. Ioan. 3. and cap. 8. If you shall abide in my word, you shall know the truth, and the truth shall liberate you.

IT IS PROVED second. Whatever God can make has its exemplar in God; but a false enunciation, as false, has no exemplar in God: Therefore. The minor is proved; For truth is the ground of exemplarity.

IT IS PROVED third by the Holy Doctor. As goodness is related to malice, so is truth related to falsity; but from supreme goodness malice can in no way be: Therefore from supreme truth falsity cannot be. This argument is from proportion; for guilt repugns God more, although both intrinsically repugn the most perfect Being, as the Holy Doctor notes in the body.

IT IS PROVED fourth by the Holy Doctor. True and Being are convertible: But there cannot be from God anything that is not a being: Therefore neither can it be true¹: But a false enunciation says the privation of the true: Therefore. ¹ Editor's note: the print/OCR reads 'Ergo neque potest esse, sit veram' (djvu layer: 'Ergo ncque ootcft eflc , qood non fic vcmm'); rendered as 'Ergo neque potest esse, quod non sit verum' — the print fragment shows 'quod non' after 'esse', which the transcription had dropped.

IT IS PROVED fifth. If he can say a false thing; either ignorantly, or knowingly; Not ignorantly, because God is of infinite wisdom; Nor knowingly, because thus he would lie; But to say that God lies is profane and impious against Scripture and the Fathers. Therefore: The subsumption is proved. Num. 23. God is not as a man, that he may lie. Psal. 5. Thou wilt destroy all that speak a lie.

The same the Holy Fathers proclaim with one voice: Athan. lib. de Incarn. Verbi. Chrysost. homil. in Symbolum Apostolorum, Cyrill. Alex. lib. 2. in Ioan. cap. 69. Ambros. lib. 6. epistolarum, epistola 57. where he brings forward that of Numer. 23. and Hebr. 6. It is impossible for God to lie. D. August. 22. de civit. cap. 25. and lib. 1. de Symbolo ad Cathec. cap. 1. Anselm. lib. 1. Cur Deus homo, cap. 22. Valentia cites them.

From these Fathers S. Bonav. extracts an argument. That which says imperfection is impossible to God; But lying says imperfection; likewise also deception through falsity; for it says the lack of truth: Therefore. This is the argument of these Fathers to the letter, who from the omnipotence of God gather, indeed, that he cannot lie; because to lie is to fail, not to be able.

YOU WILL OBJECT first with certain Scriptures fighting in words. Exod. 20. I am a mighty and jealous God, punishing the sins of the fathers upon the children unto the fourth generation. And yet in Ezech. 18. it is said: The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father.

LIKEWISE in Iob. 1. it is said: In all these things Job did not sin, nor did he speak any foolish thing against God. The contrary of which Iob 39. and 42. signifies. Similarly cap. 7. he says: I have sinned, what shall I do to thee; But cap. 27. For my heart hath not reproved me.

The Holy Doctor ANSWERS that these do not clash; and to that of Exodus he responds, in the sermon on the ten commandments, that God punishes with temporal inconveniences; (for, as regards these, the Son is part of the Father) but not with eternal punishments, and in this sense Ezechiel speaks.

To the places of Job I say that he sinned lightly, cap. 7. not gravely, cap. 37. and cap. 39. and 42. he confesses he spoke foolishly; yet did not sin. See D. Gregory lib. 32. Moral. cap. 1.

THEY OBJECT second with the Scriptures in which God seems to have deceived, which Melchior Cano reports at length lib. 2. de locis, cap. 2. Genes. 22. Abraham said: Stay you here, I and the boy: after we have worshipped, we will return; and yet he wished to immolate his son. That he spoke, however, by divine instinct, Ambr. asserts lib. 1. de Abraham, cap. 8.

The Holy Doctor ANSWERS 3. dist. 38. quaest. 2. that Abraham did not lie, because he thought that the son, once immolated, was to be raised again, as is said in Hebr. 11. and therefore would return. So D. August. expounds it serm. 71. and 72. de tempore. Gabriel 3. dist. 30. Carthus. on that place, and Valentia loc. cit. follow them.

THEY OPPOSE Genes. 27. where Jacob lied. I am Esau, which he yet said by the instinct of God, as Pope Innocent teaches, cap. Gaudemus extra, de divortiis.

The Holy Doctor ANSWERS 3. dist. 38. dub. 4. litt. that Jacob spoke the truth; for he was Esau not indeed in person, but by election to the primogeniture, of which he had been instructed by his mother, who had been taught that the elder would serve the younger, Genes. 25. Nor did he deceive by the garment, but he signified mysteries. So with D. August. contra mendacium cap. 10. and Ambrose de Iacob. Cano, Valentia, and others follow them. See Pererius and Ribeta on those places, on cap. 11. Hebr.

THEY OBJECT also Isa. 38. and 4. Reg. 20. where the Lord through Isaiah announced death to Ezechias; yet he did not die. So also Ninive was not overthrown, Ionae 2.

TO THIS, and the like, I responded p. 1. tract. 1. disp. 8. quaest. 1. from D. Bonav. lib. 1. compend. Theolog. verit. cap. 19. that Ezechias was to die according to natural causes, but God delivered him by a miracle. So also Ninive was to be destroyed according to its demerits, yet was delivered on account of penance, which, if it had not done, it would have perished.

THEY OBJECT also 3. Reg. 22. where the Lord says: Who shall deceive Achab? and there went forth a wicked spirit, which took upon itself to deceive all the prophets. And the Lord: Go forth, and do so. And the prophet subjoins: Behold the Lord hath given a lying spirit in the mouth of all the prophets.

The Holy Doctor ANSWERS in 2. dist. 10. dub. 1. and dist. 27. art. 2. quaest. 1. to the arguments, that by those words is not signified the command of God, but permission, which is often in the Scriptures expressed in the same manner of speaking as the command, as Ioan. 13. That which thou dost, do quickly, on which see S. Bonav. there, where he brings forward other expositions. On the same answer rely Morandus, Cano, Valentia, and the rest.

I ASSERT consequently, second, that no power can cause God to teach falsity. It is against Gabriel 3. dist. 38. quaest. unica Aliacum p quaest. 12. Hybernicum, and Adam, whom Gregory cites primo, dist. 42. quaest. 2. but it is the common [opinion] of the Theologians.

IT IS PROVED first. Hebr. 6. where it says: It is impossible for God to lie, which all the arguments of S. Bonav. prove, drawn from the nature of God, and strengthened with the Holy Fathers; For they deny that God can lie for this reason, because this is an imperfection simply repugning the nature, or the Divine perfection.

Hence the Holy Doctor argues: he, of whom all perfection is simply to be asserted, and authority, and all imperfection to be denied, cannot take on the imperfection of lying: But God has supreme perfection, and authority for persuading: Therefore lying repugns him.

IT IS PROVED by another argument by the Holy Doctor in the body, from the consequence of guilt. It is certain that God cannot be the author of guilt. It is also certain that it would be a most grievous thing for us, unless we believed most firmly all the things revealed by God that are of faith; for to doubt of them is heresy, or at least mortal sin; but to deny them is open heresy. But if God could lie, we should not be held to believe firmly the things revealed by God; indeed we could justly always doubt: whether God willed to lie, or to deceive us: Therefore. It is proved that this follows, for we could not be certified of the nature of God on the hypothesis that lying does not repugn him; Nor from ordinary law, because if he can lie, we are not certain: whether in some thing he willed to lie: Therefore. And so our credulity would not be reduced to the solid root of the truthfulness of God, as Morandus notes. This is the genuine argument of the Seraphic Doctor, if it be thoroughly pondered, and it is of such weight with Valentia that nothing further for persuading would be desired. For the argument of the Seraphic Doctor is not absolutely from the mere proportion of deception with guilt; as if, since God cannot sin, neither can he deceive; for to sin is graver than to deceive another by a word, as the Holy Doctor himself notes; But it is from the consequence inducing guilt. On account of these things the assertion is held to be of faith by Morandus T. VII. quaest. 2. Pasqualigo disp. 31. sect. 1. and others.