Question III: Whether the object of faith is something complex

THEY treat this question in agreement with the Holy Doctors: Alens. 3. p. quaest. 79. membr. 5. Albert. in 3. dist. 24. art. 5. Altisiodor. lib. 3. tract. 3. cap. 2. quaest. 2. Richard. dist. 24. quaest. 2. Durand. ibi, et alii; nor is there almost any difficulty.

THE FIRST opinion is that the object of faith is something Incomplex, as God, the Incarnation, etc. Thus, as regards God, the principal object seems to be a clear reality.

St. Bonaventure refutes this view, because, although God in himself is simple, he is nevertheless believed not incomplexly, but complexly, as Valentia also notes quaest. 1. p. 2. Mastrius disp. 6. quaest. 1. art. 1. Caspensis sect. 1. num. 9. Since, therefore, the object must be taken not materially, as a thing; but under that aspect under which it is regarded by the habit, and by the potency, and the potency regards the object as complex; therefore it must be so enunciated.

The SECOND opinion is that the object of faith is about complex truth, not only because faith regards the object as enunciated, and our intellective potency does not grasp it except by way of composition; but also because it is objected according to some difference of time, as: The Incarnation has been made: The Judgment has not been made. And if you say that faith must be changed while the enunciables are changed at different times. The Nominalists respond that the enunciates are not changed, because it is the same true enunciate, you will run, you are running, you have run, despite the diversity of times. Then, even if the enunciables were changed; still they say that Faith is not changed.

Yet St. Bonaventure in 1. dist. 41. quaest. ult. rejected this view, because the enunciate signifies not only the thing, but the mode of its being, and since one is the mode by which the Judgment will be; and another, by which it is; and then again, by which it was; the enunciation also varies, and its truth varies. And if, on account of the immutability of the account, the enunciations of faith are immutable; they will also be one article, because one is the reason of all believing.

Therefore the Holy Doctor ASSERTS that the object of faith, as it is regarded by the believer, according to assent, is complex.

IT IS PROVED by the Holy Doctor, first from D. August. de praedest. Sanctorum, cap. 2. where he says: To believe is to think with assent.

SECOND, because faith regards the object as true, and therefore as to be asserted. It is confirmed, because faith is opposed to error; but error is about the complex, attributing to a thing what it does not have: Therefore.

FINALLY, if the object of faith were Incomplex, say the coming of the Messiah, or the Universal Judgment: Then the Jews would not err in saying that they believe the coming of the Messiah, but that it has not yet come: Nor would he err who said that the Judgment had already been made. Therefore the Holy Doctor notes that the explicit object of faith includes even the differences of time, so that, e. g., it be believed that the Incarnation has already taken place, etc.

I ASSERT, second, that some object of faith, as it is a thing, say God, is incomplex. So D. Thom. Valentia, Caspensis, Mastrius; nor does S. Bonav. disagree, for God is most simple in himself.

IT IS PROVED, second, by the Holy Doctor. For those who of old believed the Incarnation implicitly did not believe it necessarily under some difference of time, but were able to suspend judgment: whether he had been born; or not.

YOU WILL OBJECT against the first assertion. Hope and Charity are about incomplexes: Therefore also faith.

THE HOLY DOCTOR ANSWERS by denying the consequence, because Hope and Charity are affections, and therefore regard things, say beatitude, God, etc. But faith deals in the intellect, composing, dividing, etc.