Chapter III — On Faith, and its division

I. Question I. What is faith? Answer. Theological faith, as distinct from the other virtues, is described by the Apostle in Hebrews 11 in these words: Faith is the substance of things to be hoped for, the evidence of things that appear not. The common notion among the Theologians is this: Faith is an infused habit, by which we firmly assent to the truths revealed by God and proposed by the Church. Theological faith, therefore, rests upon the divine authority; and this revelation is established for us through the divine Scriptures, the proposal of the Church coming in addition.

II. Question II. Of how many kinds is faith? Answer. Faith is divided into actual and habitual. Actual faith is a supernatural assent, firm and certain, excluding all doubt, given to the things revealed by God on account of the authority of that same divine revelation. Habitual faith is an infused virtue, which renders us permanently apt for eliciting acts of faith with the help of actual grace. Again, it is distributed into formed, or living, faith, which is nourished by habitual grace and charity, which works through love and brings forth fruits worthy of eternal life; and into unformed, or dead, faith, which lacks habitual grace and charity. The former is found in the just, the latter in sinners. Finally, one faith is explicit, by which an article revealed by God is expressly believed; another implicit, by which an article is believed in another article that has been revealed. You believe the mystery of the resurrection, and in it you implicitly believe the resurrection of the just.

III. Question III. What, and of how many kinds, is the object of faith? Answer. The object of faith is what is proposed to the mind to be believed. It is twofold. One is the material object, which is also called the formal object which [formale quod]; and these are all the things that are believed, of which God is the primary object, and all the rest are the secondary object. The other is the formal object by which [formale quo], or the reason why we believe; and it is the first truth obscurely revealing. This formal reason, or divine revealing truth, which induces us to believe, demands as a necessary condition the proposal of the Church. A second condition is the firmness of the assent. The third is obscurity. A threefold act of faith is usually distinguished: namely, to believe God revealing [credere Deo], to believe God as the truth revealed [credere Deum], and to believe unto God [credere in Deum], inasmuch as we tend toward him as our last end.

IV. Question IV. Is the confidence by which one certainly believes that his sins have been forgiven him a theological faith necessary to salvation? Answer. The Protestants — Lutherans and Calvinists — affirm it; and their error the Council of Trent condemned, session 6, chapter 9. For theological faith is an assent given to the articles revealed by God, as has been said. But confidence in the divine mercy, by which each one applies to himself the divine promises of the remission of sins, is an act of hope, necessary for justification, but by no means effecting justification, as the Lutherans fable.

V. Question V. Are the things which the Church proposes to be believed as revealed by God evidently credible? Answer. It is one thing to be evidently true, another to be evidently credible. An evident truth offers itself of itself to the mind. That is called evidently credible which luminous and grave arguments propose as worthy that assent be given to it. The articles of faith are evidently credible, says the Royal Prophet, Psalm 92: Thy testimonies are become exceedingly credible. The arguments of this evident credibility are touched upon briefly.

VI. 1. The vaticinations of the Prophets. 2. The propagation of the faith through the whole world — not by the din of arms, not by abundance of riches, not by the enticements of eloquence, not by the allurements of pleasures, but by the unskillfulness, the poverty, and the humility of twelve fishermen. 3. The sanctity of the Christian religion. 4. The immense multitude of miracles. 5. The innumerable host of Martyrs. 6. The dignity of witnesses above all exception. These and other arguments of credibility, which I have explained in Tome I on the Decalogue, book I, dissertation I, chapter 5, Parish priests ought to expound to the people, that their obedience may be reasonable. For these arguments of credibility prepare the mind for a firmer assent of faith.

VII. Question VI. Must a pious affection of the will precede faith? Answer. It is affirmed. That faith may be prudent, he who believes must have arguments which prove that the things to which he must give his assent are worthy of belief. But because these arguments of credibility do not remove the obscurity of the thing to be believed, the intellect cannot assent to the object of faith unless it be aided by an internal movement of the will. For an obscure object cannot bend the mind. This defect of the object the pious affection of the will must supply.

VIII. Question VII. What men are apt for theological faith? Answer. Men who are wayfarers. Wherefore faith is found neither in the damned nor in the demons, since they are deprived of every supernatural gift. They believe indeed, and tremble; but with a natural faith, not a theological one. Nor is faith found in the blessed, because what they believed, they now see. But in the souls of Purgatory faith remains, because what they believe they do not yet see; just as hope also perseveres in them. Sinners who are not infidels retain the faith, though languid and, as it is called, dead. But in Heretics there is no faith: for while they deny one article, they reject the formal reason of believing — namely, the divine revelation proposed by the Church. They assert indeed that they believe on account of revelation; but this divine revelation is proposed by each of them singly, not by the Church.