Section — Koch–Preuss
Section 1: Nature and Necessity of Faith
A. the Theological Virtues
- NATURE OF FAITH.—Faith (fides divina) is a divinely infused virtue by which a man firmly believes whatever God has revealed and the Church proposes on His authority.
Faith, therefore, has a twofold object, the one material, the other formal. Its material object (obiectum materiale) are the truths revealed by God; its formal object (obiectum formale) or motive is God’s infinite veracity, which, perceived by the human intellect with moral certitude, produces a deep conviction of the divine authority and a satisfying realization of the content of Revelation.1
1 Cfr. Conc. Vatican., Sess. III, c. 3: “This faith, which is the beginning of human salvation, the Catholic Church professes to be a supernatural virtue, by which, with the grace of God inspiring and assisting, we believe to be true the things revealed by Him, not because of the intrinsic truth of the things perceived by the natural light of reason, but because of the authority of God Himself who reveals, who can neither be deceived nor deceive. . . . Moreover, all those things are to be believed with divine and Catholic faith which are contained in the word of God, written or handed down, and are proposed by the Church, whether by solemn judgment or by her ordinary and universal teaching authority, as divinely revealed and to be believed.”—Cfr. can. 2, De Fide: “If anyone shall say that divine faith is not distinguished from natural knowledge about God and moral matters and that, consequently, for divine faith it is not required that revealed truth be believed because of the authority of God who reveals, let him be anathema.”—Cfr. St. Augustine, De Spiritu et Litera, c. 31 sq. (Migne, P. L., XLIV, 235).—J. Nienhaus, De Actu Fidei Divinae, Münster 1891, pp. 26 sqq.—St. Lederer, Der Glaube als freie Heilserkenntnis, Rodalben 1891.
Faith is elicited conjointly by the intellect and the will, and therefore involves complete subjection of all man’s spiritual faculties to the authority of God. It is a free and therefore a moral act.2
2 Cfr. 2 Cor. X, 5; 1 John V, 9.—Conc. Vatic., Sess. III, c. 3: “We are bound to render by faith the full submission of intellect and will to God who reveals.”—Cfr. Sess. III, can. 5, De Fide.—Cfr. St. Augustine, Tract. in Ioannem, XXVI, n. 2: “Anyone can enter a church unwilling, can approach the altar unwilling, can receive the sacrament unwilling: he cannot believe unless willing.” (Migne, P. L., XXXV, 1607).—IDEM, De Praedest. Sanct., c. 2, n. 5: “To believe is nothing other than to think with assent.” (P. L., XLIV, 963).—Cfr. Saint Thomas, Summa Theol., 2a 2ae, qu. 2, art. 1.—G. Schmitt, Vernunft und Wille in ihrer Beziehung zum Glaubensakt, Augsburg 1903, pp. 51 sqq.—K. Ziesché, Verstand und Wille beim Glaubensakt, Paderborn 1909.—Chr. Pesch, S.J., Theologische Zeitfragen, 4th series, Freiburg 1908, pp. 12 sqq., 139 sqq.—F. Hettinger, Apologie des Christentums, Vol. III, 9th ed. (by E. Müller), pp. 3 sqq., 152 sqq.
Faith is opposed to sight (videre), to opinion (opinari), and to knowledge (intellegere). Sight is immediate vision; opinion is inclining to one side in preference to the other, but without certainty; knowledge is based upon perception. By faith we accept as certain the truths which God has revealed, though we have no knowledge of, and perhaps do not understand them.3 “What we know,” says St. Augustine, “we owe to reason; what we believe, we owe to authority; what we hold merely as a matter of opinion, we owe to error.”4
3 Cfr. Matt. XI, 25; XVI, 16 sq.; John VI, 70; XX, 29; 2 Cor. V, 7; Heb. XI, 1.
4 De Util. Credendi, c. 11, n. 25: “What we understand, we owe to reason; what we believe, to authority; what we opine, to error.” (Migne, P. L., XLII, 83).—V. Cathrein, S.J., Glauben und Wissen, Freiburg 1903.—Cat. Rom., P. I, c. 2, qu. 2: “The word ‘believing’ in this place does not signify thinking, supposing, or holding an opinion, but, as the sacred writings teach, it has the force of most certain assent, by which the mind firmly and steadfastly assents to God revealing His mysteries. Therefore, he believes—as pertains to the explanation of this passage—to whom something is certain and persuasive without any hesitation.”—J. P. Gury, S.J., Comp. Theol. Mor., Vol. I, Lyons and Paris 1850, n. 176: “Faith in general is assent because of the authority of the one speaking. More precisely for our purpose, faith, insofar as it is a virtue, is defined as a supernatural, infused habit inclining the intellect firmly to assent to truths revealed by God and proposed by the Church because of the authority of God who reveals. But insofar as it is an act, it is called the most firm assent given to things revealed by God because of the authority of God who reveals.”
The material object of faith consists partly of natural truths (such as the reality of sense perception and the objectivity of the outside world, the data of nature, historical facts, etc.) and partly of truths belonging to the supernatural order. Hence there is a distinction between natural or human faith (fides humana) on the one hand, and supernatural faith (fides divina) on the other.
By the formal object of faith we understand the motive or reason that induces a man to believe. This motive is authority.
Authority is either natural or supernatural. Natural authority may be external or internal. External authority consists in the testimony of others, and the belief it produces is known as fides historica.
Internal authority is based on reasons or arguments existing in the mind of the believer, and the faith produced by it is called philosophical (fides philosophica).
Theological faith (fides theologica), in the strict sense, rests upon supernatural or divine authority.
It follows that fides divina and fides theologica are not synonymous terms. The former has reference to the substance, the latter to the form. Theological faith is always fides divina, because whatever God reveals is supernatural in substance, referring to Himself, or to His relation towards men, or to their relation towards him.5 But fides divina is not necessarily always fides theologica because there is a kind of religious faith that is based solely on reason.
5 Cfr. St. Thomas, Summa Theol., 2a 2ae, qu. 1, art. 1: “If we consider materially the things to which faith assents, there is not only God Himself but also many other things; these, however, do not fall under the assent of faith except insofar as they have some relation to God, namely, insofar as through certain effects of the divinity man is aided in tending toward the enjoyment of God.”
To believe is not to take something for granted blindly, but to accept it as true on the authority of another. A child believes his parents, i. e., accepts as true what they say, because he is convinced that they know the truth and wish to communicate it to him. Similarly, to believe God means to accept as true what He has revealed because He knows the truth and is incapable of deception.
In order to be able to believe rationally, therefore, man must first be certain that God has spoken, and, by implication, that there is a God, who is infinitely wise and truthful.7
7 Cfr. Prop. Damnat. sub Innoc. XI, n. 21 (Denzinger’s Enchiridion Symbolorum, Definitionum et Declarationum de Rebus Fidei et Morum, 11th ed., by Cl. Bannwart, S.J., Freiburg 1908, n. 1171): “A supernatural assent of faith useful for salvation is compatible with merely probable knowledge of revelation, indeed with fear by which one fears that God may not have spoken.” (Denzinger-Bannwart, n. 1038).
Dr. Schell justly expressed surprise at the conduct of those who seek to spread the notion that the religious world-view of savants and scientists is founded upon positive knowledge rather than faith, whereas ordinary Christians and theologians depend upon authority and more or less arbitrarily construed systems. Surely no one believes that the followers of Kant, Hegel, Comte, James, etc., have accepted the systems of their respective masters as the result of independent study and research. Authority is authority, whether it be acknowledged or not, whether it be surrounded by the aureole of sainthood or the glamor of worldly renown, whether it be exercised by a prophet or a philosopher, by a pagan or an Apostle. How few even among the highly educated would have any elaborate world-view of their own if it could be obtained only by personal effort and had to be based entirely on internal reasons, to the exclusion of authority!8
8 H. Schell, Die göttliche Wahrheit des Christentums, Vol. I, Paderborn 1895, Preface, p. xii; IDEM, Apologie des Christentums, Vol. I, 2nd ed., Paderborn 1902, pp. 214 sqq.
- NECESSITY OF FAITH.—Faith is absolutely necessary to salvation. This necessity is based upon two grounds: first, the positive law of God, and, secondly, the part this virtue plays in the process of justification.
The teaching of Scripture on this point is unmistakable. Mark XVI, 16: “He that believeth not shall be condemned.” John III, 18: “He that doth not believe is already judged.” Heb. XI, 6: “Without faith it is impossible to please God.” 1 John III, 23: “And this is his commandment, that we should believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ.”
Faith is the first, and an absolutely necessary, requirement for every adult man who wishes to enter into vital relationship with God and the divinely appointed order of salvation. In the words of the Tridentine Council, faith is “the beginning of human salvation, the foundation and the root of all justification, without which it is impossible to please God;” in fine, it is the basis of the whole supernatural life, the beginning and the foundation of all man’s duties to God, of every act of divine worship, internal as well as external.9
9 Cfr. Conc. Trident., Sess. VI, c. 8 (cfr. also c. 6).—Pohle-Preuss, Grace, Actual and Habitual, 4th ed., St. Louis 1921, pp. 97, 392.
It follows as a necessary corollary that formal unbelief entails the loss of salvation and, therefore, if persisted in, spells eternal damnation.
The value and importance of religious faith may be deduced from the two scriptural truths that faith will gain “the victory which overcometh the world”10 and that “the end of faith is the salvation of souls.”11
10 1 John V, 4; cfr. Eph. VI, 16.
11 1 Pet. I, 9; Prov. XVII, 6 (Sept.): “The whole world of possessions belongs to the believer, but not even an obol belongs to the unbeliever.”—St. Jerome, Epist., LIII (al. CIII), n. 10: “For the believer the whole world is riches. But the unbeliever lacks even an obol.” (Migne, P. L., XXII, 549).
It is not by knowledge but by faith that man is saved. Without underrating the claims of science and philosophy we may say that neither can accomplish what faith has accomplished for the civilization of mankind, and that neither will ever be able to supplant religious belief. It is as true to-day as it was at the time of Clement of Alexandria, that “the wisdom of Christians is to believe in Christ.”12
12 Stromata, II, c. 2; cfr. II, c. 4: “Faith is more sovereign than knowledge and is its criterion.” (Migne, P. G., VIII, 948 A).
The paramount importance of religious faith may easily cause us to overlook the extent to which we live by faith even in worldly matters and the narrowness of the limits that surround the intellectual possessions we have acquired by study, research, and investigation. The historian has faith in his sources; the judge accepts the statements of witnesses; the ruler trusts his officials and advisers; the physician is helpless unless he has the confidence of his patient. The simplest acts of every-day life become difficult, if not impossible, when doubt has sapped faith. Who could prove to me that the waiter who brings me my breakfast is not intent on poisoning me, that the barber who applies his razor to my throat is not a bloodthirsty anarchist, that the engineer of the train on which I travel is not a dangerous lunatic?13
13 Cfr. J. Mausbach, Einige Kernfragen christlicher Welt- und Lebensanschauung, 7th ed., p. 17.
READINGS.—Peter Lombard, Sent., I, dist. 23–25 (Migne, P. L., CXXII, 805).—St. Bonaventure, Comment. in Sent., III, dist. 23 sqq. (Opera Omnia, III, 469).—St. Thomas, Summa Theol., 2a 2ae, qu. 1 sqq.—F. Suarez, De Fide Theol., disp. 1 sqq. (Opera Omnia, XII, 8 sqq., 334 sqq.).—Chr. Pesch, S.J., Praelectiones Dogmat., Vol. VIII, 2nd ed., pp. 49 sqq.—S. Schiffini, S.J., Tract. de Virtutibus Infusis, pp. 17 sqq.—H. Noldin, S.J., Summa Theol. Moralis, Vol. II, 11th ed., pp. 4 sqq.—Ad. Tanquerey, Synopsis Theol. Mor., Vol. II, Paris 1905, pp. 346 sqq., 354 sqq.—G. Lahousse, Tract. de Virtutibus Theologicis, Bruges 1900.—Pohle-Preuss, Grace, Actual and Habitual, 4th ed., St. Louis 1921, pp. 100 sqq., 274 sqq.—J. Kirschkamp, Der Geist des Katholizismus in der Lehre vom Glauben und von der Liebe, Paderborn 1895.—V. McNabb, O.P., Oxford Conferences on Faith, London 1905.—H. Pope, O.P., art. “Faith” in the Cath. Encyclopedia, Vol. V, pp. 755 sqq. (with an extensive bibliography).—G. H. Joyce, S.J., The Catholic Doctrine of Grace, London and New York 1920, pp. 71 sqq.—C. Martin, De Necessitate Credendi, Paderborn 1906.—P. P. McKenna, O.P., The Theology of Faith, Dublin 1914.