Article — Marc, Institutiones Morales
Article I: On Infidelity
- DEFINITION. Infidelity properly so called is lack of faith in a man not baptized. For those are called infidels who have not yet received the infused habit of faith.
DIVISION. A threefold infidelity is distinguished: negative, of those who have heard nothing about the faith; privative, of those who from vincible ignorance do not know the truths of faith; positive or contrary, of those who resist faith sufficiently proposed, or contemn it (Instr., IV, 4).
- PRINCIPLES. I. Negative infidelity is not a sin. The reason is that it is not voluntary; and therefore this 68th proposition of Baius was deservedly condemned: "Purely negative infidelity in those to whom Christ has not been preached is a sin." Cf. n. 425.
II. Privative infidelity is a grave sin. For it proceeds from ignorance which is vincible, and therefore gravely culpable.
III. Positive infidelity is a most grave sin; because it contains grave injury and contempt of divine authority. Whence, he who has not believed shall be condemned (Mark 16:16).
The principal SPECIES of positive infidelity are: paganism, Judaism, Mohammedanism, and other sects of unbelievers. To these are numbered atheism, pantheism, deism; finally rationalism, from which is born either incredulity, which rejects all religions as fictions, or indifferentism, which estimates all religions as equal. Yet these, in a baptized man, are rather referred to apostasy and heresy (cf. n. 438).
- IT IS ASKED. Whether unbelievers can be compelled to receiving faith?
Resp. They cannot be compelled directly, both because the Church has no power over the non-baptized, and because the reception of faith, so that it may be true, ought to be voluntary. This is confirmed by canonical right and by the practice of the Church itself, which has never used coercion, but persuasion (l. V Decr., tit. 6 and c. 3).
We said directly: "for the Church, and any supreme prince, can indeed compel Jews and pagan subjects to hearing our faith" (II, 19). The prince can also prohibit idolatry, since this is repugnant to the natural law; and thus, the Church applauding, Constantine and Theodosius proscribed such impiety. Likewise, he can prohibit, even by arms, that faith be impeded. "And for this reason," says St. Thomas (2.2, q. 10, a. 8), "the Christian faithful have frequently waged wars by right against unbelievers."