Article I: On Faith Considered in Order to the Subject

St. Thomas, II-II, q. 4, a. 1-5; q. 6, a. 2; De Verit., q. 14, a. 4-7.

716. The habit of faith 1. is in the intellect as in its subject, because its act, which is to believe or to adhere to revealed truths, is an act of the intellect, whose object is the true (n. 693).

2. But that act is commanded by the will (n. 692 and 696): but since several powers concur for producing an act, the act will not be perfect unless all those powers are perfectly disposed through some habit. Hence faith will not be perfect unless the will also is well disposed by a certain habit for commanding faith (a. 2).

3. Nevertheless from this principle it cannot be concluded that there exists in the will a certain special habit which disposes us to nothing else except to commanding faith.

4. But it must be said, conformably to the principles of St. Thomas, that the habit by which man is perfectly disposed for commanding faith, and indeed on account of the ultimate end, is charity, which orders man to the ultimate end and therefore is naturally apt to command the acts of all virtues.

717. Corollaries concerning formed and unformed faith. - From the aforesaid doctrine the following conclusions are easily deduced:

1. Charity gives faith its ultimate perfection, namely, tendency to the ultimate end.

2. Hence charity is called the form (extrinsic, directive, and accidental) of faith (a. 3), and faith which is united to charity is formed or perfect and living faith, while that which is without charity is called unformed and imperfect or dead.

3. Unformed faith does not differ according to essence from formed faith, but, remaining the same in number, with charity acceding, it becomes formed; whence they do not differ according to species, but as perfect and imperfect in the same species (a. 5, ad 3).

4. Although faith is not a merely intellectual virtue but is in the intellect insofar as it is moved by the will, and therefore also inclines to living honorably; nevertheless in the supernatural order it is not a virtue simply so called and according to the perfect account or in the perfect state, which can produce an altogether perfect act, unless it is united to charity, by which the will is perfectly disposed so that it may tend to the good. Because thus it happens, as St. Thomas says, q. 4, a. 5, "that the intellect is always borne into the true,... and that the will is infallibly ordered to a good end." For when two powers concur for one operation, this operation will not be perfect unless each power is perfectly disposed.

5. Unformed faith, because it is a supernatural habit, is caused by God according to its essence, whence it is rightly called the gift of God (Council of Trent, sess. 6, c. 7 and 15, can. 28; Vatican Council, sess. 3, c. 3, can. 5); nevertheless God is not the cause that it is unformed, or that it is without charity (q. 6, a. 2).

718. Faith is in the speculative intellect, because it is directly occupied with the true and not with operable things. But since the object of faith, first truth, is also the ultimate end on account of which we act, hence faith also extends itself to operations insofar as in them we are directed by revealed truths or eternal and divine reasons. Hence faith is secondarily practical (a. 2, ad 3).