Question One: On the Essence of the Act of Faith

St. Thomas, II-II, q. 2, a. 1; De Verit., q. 14, a. 1.

689. What it is to believe. - To believe, says St. Augustine, De Praed. SS., c. 2, is to think with assent. He is properly said to think who inquires by the intellect, not having full evidence of the truth; but assent is firm adherence of the intellect. Therefore he who believes assents, that is, he firmly adheres to a thing as true, not however having evidence of it. But since the intellect of itself is not determined except by evidence, it follows that when it believes, it is determined by the will. Therefore to believe is an act elicited by the intellect, commanded by the will. Hence:

1. In the broadest sense we are said to believe those things concerning which we have only practical certitude, which excludes not every doubt but only prudent doubt, that is, a conviction which suffices for acting prudently, although we do not have perfect evidence, just as many admit the existence of God on account of reasons not altogether evident to them.¹

¹ We are improperly said to believe those things concerning which we have only probability: then properly we do not believe, but rather are inclined to believing.

2. More properly we believe those things which are not evident to us, but which we admit on account of the testimony of men, even when they are not worthy of faith; and therefore not on account of the testimony alone, for then we would admit everything which they say, but on account of the evidence of the testimony (evidence in the attester, the Scholastics say), because it is established for us that this testimony of theirs is in fact true. Such is historical certitude many times.

3. Most properly we believe those things which are not evident to us, but which we admit without doubting uniquely on account of the testimony or authority of another, that is, because he is worthy of faith and merits that we trust him (evidence of credibility), even if the testimony does not appear to be true. Thus a child believes his mother and the unlearned man the learned man. This is faith properly so called, because through it, in the proper sense, we trust another, and because for it it is especially required that the intellect be determined by the will; hence no one believes unless willing. Concerning this faith it is true to say that it honors the one testifying: for we could not believe unless we recognized the excellence of him whom we believe.

690. What it is to believe God. - According to the aforesaid explanation, to believe God is to admit the things which God has said, precisely because He has authority, that is, the dignity and right that we acquiesce in Him speaking. It is therefore a firm assent of the mind to truths revealed by God on account of the authority of God Himself revealing. We have already proved that this is the true notion of the act of faith, where we treated of the formal object; hence it is defined by St. Thomas, q. 2, a. 9: "The act of the intellect assenting to divine truth from the command of the will moved by God through grace."

691. Opposed errors. - To the aforesaid definition is opposed:

1. The error of the Rationalists, Semirationalists, and Modernists, who do not hold faith except:

a) as rational science or philosophical knowledge of God (Gunther); - or also

b) as a simple rational persuasion of religious truths or concerning divine things (Abaelard, Wegscheider, Hermes), or as any rational knowledge concerning God and divine things (Deists); - or

c) as an intimate blind religious instinct of the soul (that is, of suprasensible truths), for example, from the Holy Spirit, supported by imagination and the senses, not by a rational motive (Pietists, Jacobi and the Sentimentalists, Fideism, Pseudomystics and Methodists); - or

d) as a mere spiritual religious instinct of dependency, vividly perceived, which coheres with rational nature (Schleiermacher), or as a natural religious sense, whose motive is the conformity of religious truths with our aspirations and higher exigencies (Ritschl, Sabatier, liberal Protestants); - or

e) as the sole exigency and irrefragable postulate of practical reason, as the common inclination of human nature (Reid, the Scottish school), the approbation of religious truths on account of the practical truth of the moral life (Kant, Harnack) or on account of the inclination of the whole man (Renouvier); - or

f) as religious consciousness and a religious sense concerning divine things, arisen from the need of the divine (Modernists).

In one word, there is opposed: purely rational faith (a and b), affective faith (c and d), moral faith (e), affective-moral faith (f). Cf. Vatican Council, sess. 3, c. 2 and 3; and prop. 23 condemned by Innocent XI: "Faith broadly so called, from the testimony of creatures or from a similar motive, suffices for justification."

2. Likewise the doctrine of the Protestants who are called orthodox. They distinguish a) the faith of miracles, or great confidence in God which obtains miracles (I Cor. XIII, 2), b) the faith of dogmas, or historical faith in the narratives of the Gospel, and c) the faith of promises: this they falsely contend to be a confidence of special mercy, and to be justifying faith (cf. treatise on grace), but that they maintain to be a simple notice and apprehension of revealed things, not truly an assent or firm judgment by which we hold them as true, contradicting the Apostle who says that faith is conviction of things not appearing. Hence Councils declare that by faith we are believers in true things: thus Trent, sess. 6, c. 6 and 9, or that by it we believe things to be true: thus Vatican Council, sess. 3, c. 3.