Question One: On the Formal Object of Faith

667. Thesis. The formal object of faith is the authority of God revealing, or first truth in speaking. - The formal object of faith is that on account of which that which is believed is believed. But this, as the Vatican Council defines, sess. 3, c. 3, can. 3, is the authority of God revealing, who can neither be deceived nor deceive; indeed authority not in commanding but in affirming and testifying, or the truth of God in speaking, and indeed the truth of God as revealing. These words indicate two things:

That God, when He speaks, from infinite perfection says nothing except the true, and therefore has the right that we believe Him; whence the formal object of faith is said to be first truth in speaking.

But it is not sufficient that God, when He speaks, says the true; for faith it is also required that He in fact has spoken; whence the formal object of faith is said to be the authority of God as revealing, or first truth revealing. For if we ask someone why he believes, he will answer: because God has said it (behold the second); and he believes that God has said it because God in speaking is true (behold the first). - But:

For the authority of God by which He is true in speaking, it is not sufficient that God be infinitely truthful, that is, that He cannot from malice deceive anyone, but it is also required that He be infinitely wise, that is, that He cannot be deceived in knowing from ignorance. Therefore theologians say that the formal object of faith is first truth in speaking, insofar as it supposes first truth in knowing. Nevertheless the immediate and ultimate motive of faith is only first truth revealing.

668. That the authority of God revealing is the formal object of faith is proved:

By reason: by divine faith we believe God in the same way as by human faith we believe man. But by human faith we believe on account of the authority of man in testifying: for if we ask someone, why do you believe this, he will answer: because Peter said it; and if we ask, why do you believe what Peter said, he will answer: because Peter is true in speaking.

From the mode of speaking of Sacred Scripture: a) faith is said to be from hearing the word of God (Rom. X, 14; Jer. VII, 28), and the faithful are said to receive faith as the word or testimony of God (I Thess. II, 13); - b) by faith we believe God (Gen. XV, 6): to believe is to receive the testimony of God, just as to believe men is to receive the testimony of men (I John V, 5-13); and indeed divine faith is compared with the faith which is given to witnesses in court (John V, 36; VIII, 17); - c) the prophets of the Old Testament, when they require faith, appeal to the authority of God ("Thus says the Lord"), indeed Christ Himself explicitly appeals to His truth and veracity (John VII, 16, 28; VIII, 26); whence by believing we signify that God is truthful (John III, 33). By all these things it is established that we believe God in the same way as we believe men, and that faith is founded on the testimony and authority of God speaking. - And therefore d) faith is called obedience and captivity of the intellect unto the obedience of Christ (II Cor. X, 5): for when man by faith admits, not what he himself sees, but what Christ sees, because he voluntarily trusts Christ, therefore through the will the intellect is held captive by the intellect of Christ, subjects itself to Him, and honors Him.

From Tradition: the Fathers from the beginning teach the same clearly and openly: Athenagoras, Leg. pro christianis, n. 7; St. Theophilus of Antioch, ad Autolyc. I, 8; Clement of Alexandria, Strom. II, c. 2, n. 8; St. Chrysostom, on Matt. hom. I, n. 82; hom. 36 on Gen. 15, n. 6; Theodoret, Graec. affect., serm. 1; St. Cyprian, de Mortalitate, n. 6; St. Ambrose, on Luke IV, 71; St. Augustine, ep. 47, n. 7; de Spiritu et Littera, XXXII, n. 5; St. Leo the Great, serm. 27, c. 1.

The arguments adduced prove that faith is equally founded on revelation or testimony and on the truth of God, and therefore that not only the truth of God in speaking is the formal object of faith, but also that revelation pertains to it, or is a motive positively influencing faith, and is not a pure condition without which it would not exist, which applies the motive, as Scotus taught. And indeed:

a) That which formally constitutes God as witness and which renders the authority of God formally moving pertains to the motive of faith. But active revelation formally constitutes God as witness and renders His authority formally moving, for authority not speaking is not moving the hearer. Therefore the formal motive of faith is first truth as actually testifying; otherwise it would move in first act, not in second act.

b) For a partial motive is that by which reason sees the connection between the authority of God and the truth to be believed, just as the nexus of a conclusion with a principle moves to the assent of science; but this connection in the case is the fact of revelation. Therefore revelation is a partial motive.

c) The adequate formal object is that which infallibly shows the revealed truth. Neither the authority of God alone nor revelation alone shows this. Therefore the adequate formal object is each together. Namely, we do not believe only because God is truthful, nor only because God has revealed, but on account of each.¹

¹ Thus St. Thomas I, q. 1, a. 8, ad 2; II-II, q. 1, a. 1; q. 5, a. 5; De Ver., q. 14, a. 8; Cajetan, John of St. Thomas, the Salamancans, and generally Thomists; also Billot and Pesch.

669. Faith is a theological or purely divine virtue, which consequently has God alone as formal object: for by habitual grace and the theological virtues we participate in the life and operations proper to God Himself, which have only God as object. Whence the single motive of faith is only the truth of God revealing, nor can anything created enter into its formal object, just as must also be said concerning the other theological virtues. Hence the following are not to be heard:

Those who with De Lugo think that the formal object of faith partially is the proposition of the Church, saying that we believe because God has revealed, and this because the Church says it. For the proposition made by the Church is not the cause or motive why we believe, but only the ordinary means by which we know what has been revealed by God;² and once this is known, we adhere to the revealed things on account of the authority of God alone. Thus when a teacher says: this is the sentence of Scripture or of St. Thomas, you believe the sentence not on account of the authority of the teacher, but on account of the authority of Scripture or of St. Thomas.

² The proposition of the Church does not formally influence the act of believing; but it furnishes the means of knowing which things have been revealed, both because it is connatural to man that he be taught by another, and because thus it is done more easily and expeditiously, and because the means is safe and efficacious, since it is not subject to failure.

Thus also the things contained in the letter of a king are not believed on account of the authority of the messenger.

Nor are those to be heard who, like Mazzella, teach that extrinsic revelation enters into the formal object of faith, because for faith it is required that in fact God has spoken, as was said in n. 667. For God's speech can be considered either actively, as in God Himself it is the conception of the truth which He orders and directs to us, and the will and command of revealing it, and thus it is nothing except God Himself and pertains to the motive of faith; or it can be considered passively, as the manifestation and sign of this conception and will in creatures (external voice, imaginary vision, or intelligible species infused into us), and this is not the formal object of faith but only a condition without which it would not exist: for because we are not able to inspect the speech of God, that is, His intellect and will, therefore we need signs external to God for knowing it; nevertheless these signs are not the cause or motive why we believe, but a condition without which faith is not possible.

Thus a letter by which someone testifies is not the motive of believing, but the condition of knowing his judgment and internal testimony of his intellect.

670. Corollary. - From this it appears that the opinions of older theologians are false, according to whom:

Cajetan placed the formal object of faith in the divine essence or in the truth of God in being, and William of Paris in the supreme dominion of God: these are the ultimate ontological reason of the motive itself of faith, but not the proximate motive which moves to assent, or on which the assent of our intellect rests;

Banez and Sylvester Maurus placed it at least partially in the light of faith, whether habitual or actual: grace causes by way of efficient cause, but is not the motive of believing;

Ripalda, for revealed promises, placed it in the fidelity of God: but this pertains to the motive of hope.