Question — Noldin, Summa of Moral Theology
Question First. On the Nature of Faith
3. Notions. 1. To believe signifies to give assent to some thing on account of the testimony or authority of another.
a. Faith differs from opinion, because it holds a thing as true certainly and without fear of erring; it differs from knowledge, because it holds a thing as true not from internal reasons, but on account of the authority of a witness. What we know, we owe to reason; what we believe, to authority.2
b. To an act of faith considered in general, the intellect is for the most part moved by the will; but that faith may be rational, the intellect ought beforehand to know that the witness deserves belief, because it understands that the witness can neither be deceived in knowing nor deceive in testifying.
- The theological virtue of faith can be considered insofar as it is a habit and insofar as it is an act. Habitual faith is permanent and is already had in baptized infants; actual faith is transient and is had in him who elicits an act of faith.
a. Theological faith as a virtue is defined: an infused supernatural habit by which man is disposed to assent firmly to truths revealed by God on account of the authority of God Himself revealing.
a. The first words of the definition present the mark which faith has in common with the remaining theological virtues; the words, "to assent firmly," etc., present that which is proper to faith and by which it is distinguished from the remaining theological virtues, namely its material and formal object.
b. The subject of faith, or the power in which the habit of faith inheres, is the intellect: for a habit resides in the same power from which the act is elicited; but the act of faith is elicited by the intellect, which is furnished with the habit for eliciting that very act. Yet because the will also concurs in eliciting the act of faith, namely by commanding the assent, there is also in the will a habit disposing it to elicit the pious affection of believing.
c. The habit of faith is lost only through the sin of infidelity or through the sin of heresy, which is directly opposed to faith: for by an act by which man withdraws from the motive of faith, the habit itself of faith is destroyed. Therefore if someone culpably omits to elicit an act of faith, or if someone only externally denies the faith, he indeed sins gravely against faith, yet he does not lose the habit of faith, because he does not withdraw from the motive of faith.
b. The habit of faith is customarily called the light of faith: for as the intellect by which we know the truths of the natural order is called the natural light, so the power by which we embrace revealed truths is called the supernatural light.
b. Theological faith as an act is defined: the firm assent by which we embrace truths revealed by God on account of the authority of God Himself revealing.
1 St. Thomas, II-II, qq. 1-16. St. Alphonsus, bk. 2, nn. 1-19. Laymann, Theologia moralis, bk. 2, tract. 1. John de Lugo, Disputationes scholasticae de virtute fidei divinae, disp. 3, nn. 2-20. Francis Suarez, De fide, disp. 1-8; 12-24. Lacroix, Theologia moralis, bk. 2, nn. 1-115. John Reuter, Theologia moralis, II, nn. 1-39. Sporer-Bierbaum, Theologia moralis decalogalis, Paderborn: Typographia Bonifaciana, 1901, I, tr. 2, nn. 1-92. August Lehmkuhl, Theologia moralis, Freiburg: Herder, 1902, I, nn. 269-404. Ballerini-Palmieri, Opus theologicum morale, Prato: Giachetti, 1899, II, nn. 1-108. Fr. Ad. Goepfert, Moraltheologie, Paderborn: Schoeningh, 1905, I, nn. 264-282. E. Genicot, Theologiae moralis institutiones, Louvain: Polleunis and Ceuterick, 1905.
2 St. Augustine, De utilitate credendi, n. 25.
4. Object of faith. a. The material object of theological faith is the word of God: namely, all truths revealed by God constitute it. The primary material object is distinguished, which is God Himself and His perfections; and the secondary material object, which is constituted by other truths distinct from God, which nevertheless have all been revealed in order to God, namely that God and His perfections may be known better, and that man may be able to arrive at God, his eternal beatitude.
b. The formal object of theological faith is constituted by the authority of God revealing, who, since He is first truth, can neither be deceived in knowing nor deceive in speaking. Therefore theological faith rests on first truth, or on two divine perfections: on the supreme wisdom of God, or infallibility in knowing, and on the supreme veracity of God in speaking.
From the formal motive it is clear that faith ought to be universal, that is, that it should extend itself to all revealed truths: for he who denies even one article of faith, by that very fact implicitly denies all, because he denies the formal object of faith, the authority of God revealing, on which all the remaining articles rest.
5. Genesis or analysis of faith. In order that an act of faith may be elicited, reason must first know several truths, which cognitions therefore are called by theologians the preambles of faith.
First, it ought to know that God has spoken, or that God has given revelation: for unless it is established that a truth has in reality been revealed by God, we neither can nor ought to believe it with divine faith. Those arguments by which the fact of revelation is demonstrated are called motives of credibility, because they render revelation, that is, the Christian religion, credible. Now these arguments, miracles, prophecies, the wondrous preservation and propagation of the Church, the constancy of martyrs, etc., are indeed not evident, yet they are of such a kind that anyone from them can know the fact of revelation certainly, or without prudent fear of erring.
Next, it ought to know that God is supremely wise and supremely truthful, so that He can neither Himself be deceived nor deceive others: for faith by its nature rests upon the authority of God revealing, known with certainty; but authority derives all its force from the knowledge and truthfulness of the witness.
From this twofold cognition there arises the judgment: truths revealed by God are credible, that is, they can be believed rationally and prudently, which judgment is called the judgment concerning the credibility of revelation; indeed there arises the judgment: truths revealed by God must be believed, that is, they must be believed absolutely, which judgment is called the judgment concerning the credendity of revelation. Certainly, where it is certain that God, supremely wise and truthful, has spoken, man understands the most grave obligation of believing: for man is bound to believe God demanding faith; but by the very fact of revelation God demands faith. Each of these judgments, concerning the credibility and the credendity of revelation, is altogether evident.
Therefore this twofold cognition precedes the act of faith: namely, the cognition of divine authority, that what God reveals is true and must be believed, and the cognition of the fact of revelation, but God has revealed the Christian religion. Yet once these things have been known beforehand, the assent of the mind does not yet immediately follow, therefore the Christian religion is true and must be believed. For since one of the prerequisite cognitions, namely the fact of revelation, is not evident, the mind is not determined by arguments of reason to giving assent to revealed truth, but must be moved and determined by command of the will to giving the assent of faith. Now with this cognition shining beforehand, namely that the will can and ought to command assent, the will itself by a positive act commands the assent of faith to the intellect; this act of the will the Second Synod of Orange calls the affection of credulity. From this command of the will the act or assent of faith finally follows.
The assent of faith is free and therefore, the suppositions being supposed, meritorious. But the liberty of faith consists in this, that the assent of faith depends on the free will: for the will itself, with the goodness of that same assent shining beforehand, freely determines itself to command it.
Since theological faith, which by the Council of Trent is called the beginning, foundation, and root of all justification,1 must be a supernatural act, it is elicited not by the powers of nature, but of grace. Therefore the judgment of the intellect by which we know the fact of revelation, the authority of God revealing, and the obligation of believing, proceeds from supernatural illumination; the will through the inspiration of grace conceives the pious affection of credulity; and finally the intellect through the powers of grace assents to revealed truth.
a. Once the nature of faith has been explained, it is now easily understood that by acts of faith we believe God (credere Deo), because by reason of the formal object we believe God revealing; that we believe God (credere Deum), because by reason of the material object we believe God and whatever things have been revealed concerning God; and finally that we believe in God (credere in Deum), because through faith we tend into God, our end.2
b. Although true faith requires from man the sacrifice of the intellect, insofar as he is bound to embrace truths whose internal reason he does not understand, and insofar therefore as he must bring his intellect into captivity unto the obedience of faith, nevertheless true faith is and must be a rational service, insofar as it does not believe and cannot believe unless by the light of reason it knows that all those things which it embraces by faith are absolutely true from divine authority.
2 Cf. St. Thomas, II-II, q. 2, a. 2.
6. Division of faith. 1. Into habitual faith, which is the habit or virtue of faith described above; and into actual faith, which is the act or assent of faith likewise defined above.
- Habitual faith is one thing when formed by charity, or living, and another when unformed, or dead, according as it is joined with the habit of charity as in a just man, or is deprived of it as in a sinful man.
Unformed faith is not therefore called dead because it cannot and ought not exercise itself by acts of faith, and those supernatural acts: for it is a true virtue and true faith;1 but it is called dead because the faithful man not yet justified lacks true supernatural life, which is had only where meritorious acts of eternal life can be exercised.
Actual faith is divided into internal faith, which is the assent of faith conceived in the mind; and external faith, which is the external profession of internal faith by words, actions, or other signs.
Actual faith is further divided into faith simply divine, by which that is believed which indeed has been revealed by God, but has not also been proposed by the Church to be believed; and into Catholic faith, by which is believed whatever is revealed by God and proposed by the Church to be believed.
a. By the will of Christ the Church has been constituted the means and organ by which revealed truths to be believed are proposed to the faithful; from this it is clear that by Catholic faith only public revelation can be believed, which by the authority of the Church is proposed to all to be believed, but by divine faith even a private revelation can be believed, which is granted to one man alone.
b. Therefore faith is also secondarily founded on the authority of the Church as on an infallible and necessary means by which we know the things which God has revealed. Therefore he who believes an article of faith acknowledges not only the authority of God revealing, but also the infallible authority of the Church; and he who denies an article of faith contemns not only the authority of God revealing, but also the authority of the Church infallibly proposing revealed truths.
c. Hence it is rightly said that theological faith is immediately resolved into the authority of the Church as into the means infallibly proposing truths revealed by God, and is ultimately resolved into the wisdom and veracity of God as into the motive of faith.
- Actual faith is divided objectively into explicit faith, by which something is believed in itself, whether this happens with the terms known only confusedly or distinctly; and implicit faith, by which something is believed not in itself, but in another in which it is in some way contained.
Now that which is believed can be contained in another in two ways: a. in the truth which is believed, if this truth is general, in which other truths are contained; thus he who explicitly believes all things which God has revealed implicitly believes the Most Holy Trinity, and he who explicitly believes that God is the creator of all things implicitly believes that He is the creator of men; b. in the motive on account of which it is believed, which is the authority of God revealing: for he who explicitly believes some determinate article of faith because God has revealed it, by that very fact implicitly believes all other revealed truths, because their faith rests on the same motive.
- Finally, actual faith is divided subjectively into formal and virtual, or exercised, faith: the former is faith which is expressly elicited in some truth on account of the authority of God revealing, as if someone believes that God is triune in persons because God, supremely wise and truthful, has revealed it; the latter is faith in some truth which is presupposed by the act of some virtue and accompanies it by its own influence. Thus faith in the Most Holy Trinity accompanies by its influence the act of one forming the sign of the cross and is presupposed by it.
The difference between formal and virtual faith consists in this, that he who elicits formal faith explicitly attends to the motive of faith, while he who elicits virtual faith does not expressly attend to the authority of God revealing nor think reflectively about it. Virtual and exercised faith supposes actual and express cognition of the motive of faith, which cognition, remaining habitually in the soul, flows by its power into the action by which faith is exercised. Thus he has virtual and exercised faith who bends his knees before the Most Holy Sacrament, or receives the sacrament of penance, even if he does not think reflectively about the revelation of God, just as the farmer has virtual and exercised hope of the harvest who scatters seeds from hope of the harvest, even if he does not think reflectively about the harvest.