Chapter III. Sins against Faith

THE chief sins against faith are infidelity, heresy, and apostasy.

All who have sufficient knowledge of the Gospel are bound to embrace and believe it: “‘ He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be condemned.¹ A grave sin, then, is committed by one who rejects the faith when it has been sufficiently made known to him with adequate grounds for believing, and this grave sin is called infidelity. This positive infidelity is distinguished from privative and negative infidelity. One who has the opportunity of knowing the faith, and recognizes the obligation of making inquiries about it, but neglects to do so, commits the sin of privative infidelity. This is also a grave sin if the degree of negligence be grave. One who has no opportunity of learning the faith, or who does not advert to the obligation of making inquiries, is in negative infidelity. This is not sinful, but St Thomas² teaches that it is the penalty of sin, inasmuch as if a man were faithful to the light that he has in natural reason, God would take care that he should have an opportunity of knowing the faith even if it were necessary to send him a special messenger, or an angel from heaven, to make the Gospel known to him. If, then, the Gospel is not preached to every man, not God but men are to be blamed for it.

¹ Mark xvi 16.

² De Verit., q. 14, a. 11, ad I.

Heresy is the rejection by one who has embraced the faith of some portion of revealed truth which is proposed by the Church for our belief. If the rejection is voluntary and accompanied with full knowledge that what is rejected is proposed by the Church as an article of faith, the heresy is formal. Otherwise it will only be material.

It is not heresy, though sinful, to reject what is known to have been revealed by God in a private revelation; private revelations are not proposed by the Church for our belief. Nor is it heresy, but disobedience, to reject what is proposed by the infallible authority of the Church for our acceptance, but which forms no part of divine revelation. One who 1 Mark xvi r. denied that a canonized saint is in heaven would not be a heretic, but he would be disobedient to the Church, who assures us with divine authority that he is in heaven, and bids us honour him as a saint. Formal heresy is committed not only by knowingly and wilfully rejecting a revealed truth which is proposed for our belief by the Church, but by wilfully doubting about such a revealed truth. For such a one positively doubts whether a portion of God’s revelation is true, and thereby injures him as much as if he asserted that it was untrue. Similarly one who would not submit to the Church’s decision, even if she defined some doctrine to be of faith, is a formal heretic. Negative doubt, by which assent to a revealed truth is withheld or suspended, and voluntary ignorance of the true Church or of other necessary truths of faith, are sinful, but they do not constitute formal heresy. Great numbers of baptized Christians who were born of schismatical and heretical parents, and who do not know the true Church, are material, not formal heretics. When they begin to doubt about their position, and advert to the obligation they are under of making inquiries, they sin against the faith, more or less grievously according to their negligence, if they remain as they are. They do not become formal heretics until the truth fully dawns upon them, or they are so disposed that they would not submit to the Church even if they knew that she alone is the true Church of Christ.

Heresy is punished by the Church as a crime which attacks the foundations and the very raison d’étre of her existence. In order to incur the penalties inflicted on heresy, the sin must be both formal and external, for the Church in her external forum does not take cognizance of sins of thought. The external act must be such as of its own nature, or from custom, or from the special circumstances, is held sufficient to manifest an heretical mind. The reception of the sacrament in an Anglican church, or being married in a non-Catholic place of worship by a non-Catholic minister, are considered acts of heresy and punished as such by excommunication.

A special form for the reception of converts into the Church, based on various Roman decrees, has been approved by the English Bishops.

Apostasy from the faith is the grave sin committed by one who throws the faith overboard entirely. The apostate not only rejects special dogmas like the heretic, but wholly abandons the Catholic faith, and becomes a free-thinker, atheist, materialist, Mohammedan, Buddhist, etc.