Chapter I: On Infidelity

— Infidelity designates the state of him who does not believe, with an assent of faith at least implicit, the things which have been revealed by God so that they may be believed by him.

With an assent of faith, I say, because an inferior adherence, if there is any, by no means suffices, nor can it in any way supply for the assent of faith.

With an assent at least implicit: because very many, not to say all, of the faithful lack an adequate knowledge of revealed religion; and very many implicitly believe what they explicitly deny: as happened, before the defined dogmas of the Immaculate Conception and Pontifical Infallibility, to those who in good faith denied each truth. And because of their implicit faith, those who mix revealed and non-revealed things in a manner even culpable are very improperly called unbelievers (Cf. Billot, De Fide, before thesis XXIV).

The things which have been revealed so that they may be believed by him: because a revelation not universal, such as that of the Old Law, did not have to be positively believed by one who was not a Jew (Cf. Billot, p. 348, before thesis XXIV). Say the same concerning private revelations of others.

— Infidelity is distinguished as negative and privative. Negative is that of him to whom the truth of faith has not been sufficiently proposed - and this without his fault; privative, or culpable, can be merely privative or indirectly contrary to faith, and directly contrary. Merely privative infidelity, although culpable, does not exclude the will of believing what is sufficiently proposed by God. Wherefore it can be composed with the formal object of faith; it is not directly opposed to faith so that it takes away the habit of faith. Directly contrary infidelity is repugnant to the formal object of faith. For it is an unwillingness to believe the things which are sufficiently proposed as revealed: whether, after one has recognized the credibility, he nevertheless was unwilling to command the act of faith; or whether he impeded the very proposition of the truth, unwilling in any case to believe; or whether he pertinaciously rejected the proposition of truth through the Church.

Now he refuses to believe who deliberately doubts, and consequently has as doubtful or uncertain what is divinely revealed and to be believed.

As opposed to the formal motive itself of the virtue, or of faith considered according to its primary and principal act, this infidelity is a grave sin in its whole genus, and necessarily draws with itself the loss of the infused habit of faith.

Affected ignorance of the motives of credibility, if it is dictated by fear lest you have to believe, is not contrary infidelity.

Various Opinions. — Infidelity, etymologically, designates the state of him who is not faithful. Because, in the present order, faith is due to every man, every infidelity can be called privative. Thus Coninck, apud Lugo, d. 18, n. 4.

Nevertheless most, even in the present state, distinguish a certain negative infidelity from privative. They understand this distinction in different ways. For some, thus the Salmanticenses, tr. 21, c. 3, n. 1, admit only a two-membered division, while most separate privative from contrary infidelity. But others, as Struggl, tr. 4, q. 2, n. 1, understand privative infidelity to be the voluntary omission of the assent of faith in him to whom faith, or an article of faith, has been sufficiently proposed (Struggl thinks this is not exclusive of the habit of faith previously infused, while Ballerini, Opus theol., tr. 5, n. 73, on the contrary, opines otherwise); but positive or contrary infidelity they say is a positive assent contrary or contradictory to true faith.

Suarez, d. 16, sect. I, n. 7, recognizes privative infidelity in men to whom the true faith has not yet been proposed: this sin is committed through negligence alone and is opposed to the precept of hearing the faith; it is negligence in seeking and investigating a sufficient proposition of faith. Whereas by being unwilling to believe the things heard, contrary infidelity is committed.

Lugo, d. 18, n. 3, defines the proper sin of infidelity as "that which from its object is so opposed to actual faith that, as long as it is not retracted, the man cannot have the will of believing by a true and proper act of faith." Therefore it is only an unwillingness to believe opposed to sufficiently proposed faith. Wherefore the will, even gravely sinful, by which someone would be unwilling to hear the faith and Christian doctrine, would not yet be the proper sin of infidelity, because, with that will, there could stand an efficacious will of believing most firmly the revelation, as often as it was sufficiently proposed.

— Contrary infidelity is customarily distinguished as threefold: either that of him who has never received the Christian faith, and it is paganism (under which name Islamism is then also contained); or that of him who received that faith in type, and it is Judaism; or that of him who received the Christian faith in baptism, and it is heresy or apostasy. Yet apostasy signifies a more complete withdrawal from the Christian faith. But so that the infidelity may be contrary, it is necessary that the pagan, the Jew, or the one enrolled in heresy have resisted the truth sufficiently proposed.

On Heresy. — Heresy, in the broadest signification, is an erroneous judgment against faith, committed by him who has received the baptismal character.

By that erroneous judgment, what is false or doubtful is pronounced concerning something which, as revealed by God, he himself must believe: whether it has been proposed by the Church, or not.

Wherefore heresy so accepted is divided into heresy of the forum of God alone and heresy of the exterior forum, or canonical heresy. The former is merely internal heresy, or even exterior heresy, but one regarding revealed truths which have not been proposed by the Church: whether they are in the revealed sources but not yet authentically defined, or whether they have been privately revealed. The latter, or canonical heresy, is committed through external withdrawal from the social magisterium divinely constituted for the authentic proposition of revelation (Cf. Billot, De Fide, at thesis XXIV). This is heresy properly so called, whether it takes place through adherence to a sect separated from the Church, or through full repudiation of Christian revelation (which more strictly is called apostasy), or through the denied assent of faith even to one article which the Church has proposed as a dogma of faith.

Each heresy, both that more broadly and that more properly so called, can be material and formal. Material heresy is that of one erring without pertinacity, without judgment of credibility, and without a will averse from the formal object of faith; formal heresy is that of one erring pertinaciously either concerning some other revealed thing or concerning the authority of the Church; that is, of one erring with a will averse from the formal object of faith, or unwilling to believe what has been sufficiently proposed to him as revealed, or even what would be sufficiently proposed. Hence, c. 1325, § 2: "After baptism has been received, if anyone, retaining the Christian name, pertinaciously denies any of the truths to be believed by divine and Catholic faith or doubts concerning it, he is a heretic; if he totally withdraws from the Christian faith, he is an apostate..."

In the canonical forum, all are presumed formally heretics who knowingly withdraw from the authority of the Church proposing dogma. But the proposition can be made either by the solemn definition of an ecumenical Council or of the Supreme Pontiff speaking ex cathedra, or by the ordinary and universal magisterium. For: "c. 1323, § 1. All those things are to be believed by divine and Catholic faith which are contained in the written or handed-down word of God and are proposed by the Church, whether by solemn judgment or by the ordinary and universal magisterium, as divinely revealed and to be believed. § 2. To pronounce a solemn judgment of this sort belongs both to an Ecumenical Council and to the Roman Pontiff speaking ex cathedra."

Corollaries. — 1. Canonically, a heretic is one who externally indicates as false or doubtful what is proposed by the Church to be believed; or what is undoubtedly believed by the faithful to be contained in Scripture. For the Church proposes the whole of Scripture to be believed.

2. Canonically, he also is a heretic today who, being ignorant of what the Church says is to be believed, utters these words: "Whatever the Church holds concerning this point, I deny it." For by these words he denies the infallibility of the Church, which is a defined dogma.

3. He is a heretic only before God, and consequently immune from censures, who by a merely internal act rejects an article defined by the Church: for example, the Most Holy Trinity; or who even externally denies what he falsely thinks has been defined by the Church: for example, that the Blessed Virgin was virginally conceived by her mother.

4. He is not a heretic who, after hearing some proposition of dogma, turns his mind away and abstains from judgment. Yet he will easily be a heretic before God, insofar as the reason for his silence is this: that, notwithstanding the definition, he virtually esteems the matter doubtful. He who labors under affected ignorance, whether concerning the authority of the Church or concerning an article defined by the Church, insofar as he rejects investigation, will be before God a heretic or not according to the interpretation of his will, which could have been that of believing if he knew the article to be revealed, and consequently merely of fleeing a sufficient proposition, or that of not believing in any case.

5. He who through gravely culpable ignorance or neglected investigation denies what the Church in reality has defined is not formally a heretic, since pertinacity is lacking. Indeed he can be called materially a heretic only improperly, since he preserves the rule of faith and continues to belong to the very body of the Church. Cf. Billot, De fide, before thesis XXIV, p. 348.

6. Heresies among themselves, as such, do not differ in species; neither do heresy and apostasy; nor contrary infidelities. Cf. Lehmkuhl, I, 413.

7. He who says: "If the Church were to define some such thing, manifestly absurd, I would not believe it," is not a heretic, because he does not act against conscience, unless he wished to affirm that it could happen that the Church define some such thing: which is not to be presumed. Cf. concerning a similar case, Lugo, De fide, d. 17, n. 83; Ballerini-Palmieri, t. 2, tr. 5, c. 4, n. 91.

Wherefore those who are anxiously troubled about suggestions of this kind can easily be calmed, but they are to be dissuaded from imagining cases of this kind. But the response which such a suggestion manifestly deserves is this: The Church will propose nothing absurd to be believed.

8. He is not a heretic who only exteriorly denies the faith or adores an idol. For he himself does not err. Nor does he incur censures, although in the external forum he is to be regarded as a heretic.

Scholia. — 1. In a man not baptized, the act of faith is necessary so that he may be informed by the infused virtue of faith. Wherefore, whether in a culpable or inculpable way the judgment of credibility is lacking to him, the faith necessary for salvation is wanting in him. But he who, even unconsciously, for example in baptism, has received habitual faith will not be despoiled of this without a will formally contrary to faith. Therefore habitual faith is more easily preserved by an adult than it is acquired.

2. Since, in order that you may elicit an act of faith, to the judgment of credendity there must accede a free act of the will commanding the act of faith, it can happen that someone recognizes the truth of religion, yet refuses to believe, and thus becomes formally a heretic. This formal heresy at the same time contains a great sin of pride, by which someone rejects a supernatural vocation, or is unwilling to subject himself to the authority divinely constituted, or (which seems scarcely possible) is unwilling to believe God whom he knows as revealing.

To deny faith to a truth which is known as revealed is a sin against the Holy Spirit, which is rarely committed; but if it is committed, it will also obscure the judgment of credendity. For the most part, however, the very judgment of credibility is absent from the non-believer, or has been destroyed in him. Therefore most unbelievers are guilty of neglected diligence in seeking out the truth, or they have a judgment clouded by passions. But such persons are not formally heretics in the forum of God.

3. They are accustomed to ask whether, without the formal sin of heresy, some Catholic can come to persuasion concerning the falsity of the Catholic Church or of Christian revelation, or whether a formal sin against faith must always precede that apostasy. The matter is disputed.

That "those who have received the faith under the magisterium of the Church can never have any just cause of changing or of calling the same faith into doubt" was defined by the Vatican Council, session 3, chapter 2 (Denz., n. 1612). But this definition can be restricted to an objectively just cause. Wherefore, after Tanner, De Fide, q. 2, dub. 5, n. 139; Platelius, De Fide, n. 61; Tanquerey, n. 659, thinks that it can happen per accidens that, without a formal sin against faith, imprudence may lead a Catholic to unbelief; indeed he seems to deny the necessity of grave fault itself. Aertnijs-Damen, n. 323, Quaer. 3, concedes the same, abstracting from the gravity of the sin, and alleging Pesch, De Fide, n. 383.

We think that a distinction must be made between doubt and contrary persuasion. That someone, because of objective imprudences of readings and conversations, and because of a less pure life, can come to a state of doubting and of a certain rather universal skepticism, we judge must be conceded; but that someone, without violence done to his own intellect, or without an internal lie which almost necessarily contains contempt of divine authority and consequently the formal sin of heresy, should come to contrary persuasion: this seems to us psychologically impossible. For this seems too much to be repugnant to the force of the arguments for faith and to the testimony of the soul naturally Christian.

Nor, in a man instructed in a Catholic manner and taught concerning his duties, do we think it must be affirmed that this can happen without grave sin.

— This is noteworthy today, because of the subtle investigations which are being made concerning the salvation and psychology of non-Catholics: according to the opinion of C. de Lugo, ibid. n. 200-201, from formal heresy or contrary infidelity there can be excused a man who, from culpable ignorance, yet is truly persuaded that no church, but only private revelation, is to be believed, provided that he preserves the will of believing God as often as His revelation is evidently credible; indeed even one who considers any revelation of God impossible. Such a man certainly cannot elicit an act of faith; yet he can have a conditioned will of believing God if God could reveal something to men. For by this will he is not injurious to the divine veracity. Wherefore, although he is not a Catholic or faithful person absolutely, if he had faith infused in baptism, he has not for that reason lost it, and can be called a Catholic or faithful person conditionally, because of that will. Cf. Ballerini-Palmieri, l. c. n. 94. But these things, as is clear, are not to be proposed everywhere to the faithful.

— He who has been instructed in a non-Catholic sect does not necessarily lack the supernatural virtue of faith; and, as long as he does not doubt, he is only materially a heretic, is bound by no special obligation, nor is he truly excommunicable. - If he seriously doubts, he ought to inquire; but if he has culpably neglected this, whether through carelessness, or levity of soul, or fear of discovering the truth and apprehension of the difficult duty which would follow from it, he will indeed sin, and per se gravely, against faith, but only privatively, not yet contrarily through heresy. - He will then only be formally a heretic if he neglects inquiry because he absolutely refuses to embrace Catholic truth, even if he recognized it. Cf. Lehmkuhl, I, 425, 2.

Although, however, in soul, or because of good faith, he is Catholic, nevertheless one enrolled in a heretical sect cannot be admitted to the sacraments before, after the errors have been rejected, he has been reconciled to the Church. This is expressly established by canon 731, § 2, so that the more benign opinion which Laymann, l. 2, t. 1, c. 13, n. 2, and after him Busenbaum, De praec. Fidei, dub. 3, Resolves 5, and Ballerini-Palmieri, t. 2, tr. 5, c. 4, n. 97, held concerning the unlearned can no longer be admitted. Yet the severity is tempered in danger of life, in the manner which will be stated; nor is it to be applied to those who wish to come to the Church at an age at which formal abjuration is not yet required by the Church, that is, who have not yet completed fourteen years from birth (S. Off., Nov. 1878, Coll. P. F., 1st ed. n. 660; 8 March 1882, Coll., 1st ed. n. 1680; 2nd ed. n. 1566).

Observe how differently Catholics and most non-Catholics stand when they doubt in the matter of faith or religion. Indeed, not only to cast off faith but even to have it as doubtful is lawful for neither without sin; but doubt concerning the Church, or concerning her authentic magisterium, or concerning an article proposed by the Church, is already, for a Catholic faithful person, doubt concerning faith; while for a non-Catholic of the Protestant Reformation, since, the authentic magisterium being excluded, he admits private interpretation of Sacred Scripture, doubt concerning his church or concerning a point as contained in Sacred Scripture is not yet doubt concerning faith. Now indeed from our human conclusions there is by no means excluded a reason for doubting, which, when there is question of the assent of faith, can never be had. Wherefore, when doubt has arisen concerning the truth of their sect, non-Catholics themselves are logically led to an examination whose fruit, with the help of the grace of God, if serious effort is applied, will easily be recognition of the true Church and conversion.

— Heresy, apostasy, and heresies among themselves do not differ in species; nor do sects, insofar as they err; yet they differ insofar as they exercise diverse superstitions contrary to the virtue of religion, or are insulting to God in diverse ways. Wherefore he who has culpably adhered to a sect must indicate that sect, if, however, he ever thought about those diverse malices ¹.

¹ Already from the fact that it is exercised by non-Catholics as such, divine worship becomes illegitimate (Lehmkuhl, Casus, I, 443). Yet I would not call this superstitious. These things therefore must be distinguished.

— Conversion of a person per se says the will of directing oneself wholly toward one end or term. Therefore the fuller the aberration was, the stricter is the conversion of him who, error having been laid aside, embraces the truth. Hence he who, ignorant of God, cared only for temporal things, is converted most fully when he begins to live for God. A pagan is converted more fully than a Mohammedan or a Jew: these are converted insofar as they intend to serve Christ or to glorify Christ in all things; a Mohammedan or a Jew is converted more fully than a heretic, who only has to convert himself to the Church.

Moreover, for receiving a heterodox person into the bosom of the Church, these things are to be done in order:

1. He is to be instructed in the faith.

2. If, because he was not baptized or received a baptism certainly null, baptism is to be conferred absolutely, no abjuration of heresy is required. If baptism is not to be repeated except perhaps conditionally, first a formal abjuration of the sect and profession of faith is to be made according to the formula which in the City is handed down by the Holy Office, outside the City by the Ordinary. The Ordinary of the place can permit that it be done not publicly but privately before two witnesses. (The minister can be one of the two.)

3. After the profession has been made, if the case demands it, baptism is administered under condition. Sacramental accusation, by which the penitence necessary for baptism is assisted, can be placed before this.

4. Absolution is given, conditioned or absolute, from heresy and connected censures. The form, otherwise not essential, is indicated in the written instruction which the minister will receive.

5. Confession is made, or, if accusation has already been made, it is resumed in a few words, and sacramental absolution is conferred. As is said in the tract on Penance, a probable opinion exempts from complete accusation those whose baptism was truly doubtful, so that with true probability, in the repeated conferral of baptism, the sins prior to it were deleted. Cf. La Croix, l. 6, p. 1, n. 324; Bucceroni, Theol. moral., III, 672, 672-bis; Ballerini-Palmieri, Op. th., V, 22. Yet the opposite opinion is held by Lehmkuhl, II, 425 sq.; by Noldin, III, 226; by Chr. Pesch, S.I., Prael. Dogm., VII, 394 ss.; by Zitelli, Apparatus, p. II, n. 721 (ed. 1897), etc.

6. If he is an adult, no grave cause standing in the way, let him immediately hear Mass and communicate. Cf. Code c. 753, § 2. (Immediately can be taken morally. A just cause suffices so that this not be done immediately.)

N. B. If any have not completed the age of fourteen years, they are simply admitted, without abjuration, to baptism or other sacraments, and they are not absolved from censures in the external forum.

On Temptations Against Faith. — Properly, only a free faculty is tempted. But it is tempted when it inclines spontaneously, or by an act which is called primo-primus, toward an illicit object. Therefore a temptation against faith is not yet formally had because some difficulty, even without a positive solution, is presented to our intellect; but we begin to be tempted if, because of a difficulty of this kind, the will inclines toward revoking the command by which the most firm assent had been commanded. Therefore those who, from a difficulty of this kind, are cast into fear concerning their faith are by no means actually tempted, since fear rather betrays affection for faith.

But temptation can be prepared by an intellectual difficulty. But when a true temptation of doubting concerning faith has arisen, he who by a contrary act of the will rejects the inclination to doubt or turns the mind away himself merits; he who in a semi-conscious way favors it sins venially; he who assents to it by deliberate doubt or denial becomes gravely guilty of a sin against faith by which faith itself is lost. Nor is it lawful to tolerate that inclination in the will as if by bearing oneself neutrally; but we must positively cast it away, because tolerance of a motion of the will makes that same motion deliberate. Cf. I, n. 72, 2.

He to whom an article to be believed has been proposed, and who experiences a difficulty concerning it, certainly cannot choose a neutral position, or positively suspend assent, or even deliberately and definitively abstain from an act of faith; but to defer the act of faith until he is better instructed, this is indeed lawful for him.

— You ask in what way that celebrated saying is to be understood: "Temptation against faith is to be conquered by flight." It is, unless we are mistaken, in this way.

a) Contrary to what can be done in less dangerous matters, and sometimes is advisable, namely, that we intentionally call up the object of temptation (for example, an occasion of anger or impatience) in order to win a more illustrious victory over it, here it is by no means expedient, after the occasion has been excited, to give place to a specious temptation against faith, so that we may as it were test and exercise our strength.

b) While the temptation itself is pressing, it will often be better at that time to divert the mind to other things, rather than to institute an examination of the difficulty.

But a formal general act of faith is by no means to be dissuaded, whether in the temptation itself, or before temptations which someone has foreseen as future. Yet often to protest concerning the faith in the temptation itself is in no way necessary.

And, after the temptation has receded, a quiet examination concerning the difficulty with which the temptation was connected is by no means to be disapproved; just as also a more skilled or more learned man is opportunely questioned.

Finally, the positive exercise of faith, even in daily conversation, by acts either formal or virtual, is altogether to be recommended.

— 1. Infidelity, or the state of him who does not believe, with an assent of faith at least implicit, the things which are to be believed by him, is negative or not culpable, and privative, or sinful. Moreover, privative infidelity is that which, although culpable, nevertheless does not exclude the will of believing the things which are revealed and sufficiently proposed. - Contrary infidelity is recognized by this exclusion, and is a grave sin in its whole genus, and removes habitual faith itself. - Yet others divide infidelity otherwise.

A threefold contrary infidelity is distinguished: that of pagans, who are unwilling to receive the Christian faith; that of Jews, who are unwilling to complete their faith in Christ; and that of heretics or apostates, who withdraw from the faith received in baptism, wholly if apostates, in part, that is, retaining at least the Christian name, if heretics.

2. Heresy taken more broadly says an erroneous judgment, by which a baptized man pronounces false or doubtful what he ought to believe to be revealed by God. It then embraces denial or deliberation concerning any truth whatever which he ought objectively to believe, and it can be entirely internal. Taken more strictly, it says an exterior withdrawal from the truth which the Church proposes as to be believed as revealed, or a repudiation, externally manifested, of the magisterium of the Church.

Heresy can be material, in him who errs without pertinacity, or who is not conscious of denial or doubt opposed to revealed truth; and formal, in him who errs with a will averse from faith, that is, of not believing revealed things. Formally heretics are presumed to be all who deny or call doubtful a dogma which they know to have been proposed by the Church. Improperly is he called materially a heretic who, adhering to the magisterium of the Church, errs concerning the dogmas of the Church, so that because of antecedent ignorance he denies a point defined as of faith. Even material heresy can be gravely culpable in its cause.

Formal heresy and apostasy, and heresies among themselves, do not differ in species; nor do sects as erring: yet these can exercise superstitions of various species.

3. The fuller the aberration was, the more truly he is said to be converted who, error having been laid aside, embraces the true faith. Moreover, in the conversion of a heterodox person these things are to be furnished: instruction in the faith, formal abjuration of the sect and profession of faith; conditional baptism, if the former is presumed or proved to be doubtful; conditional or absolute absolution from heresy and connected censures; confession, or, if before baptism it was made, a brief resumption of the accusation, and sacramental absolution; finally, if he is an adult and nothing stands in the way, communion through the Mass which he will immediately hear.

Minors who have not completed fourteen years are admitted without abjuration; nor in the external forum, since they do not contract penalties latae sententiae, are they absolved from censures.

4. Temptation against faith is properly had when the will itself inclines toward deserting faith by denial or doubt. Temptations of this kind are not deliberately to be called up; but in temptation, or before temptation, it will be expedient to elicit an act of faith, and to turn the mind away from the object of temptation. Afterwards, a quiet examination of the difficulty and questioning of a more learned man are to be recommended. To this add the positive exercise of faith.