Faith

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The meaning of the word

(Pistis, fides). In theOld Testament, theHebrew means essentiallysteadfastness, cf.Exodus 17:12, where it is used to describe the strengthening of Moses' hands; hence it comes to meanfaithfulness, whether ofGod towards man (Deuteronomy 32:4) or of man towardsGod (Psalm 118:30). As signifying man's attitude towardsGod it means trustfulness orfiducia. It would, however, be illogical to conclude that the word cannot, and does not, meanbelief orfaith in theOld Testament for it is clear that we cannot put trust in aperson's promises without previously assenting to orbelieving in thatperson's claim to such confidence. Hence even if it could beproved that theHebrew does not in itself contain the notion ofbelief, it must necessarily presuppose it. But that the word does itself contain the notion ofbelief is clear from the use of the radical, which in the causative conjugation, orHiph'il, means "to believe", e.g.Genesis 15:6, andDeuteronomy 1:32, in which latter passage the two meanings — viz. ofbelieving and of trusting — are combined. That the noun itself often meansfaith orbelief, is clear fromHabakkuk 2:4, where the context demands it. The witness of theSeptuagint is decisive; they render the verb bypisteuo, and the noun bypistis; and here again the two factors, faith and trust, are connoted by the same term. But that even in classical Greekpisteuo was used to signifybelieve, is clear from Euripides (Helene, 710),logois d'emoisi pisteuson tade, and thatpistis could mean "belief" is shown by the same dramatist'stheon d'ouketi pistis arage (Medea, 414; cf. Hipp., 1007). In theNew Testament the meanings "to believe" and "belief", forpisteon andpistis, come to the fore; inChrist's speech,pistis frequently means "trust", but also"belief" (cf.Matthew 8:10). In Acts it is used objectively of the tenets of theChristians, but is often to be rendered"belief" (cf.17:31;20:21;26:8). InRomans 14:23, it has the meaning of "conscience" — "all that is not of faith issin" — but the Apostle repeatedly uses it in the sense of"belief" (cf.Romans 4 andGalatians 3). Hownecessary it is to point this out will be evident to all who are familiar with moderntheological literature; thus, when a writer in the "Hibbert Journal", Oct., 1907, says, "From one end of the Scripture to the other, faith is trust and only trust", it is hard to see how he would explain1 Corinthians 13:13, andHebrews 11:1. Thetruth is that manytheological writers of the present day are given to very loose thinking, and in nothing is this so evident as in their treatment of faith. In the article just referred to we read: "Trust inGod is faith, faith isbelief,belief may mean creed, but creed is not equivalent to trust inGod." A similar vagueness was especially noticeable in the "Do we believe?" controversy—one correspondent says—"We unbelievers, if we have lost faith, cling more closely to hope and — the greatest of these — charity" ("Do we believe?", p. 180, ed. W. L. Courtney, 1905). Non-Catholic writers have repudiated allidea of faith as anintellectual assent, and consequently they fail to realize that faith must necessarily result in a body of dogmaticbeliefs. "How and by what influence", asks Harnack, "was the living faith transformed into the creed to be believed, the surrender to Christ into aphilosophicalChristology?" (quoted in Hibbert Journal, loc. cit.).

Faith may be considered both objectively and subjectively

Objectively, it stands for the sum oftruths revealed byGod in Scripture and tradition and which theChurch (seeRULE OF FAITH) presents to us in a brief form in her creeds, subjectively,faith stands for the habit or virtue by which we assent to thosetruths. It is with this subjective aspect of faith that we are here primarily concerned. Before we proceed to analyze the term faith, certain preliminary notions must be made clear.

(a) The twofold order ofknowledge. — "The Catholic Church", says theVatican Council, III, iv, "has always held that there is a twofold order ofknowledge, and that these two orders are distinguished from one another not only in their principle but in their object; in one weknow by natural reason, in the other by Divine faith; the object of the one istruth attainable by natural reason, the object of the other is mysteries hidden inGod, but which we have to believe and which can only be known to us byDivine revelation."

(b) Nowintellectualknowledge may be defined in a general way as the union between theintellect and an intelligible object. But atruth is intelligible to us only in so far as it is evident to us, and evidence is of different kinds; hence, according to the varying character of the evidence, we shall have varying kinds ofknowledge. Thus atruth may be self-evident — e.g. the whole is greater than its part — in which case we are said to haveintuitiveknowledge of it; or thetruth may not be self-evident, but deducible from premises in which it is contained — suchknowledge is termed reasonedknowledge; or again atruth may be neither self-evident nor deducible from premises in which it is contained, yet theintellect may beobliged to assent to it because It would else have to reject some other universally acceptedtruth; lastly, theintellect may be induced to assent to atruth for none of the foregoing reasons, but solely because, though not evident in itself, thistruth rests on grave authority — for example, we accept the statement that the sun is 90,000,000 miles distant from the earth because competent, veracious authorities vouch for the fact. This last kind ofknowledge is termed faith, and is clearlynecessary in daily life. If the authority upon which we base our assent is human and therefore fallible, we have human and fallible faith; if the authority is Divine, we have Divine andinfallible faith. If to this be added the medium by which the Divine authority for certain statements is put before us, viz. theCatholicChurch, we have Divine-Catholic Faith (seeRULE OF FAITH).

(c) Again, evidence, whatever its source, may be of various degrees and so cause greater or less firmness of adhesion on the part of the mind which assents to atruth. Thus arguments or authorities for and against atruth may be either wanting or evenly balanced, in this case theintellect does not give in its adherence to thetruth, but remains in a state ofdoubt or absolute suspension of judgment; or the arguments on one side may predominate; though not to the exclusion of those on the other side; in this case we have not complete adhesion of theintellect to thetruth in question but only opinion. Lastly, the arguments or authorities brought forward may be so convincing that the mind gives its unqualified assent to the statement proposed and has no fear whatever lest it should not betrue; this state of mind is termed certitude, and is the perfection ofknowledge. Divine faith, then, is that form ofknowledge which is derived from Divine authority, and which consequently begets absolute certitude in the mind of the recipient.

(d) That such Divine faith isnecessary, follows from the fact ofDivine revelation. For revelation means that the Supreme Truth has spoken to man and revealed to himtruths which are not in themselves evident to thehumanmind. We must, then, either reject revelation altogether, or accept it by faith; that is, we must submit ourintellect totruths which we cannot understand, but which come to us on Divine authority.

(e) We shall arrive at a better understanding of the habit or virtue of faith if we have previously analysed an act of faith; and this analysis will be facilitated by examining an act of ocular vision and an act of reasonedknowledge. In ocular vision we distinguish three things: the eye, or visual faculty the coloured object, and the light which serves as the medium between the eye and the object. It is usual to term colour the formal object (objectum formale quod) of vision, since it is that which precisely and alone makes a thing the object of vision, the individual object seen may be termed the material object, e.g. this apple, that man, etc. Similarly, the light which serves as the medium between the eye and the object is termed the formal reason (objectum formale quo) of our actual vision. In the same way, when we analyze an act ofintellectual assent to any giventruth, we must distinguish theintellectual faculty which elicits the act the intelligible object towards which theintellect is directed, and the evidence whether intrinsic to that object or extrinsic to it, which moves us to assent to it. None of these factors can be omitted, each cooperates in bringing about the act, whether of ocular vision or ofintellectual assent.

(f) Hence, for an act of faith we shall need a faculty capable of eliciting the act, an object commensurate with that faculty, and evidence — not intrinsic but extrinsic to that object — which shall serve as the link between faculty and object. We will commence our analysis with the object:-

Analysis of the object or term in an act of divine faith

(a) For atruth to be the object of an act of Divine faith, it must be itself Divine, and this not merely as coming fromGod, but as being itself concerned withGod. Just as in ocular vision the formal object must necessarily be something coloured, so in Divine faith the formal object must be something Divine — intheological language, theobjectum formale quod of Divine faith is the First Truth in Being,Prima Veritas in essendo — we could not make an act of Divine faith in the existence ofIndia.

(b) Again, the evidence upon which we assent to this Divinetruth must also be itself Divine, and there must be as close a relation between thattruth and the evidence upon which it comes to us as there is between the coloured object and the light; the former is anecessary condition for the exercise of our visual faculty, the latter is the cause of our actual vision. But no one butGod can revealGod; in other words,God is His own evidence. Hence, just as the formal object of Divine faith is the First Truth Itself, so the evidence of that First Truth is the First Truth declaring Itself. To use scholastic language once more, theobjectum formale quod, or the motive, or the evidence, of Divine faith is thePrima Veritas in dicendo.

(c) There is a controversy whether the sametruth can be an object both of faith and ofknowledge. In other words, can we believe a thing both because we are told it on good authority and because we ourselves perceive it to betrue?St. Thomas,Scotus, and others hold that once a thing is seen to betrue, the adhesion of the mind is in no wise strengthened by the authority of one who states that it is so, but the majority oftheologians maintain, withDe Lugo, that there may be aknowledge which does not entirely satisfy the mind, and that authority may then find a place, to complete its satisfaction. — We may note here the absurd expressionCredo quia impossibile, which has provoked many sneers. It is not an axiom of theScholastics, as was stated in the "Revue de Metaphysique et de Morale" (March, 1896, p. 169), and as was suggested more than once in the "Do we believe?" correspondence. The expression is due toTertullian, whose exact words are: "Natus est Dei Filius; non pudet, quia pudendum est: et mortuus est Dei Filius; prorsus credibile est, quia ineptum est; et sepultus, resurrexit; certum est, quia impossibile" (De Carne Christi, cap. v). This treatise dates fromTertullian'sMontanist days, when he was carried away by hislove of paradox. At the same time it is clear that the writer only aims at bringing out the wisdom ofGod manifested in the humiliation of the Cross; he is perhaps paraphrasingSt. Paul's words in1 Corinthians 1:25.

(d) Let us now take some concrete act of faith, e.g. "Ibelieve in theMost Holy Trinity." This mystery is the material or individual object upon which we are now exercising our faith, the formal object is its character as being a Divinetruth, and thistruth is clearly inevident as far as we are concerned; it in no way appeals to ourintellect, on the contrary it rather repels it. And yet we assent to it by faith, consequently upon evidence which is extrinsic and not intrinsic to thetruth we are accepting. But there can be no evidence commensurate with such a mystery save the Divine testimony itself, and this constitutes the motive for our assent to the mystery, and is, in scholastic language, theobjectum formale quo of our assent. If then, we are asked why we believe with Divine faith any Divinetruth, the only adequate answer must be becauseGod has revealed it.

(e) We may point out in this connexion thefalsity of the prevalent notion that faith is blind. "We believe", says theVatican Council (III, iii), "that revelation istrue, not indeed because the intrinsictruth of the mysteries is clearly seen by the natural light of reason, but because of the authority ofGod Who reveals them, for He can neither deceive nor be deceived." Thus, to return to the act of faith which we make in theHoly Trinity, we may formulate it in syllogistic fashion thus: WhateverGod reveals istrue butGod has revealed the mystery of theHoly Trinity therefore this mystery istrue. The major premise is indubitable and intrinsically evident to reason; the minor premise is alsotrue because it is declared to us by theinfallible Church (cf.RULE OF FAITH), and also because, as theVatican Council says, "in addition to the internal assistance of His Holy Spirit, it has pleasedGod to give us certain externalproofs of His revelation, viz. certain Divine facts, especiallymiracles and prophecies, for since these latter clearly manifestGod'somnipotence andinfiniteknowledge, they afford most certainproofs of His revelation and are suited to the capacity of all." HenceSt. Thomas says: "A man would not believe unless he saw the things he had to believe, either by the evidence ofmiracles or of something similar" (II-II:1:4, ad 1). The saint is here speaking of the motives of credibility.

Motives of credibility

(a) When we say that a certain statement is incredible we often mean merely that it is extraordinary, but it should be borne in mind that this is a misuse of language, for the credibility or incredibility of a statement has nothing to do with its intrinsic probability or improbability; it depends solely upon the credentials of the authority who makes the statement. Thus the credibility of the statement that a secret alliance has been entered into betweenEngland and America depends solely upon the authoritative position and theveracity of our informant. If he be a clerk in a government office it is possible that he may have picked up some genuine information, but if our informant be the Prime Minister ofEngland, his statement has the highest degree of credibility because his credentials are of the highest. When we speak of the motives of credibility ofrevealedtruth we mean the evidence that the things asserted arerevealedtruths. In other words, the credibility of the statements made is correlative with and proportionate to the credentials of the authority who makes them. Now the credentials ofGod are indubitable, for the veryidea ofGod involves that of omniscience and of the Supreme Truth. Hence, whatGod says is supremely credible, though not necessarily supremely intelligible for us. Here, however, the real question is not as to the credentials ofGod or the credibility of what He says, but as to the credibility of the statement thatGod has spoken. In other words who or what is the authority for this statement, and what credentials does this authority show? What are the motives of credibility of the statement thatGod has revealed this or that?

(b) These motives of credibility may be briefly stated as follows: in theOld Testament considered not as an inspired book, but merely as a book having historical value, we find detailed the marvellous dealings ofGod with a particular nation to whom He repeatedly reveals Himself; we read ofmiracles wrought in their favour and asproofs of thetruth of the revelation He makes; we find the most sublime teaching and the repeated announcement ofGod's desire to save the world fromsin and its consequences. And more than all we find throughout the pages of this book a series of hints, now obscure, now clear, of some wondrousperson who is to come as the world's saviour; we find it asserted at one time that he is man, at others that he isGod Himself. When we turn to theNew Testament we find that it records the birth, life, and death of One Who, while clearly man, also claimed to beGod, and Whoproved thetruth of His claim by His whole life,miracles, teachings, and death, and finally by His triumphantresurrection. We find, moreover, that He founded a Church which should, so He said, continue to the end of time, which should serve as the repository of His teaching, and should be the means of applying to all men the fruits of theredemption He had wrought. When we come to the subsequent history of this Church we find it speedily spreading everywhere, and this in spite of itshumble origin, its unworldly teaching, and the cruelpersecution which it meets at the hands of the rulers of this world. And as the centuries pass we find this Church battling againstheresiesschisms, and thesins of her own people—nay, of her own rulers—and yet continuing ever the same,promulgating ever the samedoctrine, and putting before men the same mysteries of the life, death andresurrection of the world'sSaviour, Who had, so she taught, gone before to prepare a home for those who while on earth should have believed in Him and fought the good fight. But if thehistory of the Church since New-Testament times thus wonderfully confirms theNew Testament itself, and if theNew Testament so marvellously completes theOld Testament, these books must really contain what they claim to contain, viz.Divine revelation. And more than all, that Person Whose life and death were so minutely foretold in theOld Testament, and Whose story, as told in theNew Testament, so perfectly corresponds with its prophetic delineation in theOld Testament, must be what He claimed to be, viz. theSon of God. His work, therefore, must be Divine. TheChurch which He founded must also be Divine and the repository and guardian of His teaching. Indeed, we can truly say that for everytruth ofChristianity which we believeChrist Himself is our testimony, and webelieve in Him because the Divinity He claimed rests upon the concurrent testimony of Hismiracles, His prophecies His personal character, the nature of Hisdoctrine, the marvellous propagation of His teaching in spite of its running counter to flesh and blood, the united testimony of thousands ofmartyrs, the stories of countlesssaints who for His sake have led heroic lives, thehistory of the Church herself since the Crucifixion, and, perhaps more remarkable than any, the history of thepapacy from St. Peter toPius X.

(c) These testimonies are unanimous; they all point in one direction, they are of every age, they are clear and simple, and are within the grasp of the humblest intelligence. And, as theVatican Council has said, "theChurch herself, is, by her marvellous propagation, her wondroussanctity, her inexhaustible fruitfulness ingoodworks, herCatholic unity, and her enduring stability, a great and perpetual motive of credibility and an irrefragable witness to her Divine commission" (Const.Dei Filius) . "The Apostles", saysSt. Augustine, "saw the Head and believed in the Body; we see the Body let usbelieve in the Head" [Sermo ccxliii, 8 (al. cxliii), de temp., P.L., V 1143]. Every believer will echo the words ofRichard of St. Victor, "Lord, if we are inerror, by Thine own self we have been deceived—for these things have been confirmed by such signs and wonders in our midst as could only have been done by Thee!" (de Trinitate, 1, cap. ii).

(d) But much misunderstanding exists regarding the meaning and office of the motives of credibility. In the first place, they afford us definite and certainknowledge ofDivine revelation; but thisknowledge precedes faith; it is not the final motive for our assent to thetruths of faith—asSt. Thomas says, "Faith has the character of a virtue, not because of the things it believes, for faith is of things that appear not, but because it adheres to the testimony of one in whomtruth isinfallibly found" (De Veritate, xiv, 8); thisknowledge ofrevealedtruth which precedes faith can only beget human faith it is not even the cause of Divine faith (cf. Francisco Suárez, be Fide disp. iii, 12), but is rather to be considered a remote disposition to it. We must insist upon this because in the minds of many faith is regarded as a more or lessnecessary consequence of a careful study of the motives of credibility, a view which theVatican Council condemns expressly: "If anyone says that the assent ofChristian faith is not free, but that it necessarily follows from the arguments whichhumanreason can furnish in its favour; or if anyone says thatGod's grace is onlynecessary for that living faith which worketh through charity, let him beanathema" (Sess. IV). Nor can the motives of credibility make the mysteries of faith clear in themselves, for, as St. Thomas says, "the arguments which induce us to believe, e.g.miracles, do not prove the faith itself, but only the truthfulness of him who declares it to us, and consequently they do not begetknowledge of faith's mysteries, but only faith" (in Sent., III, xxiv, Q. i, art. 2, sol. 2, ad 4). On the other hand, we must not minimize the realprobative force of the motives of credibility within theirtrue sphere—"Reason declares that from the very outset the Gospel teaching was rendered conspicuous by signs and wonders which gave, as it were, definiteproof of a definitetruth" (Leo XIII,Æterni Patris).

(e) TheChurch has twice condemned the view that faith ultimately rests on an accumulation of probabilities. Thus the proposition, "The assent ofsupernatural faith . . is consistent with merely probableknowledge of revelation" was condemned byInnocent XI in 1679 (cf.Denzinger, Enchiridion, 10th ed., no. 1171); and the SyllabusLamentabili sane (July, 1907) condemns the proposition (XXV) that "the assent of faith rests ultimately on an accumulation of probabilities." But since the great name ofNewman has been dragged into the controversy regarding this last proposition, we may point out that, in theGrammar of Assent (chap. x, sect. 2),Newman refers solely to theproof of faith afforded by the motives of credibility, and he rightly concludes that, since these are not demonstrative, this line ofproof may be termed "an accumulation of probabilities". But it would be absurd to say thatNewman therefore based the final assent of faith on this accumulation—as a matter of fact he is not here making an analysis of an act of faith, but only of the grounds for faith; the question of authority does not come into his argument (cf. McNabb,Oxford Conferences on Faith, pp. 121-122).

Analysis of the act of faith from the subjective standpoint

(a) The light of faith. — Anangel understandstruths which are beyond man's comprehension; if then a man were called upon to assent to atruth beyond the ken of the humanintellect, but within the grasp of theangelicintellect, he would require for the time being something more than his natural light of reason, he would require what we may call "the angelic light". If, now, the same man were called upon to assent to atruth beyond the grasp of both men andangels, he would clearly need a still higher light, and this light we term "the light of faith" — a light, because it enables him to assent to thosesupernaturaltruths, and the light of faith because it does not so illumine thosetruths as to make them no longer obscure, for faith must ever be "the substance of things to be hoped for, the evidence of things that appear not" (Hebrews 11:1). HenceSt. Thomas (De Veritate, xiv, 9, ad 2) says: "Although the Divinely infused light of faith is more powerful than the natural light of reason, nevertheless in our present state we only imperfectly participate in it; and hence it comes to pass that it does not beget in us real vision of those things which it is meant to teach us; such vision belongs to our eternal home, where we shall perfectly participate in that light, where, in fine, inGod's light we shall see light' (Ps. xxxv, 10)."

(b) The necessity of such light is evident from what has been said, for faith is essentially an act of assent, and just as assent to a series ofdeductive orinductive reasonings, or tointuition of first principles, would be impossible without the light of reason, so, too assent to asupernaturaltruth would be inconceivable without asupernatural strengthening of the natural light "Quid est enim fides nisi credere quod non vides?" (i.e. what is faith butbelief in that which thou seest not?) asksSt. Augustine; but he also says: "Faith has its eyes by which it in some sort sees that to betrue which it does not yet see—and by which, too, it most surely sees that it does not see what it believes" [Ep. ad Consent., ep. cxx 8 (al. ccxxii), P.L., II, 456].

(c) Again, it is evident that this "light of faith" is asupernatural gift and is not thenecessary outcome of assent to the motives of credibility. No amount of study will win it, nointellectual conviction as to the credibility ofrevealedreligion nor even of the claims of theChurch to be ourinfallible guide in matters of faith, will produce this light in a man's mind. It is thefree gift of God. Hence theVatican Council (III, iii;) teaches that "faith is asupernatural virtue by which we with the inspiration and assistance ofGod's grace, believe those things to betrue which He has revealed". The samedecree goes on to say that "although the assent of faith is in no sense blind, yet no one can assent to the Gospel teaching in the waynecessary forsalvation without the illumination of the Holy Spirit, Who bestows on all a sweetness inbelieving and consenting to thetruth". Thus, neither as regards thetruth believed nor as regards the motives forbelieving, nor as regards the subjective principle by which we believe — viz. the infused light — can faith be considered blind.

(d) The place of the will in an act of faith. — So far we have seen that faith is an act of theintellect assenting to atruth which is beyond its grasp, e.g. the mystery of theHoly Trinity. But to many it will seem almost as futile to ask theintellect to assent to a proposition which is not intrinsically evident as it would be to ask the eye to see a sound. It is clear, however, that theintellect can be moved by the will either to study or not to study a certaintruth, though if thetruth be a self-evident one — e.g., that the whole is greater than its part — the will cannot affect theintellect's adhesion to it, it can, however, move it to think of something else, and thus distract it from the contemplation of that particulartruth. If, now, the will moves theintellect to consider some debatable point—e.g. theCopernican and Ptolemaic theories of the relationship between the sun and the earth — it is clear that theintellect can only assent to one of these views in proportion as it is convinced that the particular view istrue. But neither view has, as far as we canknow, more than probabletruth, hence of itself theintellect can only give in its partial adherence to one of these views, it must always be precluded from absolute assent by the possibility that the other view may be right. The fact that men hold much more tenaciously to one of these than the arguments warrant can only be due to some extrinsic consideration, e.g. that it is absurd not to hold what the vast majority of men hold. And here it should be noted that, asSt. Thomas says repeatedly, theintellect only assents to a statement for one of two reasons: either because that statement is immediately or mediately evident in itself — e.g. a first principle or a conclusion from premises — or because the will moves it to do so. Extrinsic evidence of course comes into play when intrinsic evidence is wanting, but though it would be absurd, without weighty evidence in its support, to assent to atruth which we do not grasp, yet no amount of such evidence can make us assent, it could only show that the statement in question was credible, our ultimate actual assent could only be due to the intrinsic evidence which the statement itself offered, or, failing that, due to the will. Hence it is that St. Thomas repeatedly defines the act of faith as the assent of theintellect determined by the will (De Veritate, xiv, 1; II-II, Q. ii, a. 1, ad 3; 2, c.; ibid., iv, 1, c., and ad 2). The reason, then, why men cling to certainbeliefs more tenaciously than the arguments in their favour would warrant, is to be sought in the will rather than in theintellect. Authorities are to be found on both sides, the intrinsic evidence is not convincing, but something is to be gained by assenting to one view rather than the other, and this appeals to the will, which therefore determines theintellect to assent to the view which promises the most. Similarly, in Divine faith the credentials of the authority which tells us thatGod has made certain revelations are strong, but they are always extrinsic to the proposition, "God has revealed this or that", and consequently they cannot compel our assent; they merely show us that this statement is credible. When, then, we ask whether we are to give in our free assent to any particular statement or not, we feel that in the first place we cannot do so unless there be strong extrinsic evidence in its favour, for to believe a thing merely because we wished to do so would be absurd. Secondly, the proposition itself does not compel our assent, since it is not intrinsically evident, but there remains the fact that only on condition of our assent to it shall we have what the humansoul naturally yearns for, viz., the possession ofGod, Who is, as both reason and authority declare, our ultimate end; "He that believeth and is baptized, shall be saved", and "Without faith it is impossible to pleaseGod." St. Thomas expresses this by saying: "The disposition of a believer is that of one who accepts another's word for some statement, because it seems fitting or useful to do so. In the same way we believeDivine revelation because the reward of eternal life is promised us for so doing. It is the will which is moved by the prospect of this reward to assent to what is said, even though theintellect is not moved by something which it understands. HenceSt. Augustine says (Tract. xxvi in Joannem, 2):Cetera potest homo nolens, credere nonnisi volens' [i.e. other things a man can do against his will but to believe he must will]" (De Ver., xiv, 1).

(e) But just as theintellect needed a new and special light in order to assent to thesupernaturaltruths of faith, so also the will needs a special grace fromGod in order that it may tend to thatsupernatural good which is eternal life. The light of faith, then, illumines the understanding, though thetruth still remains obscure, since it is beyond theintellect's grasp; butsupernatural grace moves the will, which, having now asupernatural good put before it, moves theintellect to assent to what it does not understand. Hence it is that faith is described as "bringing into captivity every understanding unto the obedience of Christ" (2 Corinthians 10:5).

Definition of faith

The foregoing analyses will enable us to define an act of Divinesupernatural faith as "the act of theintellect assenting to a Divinetruth owing to the movement of the will, which is itself moved by thegrace of God" (St. Thomas, II-II, Q. iv, a. 2). And just as the light of faith is a gift supernaturally bestowed upon the understanding, so also thisDivine grace moving the will is, as its name implies, an equallysupernatural and an absolutely gratuitous gift. Neither gift is due to previous study neither of them can be acquired by human efforts, but "Ask and ye shall receive."

From all that has been said two most important corollaries follow:

Let anyone whodoubts this statement compare Bishop Butler'sAnalogy of Religion, chaps. v, vi, with the paper on "Faith" contributed toLux Mundi. The writer of this latter paper tells us that "faith is an elemental energy of the soul", "a tentative probation", that "its primary note will be trust", and finally that "in response to the demand for definition, it can only reiterate: "Faith is faith. Believing is justbelieving'". Nowhere is there any analysis of terms, nowhere any distinction between the relative parts played by theintellect and the will; and we feel that those who read the paper must have risen from its perusal with the feeling that they had been wandering through — we use the writer's own expression — "a juggling maze of words."

The: habit of faith and the life of faith

(a) We have defined the act of faith as the assent of theintellect to atruth which is beyond its comprehension, but which it accepts under the influence of the will moved by grace and from the analysis we are now in a position to define the virtue of faith as asupernatural habit by which we firmly believe those things to betrue whichGod has revealed. Now every virtue is the perfection of some faculty, but faith results from the combined action of two faculties, viz., theintellect which elicits the act, and the will which moves theintellect to do so; consequently, the perfection of faith will depend upon the perfection with which each of these faculties performs its allotted task; theintellect must assent unhesitatingly, the will must promptly and readily move it to do so.

(b) The unhesitating assent of theintellect cannot be due tointellectual conviction of the reasonableness of faith, whether we regard the grounds on which it rests or the actualtruths we believe, for "faith is the evidence of things that appear not"; it must, then, be referred to the fact that thesetruths come to us on Divineinfallible testimony. And though faith is so essentially of "the unseen" it may be that the peculiar function of the light of faith, which we have seen to be sonecessary, is in some sort to afford us, not indeed vision, but an instinctive appreciation of thetruths which are declared to be revealed.St. Thomas seems to hint at this when he says: "As by other virtuous habits a man sees what accords with those habits, so by the habit of faith a man's mind is inclined to assent to those things which belong to thetrue faith and not to other things" (II-II:4:4, ad 3). In every act of faith this unhesitating assent of theintellect is due to the motion of the will as its efficient cause, and the same must be said of thetheological virtue of faith when we consider it as a habit or as a moral virtue, for, as St. Thomas insists (I-II, Q. lvi,), there is no virtue, properly so called, in theintellect except in so far as it is subject to the will. Thus the habitual promptitude of the will in moving theintellect to assent to thetruths of faith is not only the efficient cause of theintellect's assent, but is precisely what gives to this assent its virtuous, and consequently meritorious, character. Lastly, this promptitude of the will can only come from its unswerving tendency to the Supreme Good. And at the risk of repetition we must again draw attention to the distinction between faith as a purelyintellectual habit, which as such is dry and barren, and faith resident, indeed, in theintellect, but motived by charity orlove ofGod, Who is our beginning, our ultimate end, and oursupernatural reward. "Every true motion of the will", saysSt. Augustine, "proceeds fromtruelove" (de Civ. Dei, XIV, ix), and, as he elsewhere beautifully expresses it, "Quid est ergo credere in Eum? Credendo amare, credendo diligere, credendo in Eum ire, et Ejus membris incorporari. Ipsa est ergo fides quam de nobis Deus exigit—et non invenit quod exigat, nisi donaverit quod invenerit." (Tract. xxix in Joannem, 6. — "What, then, istobelieve inGod? — It is tolove Him bybelieving, to go to Him bybelieving, and to be incorporated in His members. This, then, is the faith whichGod demands of us; and He finds not what He may demand except where He has given what He may find.") This then is what is meant by "living" faith, or astheologians term it,fides formata, viz., "informed" by charity, orlove ofGod. If we regard faith precisely as an assent elicited by theintellect, then this bare faith is the same habit numerically as when the informing principle of charity is added to it, but it has not thetrue character of a moral virtue and is not a source of merit. If, then, charity be dead — if, in other words, a man be in mortalsin and so without thehabitual sanctifying grace ofGod which alone gives to his will that due tendency toGod as hissupernatural end which is requisite forsupernatural and meritorious acts — it is evident that there is no longer in the will that power by which it can, fromsupernatural motives, move theintellect to assent tosupernaturaltruths. Theintellectual and Divinely infused habit of faith remains, however, and when charity returns this habit acquires anew the character of "living" and meritorious faith.

(c) Again, faith being a virtue, it follows that a man's promptitude inbelieving will make himlove thetruths he believes, and he will therefore study them, not indeed in the spirit of doubting inquiry, but in order the better to grasp them as far ashumanreason will allow. Such inquiry will be meritorious and will render his faith more robust, because, at the same time that he is brought face to face with theintellectual difficulties which are involved, he will necessarily exercise his faith and repeatedly "bring hisintellect into submission". ThusSt. Augustine says, "What can be the reward of faith, what can its very name mean if you wish to see now what you believe? You ought not to see in order to believe, you ought tobelieve in order to see; you ought to believe so long as you do not see, lest when you do see you may be put to the blush" (Sermo, xxxviii, 2, P.L., V, 236). And it is in this sense we must understand his oft-repeated words: "Crede ut intelligas" (Believe that you may understand). Thus, commenting on theSeptuagint version ofIsaiah 7:9 which reads: "nisi credideritis non intelligetis", he says: "Proficit ergo noster intellectus ad intelligenda quae credat, et fides proficit ad credenda quae intelligat; et eadem ipsa ut magis magisque intelligantur, in ipso intellectu proficit mens. Sed hoc non fit propriis tanquam naturalibus viribus sed Deo donante atque adjuvante" (Enarration on Psalm 118, Sermo xviii, 3, "Ourintellect therefore is of use to understand whatever things it believes, and faith is of use to believe whatever it understands; and in order that these same things may be more and more understood, the thinking faculty [mens] is of use in theintellect. But this is not brought about as by our own natural powers but by the gift and the aid ofGod." Cf. Sermo xliii, 3, in Is., vii, 9; P.L., V, 255).

(d) Further, the habit of faith may be stronger in oneperson than in another, "whether because of the greater certitude and firmness in the faith which one has more than another, or because of his greater promptitude in assenting, or because of his greater devotion to thetruths of faith, or because of his greater confidence" (II-II:5:4).

(e) We are sometimes asked whether we are really certain of the things we believe, and we rightly answer in the affirmative; but strictly speaking, certitude can be looked at from two standpoints: if we look at its cause, we have in faith the highest form of certitude, for its cause is the Essential Truth; but if we look at the certitude which arises from the extent to which theintellect grasps atruth, then in faith we have not such perfect certitude as we have of demonstrabletruths, since thetruths believed are beyond theintellect's comprehension (II-II, Q. iv, 8; de Ver., xiv, and i, ad 7).

The genesis of faith in the individual soul

(a) Many receive their faith in their infancy, to others it comes later in life, and its genesis is often misunderstood. Without encroaching upon the articleREVELATION, we may describe the genesis of faith in the adult mind somewhat as follows: Man being endowed with reason, reasonable investigation must precede faith; now we can prove by reason theexistence of God, theimmortality of thesoul, and the origin and destiny of man; but from these facts there follows the necessity of religion, andtruereligion must be thetrueworship of thetrueGod not according to ourideas, but according to what He Himself has revealed. But canGod reveal Himself to us? And, granting that He can, where is this revelation to be found? The Bible is said to contain it; does investigation confirm theBible's claim? We will take but one point: theOld Testament looks forward, as we have already seen, to One Who is to come and Who isGod; theNew Testament shows us One Who claimed to be the fulfilment of the prophecies and to beGod; this claim He confirmed by His life, death, andresurrection by His teaching,miracles, and prophecies. He further claimed to have founded a Church which should enshrine His revelation and should be theinfallible guide for all who wished to carry out His will and save theirsouls. Which of the numerous existing Churches is His? It must have certain definite characteristics ornotes. It must be One Holy,Catholic, and Apostolic, it must claiminfallible teaching power. None but the Holy, Roman,Catholic, and Apostolic Church can claim these characteristics, and her history is an irrefragableproof of her Divine mission. If, then, she be thetrue Church, her teaching must beinfallible and must be accepted.

(b) Now what is the state of the inquirer who has come thus far? He has proceeded by pure reason, and, if on the grounds stated he makes his submission to the authority of theCatholicChurch and believes her doctrines, he has only human, reasonable, fallible, faith. Later on he may see reason to question the various steps in his line of argument, he may hesitate at sometruth taught by theChurch, and he may withdraw the assent he has given to her teaching authority. In other words, he has not Divine faith at all. For Divine faith issupernatural both in the principle which elicits the acts and in the objects ortruths upon which it falls. The principle which elicits assent to atruth which is beyond the grasp of thehumanmind must be that same mind illumined by a light superior to the light of reason, viz. the light of faith, and since, even with this light of faith, theintellect remains human, and thetruth to be believed remains still obscure, the final assent of theintellect must come from the will assisted byDivine grace, as seen above. But both this Divine light and thisDivine grace are puregifts of God, and are consequently only bestowed at His good pleasure. It is here that the heroism of faith comes in; our reason will lead us to the door of faith but there it leaves us; andGod asks of us that earnest wish to believe for the sake of the reward — "I am thy reward exceeding great" — which will allow us to repress the misgivings of theintellect and say, "I believe, Lord, help Thou my unbelief." AsSt. Augustine expresses it, "Ubi defecit ratio, ibi est fidei aedificatio" (Sermo ccxlvii, P.L., V, 1157 — "Where reason fails there faith builds up").

(c) When this act of submission has been made, the light of faith floods thesoul and is even reflected back upon those very motives which had to be so laboriously studied in our search after thetruth; and even those preliminarytruths which precede all investigation e.g. the veryexistence of God, become now the object of our faith.

Faith in relation to works

(a)Faith and no works may be described as theLutheran view. "Esto peccator, pecca fortiter sed fortius fide" was the heresiarch's axiom, and the Diet of Worms, in 1527, condemned thedoctrine thatgoodworks are notnecessary forsalvation.

(b)Works and no faith may be described as the modern view, for the modern world strives to make the worship of humanity take the place of the worship of the Deity (Do we believe? as issued by theRationalist Press, 1904, ch. x: "Creed and Conduct" and ch. xv: "Rationalism and Morality". Cf. alsoChristianity and Rationalism on Trial, published by the same press, 1904).

(c) Faith shown by works has ever been thedoctrine of theCatholicChurch and is explicitly taught by St. James, ii, 17: "Faith, if it have not works, is dead." TheCouncil of Trent (Sess. VI, canons xix, xx, xxiv, and xxvi) condemned the various aspects of theLutherandoctrine, and from what has been said above on the necessity of charity for "living" faith, it will be evident that faith does not exclude, but demands,goodworks, for charity orlove ofGod is not real unless it induces us to keep the Commandments; "He that keepeth his word, in him in very deed the charity ofGod is perfected" (1 John 2:5).St. Augustine sums up the whole question by saying "Laudo fructum boni operis, sed in fide agnosco radicem" — i.e. "I praise the fruit ofgoodworks, but their root I discern in faith" (Enarration on Psalm 31).

Loss of faith

From what has been said touching the absolutelysupernatural character of the gift of faith, it is easy to understand what is meant by the loss of faith.God's gift is simply withdrawn. And this withdrawal must needs be punitive, "Non enim deseret opus suum, si ab opere suo non deseratur" (St. Augustine,Enarration on Psalm 145 — "He will notdesert His own work, if He be not deserted by His own work"). And when the light of faith is withdrawn, there inevitably follows a darkening of the mind regarding even the very motives of credibility which before seemed so convincing. This may perhaps explain why those who have had the misfortune toapostatize from the faith are often the most virulent in their attacks upon the grounds of faith; "Vae homini illi", saysSt. Augustine, "nisi et ipsius fidem Dominus protegat", i.e. "Woe be to a man unless the Lord safeguard his faith" (Enarration on Psalm 120).

Faith is reasonable

(a) If we are to believe present-dayRationalists andAgnostics, faith, as we define it, is unreasonable. AnAgnostic declines to accept it because he considers that the things proposed for his acceptance are preposterous, and because he regards the motives assigned for ourbelief as wholly inadequate. "Present me with a reasonable faith based on reliable evidence, and I will joyfully embrace it. Until that time I have no choice but to remain anAgnostic" (Medicus in theDo we Believe? Controversy, p. 214). Similarly, FrancisNewman says: "Paul was satisfied with a kind of evidence for theresurrection of Jesus which fell exceedingly short of the demands of modernlogic, it is absurd in us to believe, barely because they believed" (Phases of Faith, p. 186). Yet thesupernaturaltruths of faith, however they may transcend our reason, cannot be opposed to it, fortruth cannot be opposed totruth, and the same Deity Who bestowed on us the light of reason by which we assent to first principles is Himself the cause of those principles, which are but a reflection of His own Divinetruth. When He chooses to manifest to us furthertruths concerning Himself, the fact that these latter are beyond the grasp of the natural light which He has bestowed upon us will not prove them to be contrary to our reason. Even so pronounced arationalist as Sir Oliver Lodge says: "I maintain that it is hopelessly unscientific to imagine it possible that man is the highest intelligent existence" (Hibbert Journal, July, 1906, p. 727).

Agnostics, again, take refuge in the unknowableness oftruths beyond reason, but their argument is fallacious, for surelyknowledge has its degrees. I may not fully comprehend atruth in all its bearings, but I canknow a great deal about it; I may not have demonstrativeknowledge of it, but that is no reason why I should reject thatknowledge which comes from faith. To listen to manyAgnostics one would imagine that appeal to authority as a criterion was unscientific, though perhaps nowhere is authority appealed to so unscientifically as by modern scientists and modern critics. But, asSt. Augustine says, "IfGod's providence govern human affairs we must not despair ordoubt but that He hathordained some certain authority, upon which staying ourselves as upon a certain ground or step, we may be lifted up toGod" (De utilitate credendi); and it is in the same spirit that he says: "Ego vero Evangelio non crederem, nisi me Catholicae Ecclesiae commoveret auctoritas" (Contra Ep. Fund., V, 6 — "I would not believe the Gospel if the authority of theCatholicChurch did notoblige me to believe").

(b)Naturalism, which is only another name forMaterialism, rejects faith because there is no place for it in the naturalistic scheme; yet the condemnation of thisfalse philosophy bySt. Paul and by the author of theBook of Wisdom is emphatic (cf.Romans 1:18-23;Wisdom 13:1-19).Materialists fail to see in nature what the greatest minds have always discovered in it, viz., "ratio cujusdam artis; scilicet divinae, indita rebus, qua ipsae res moventur ad finem determinatum" — "the manifestation of a Divine plan whereby all things are directed towards their appointed end" (St. Thomas, Lect. xiv, in II Phys.). Similarly, the vagaries ofHumanism blind men to the fact of man's essentially finite character and hence preclude allidea of faith in theinfinite and thesupernatural (cf. "Naturalism andHumanism" inHibbert Journal, Oct., 1907).

Faith is necessary

"He that believeth and is baptized", said Christ, "shall be saved, but he thatbelieveth not shall be condemned" (Mark 16:16); andSt. Paul sums up this solemn declaration by saying: "Without faith it is impossible to pleaseGod" (Hebrews 11:6). The absolute necessity of faith is evident from the following considerations:God is our beginning and our end and has supreme dominion over us, we owe Him, consequently, due service which we express by the termreligion. Nowtrue religion is thetrueworship of thetrueGod. But it is not for man to fashion a worship according to his own ideals; none butGod can declare to us in whattrue worship consists, and this declaration constitutes the body ofrevealedtruths, whether natural orsupernatural. To these, if we would attain the end for which we came into the world, we are bound to give the assent of faith. It is clear, moreover, that no one can profess indifference in a matter of such vital importance. During theReformation period no such indifference was professed by those who quitted the fold; for them it was not a question of faith or unfaith, so much as of the medium by which thetrue faith was to be known and put into practice. The attitude of many outside theChurch is now one of absolute indifference, faith is regarded as an emotion, as a peculiarly subjective disposition which is regulated by no knownpsychologicallaws. Thus Taine speaks of faith as "une source vive qui s'est formee au plus profond de l'ame, sous la poussee et la chaleur des instincts immanents" — "a living fountain which has come into existence in the lowest depths of thesoul under the impulse and the warmth of the immanentinstincts".Indifferentism in all its phases was condemned byPius IX in the SyllabusQuanta cura: in Prop. XV, "Any man is free to embrace and profess whatever form of religion his reason approves of"; XVI, "Men can find the way ofsalvation and can attain toeternalsalvation in any form of religious worship"; XVII "We can at least have good hopes of theeternalsalvation of all those who have never been in thetrueChurch ofChrist"; XVIII, "Protestantism is only another form of the sametrueChristian religion, and men can be as pleasing toGod in it as in theCatholicChurch."

The objective unity and immutability of faith

Christ'sprayer for the unity of HisChurch the highest form of unity conceivable, "that they all may be one as thou, Father, in me, and I in Thee" (John 17:21), has been brought into effect by the unifying force of a bond of a faith such as that which we have analysed. AllChristians have been taught to be "careful to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace, one body and one spirit, as you are called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, onebaptism, oneGod and Father of all" (Ephesians 4:3-6). The objective unity of theCatholicChurch becomes readily intelligible when we reflect upon the nature of the bond of union which faith offers us. For our faith comes to us from the one unchanging Church, "the pillar and ground of truth", and our assent to it comes as a light in our minds and a motive power in our wills from the one unchangingGod Who can neither deceive nor be deceived. Hence, for all who possess it, this faith constitutes an absolute and unchanging bond of union. The teachings of this faith develop, of course, with the needs of the ages, but the faith itself remains unchanged. Modern views are entirely destructive of such unity ofbelief because their root principle is the supremacy of the individual judgment. Certain writers do indeed endeavour to overcome the resulting conflict of views by upholding the supremacy of universalhumanreason as a criterion oftruth; thus Mr. Campbell writes: "One cannot really begin to appreciate the value of unitedChristian testimony until one is able to stand apart from it, so to speak, and ask whether it ringstrue to the reason and moral sense" (The New Theology, p. 178; cf.Cardinal Newman, "Palmer on Faith and Unity" inEssays Critical and Historical, vol. 1, also,Thomas Harper, S.J.,Peace Through the Truth, London, 1866, 1st Series.)

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