Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 5.djvu/836

 FAITH

754

FAITH

stated in the " Revue de M^taphysique et de Morale ' ' (March, 1S96, p. 109), and as was suggested more than once m the "Do we believe?" correspondence. The expression is due to TertiJlian, whose exact words are: "Natus est Dei Filius; non pudet, quia pudendum est: et mortuus est Dei Filius; prorsus credibile est, quia inept luu est; et sepultus, resurrexit; certumest, quia impossibile" (De Carne Christi, cap. v). This treatise dates from TertuUian's Montanist days, when he was carried away by his love of paradox. At the same time it is clear that the writer only aims at bring- ing out the wisdom of God manifested in the humilia- tion of the Cross; he is perhaps paraphrasing St. Paul's words in I Cor., i, 25.

(d) Let us now take some concrete act of faith, e. g., "I believe in the Most Holy Trinity." This mystery is the material or individual object upon which we are now exercising our faith, the formal object is its char- acter as being a Divine truth, and this truth is clearly inevident as far as we are concerned ; it in no way ap- peals to our intellect, on the contrarj' it rather repels it. And yet we assent to it by faith, consequently upon evidence which is extrinsic and not intrinsic to the truth we are accepting. But there can be no evi- dence commensurate with such a mysterj' save the Divine testimony itself, and this constitutes the mo- tive for our assent to the mystery, and is, in scholastic language, the ohjcctum formnlc quo of our assent. If, then, we are asked why we believe with Divine faith any Divine truth, the only adequate answer must be, because God has revealed it.

(e) We may point out in this connexion the falsity of the prevalent notion that faith is blind. "We be- lieve", says the Vatican Council (III, iii), " that revela- tion is true, not indeed because the intrinsic truth of the mysteries is clearly seen by the natural light of reason, but because of the authority of God Who re- veals them, for He can neither deceive nor be de- ceived." Thus, to return to the act of faith which we make in the Holy Trinity, we may formulate it in syl- logistic fashion thus: Whatever God reveals is true; but God has revealed the mysterj' of the Holy Trinity; therefore this mystery is true. The major premise is indubitable and mtrinsically evident to reason; the minor premise is also true because it is declared to us by the infallible Church (cf. Faith, Rule of), and also because, as the Vatican Council says, "in addition to the internal assistance of His Holy Spirit, it has pleased God to give us certain external proofs of His revelation, viz. certain Divine facts, especially miracles and prophecies, for since these latter clearly manifest God's onniipotence and infinite knowledge, they af- fonl most certain proofs of His revelation and are suited to the capacity of all". Hence St. Thomas says: "A man would not believe unless he saw the things he had to believe, either by the evidence of miracles or of something similar" (II-II, Q. i, a. 4, ad 1""). The saint is here speaking of the motives of credibility.

IV. Motives op CREoiBiLrrY. — (a) WTien 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 credi- bility 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 between England and America depends solely upon the authoritative position and the veracity of our in- formant. If he be a clerk in a government office it is possiljle that he may have picked up some genuine mformation, but if o"ur informant be the Prime Min- ister of England, his statement has the highest degree of credibility because his credentials are of the highest. When we speak of the motives of credibility of re- vealed truth we mean the evidence that the things

asserted are revealed truths. 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 of God are indubitable, for the very idea of God involves that of omniscience and of the Supreme Truth. Hence, what God says is supremely credible, though not necessarily supremely intelligible for us. Here, however, the real question is not as to the credentials of God or the credi- bility of what He says, but as to the creilibility of the statement that God 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 that God has revealed this or that?

(b) These motives of credibility may be briefly stated as follows: in the Old Testament, considered not as an inspired book, but merely as a book having historical value, we find detailed the marvellous deal- ings of God with a particular nation to whom He re- peatedly reveals Himself; we read of miracles wrought in their favour and as proofs of the truth of the revela- tion He makes; we find the most sublime teaching and the repeated announcement of God 's desire to save the world from sin and its consequences. And more than all we find throughout the pages of this book a series of hints, now obsciu'e, now clear, of some wondrous person who is to come as the world's saviour; we find it asserted at one tune that he is man, at others that he is God Himself. When we turn to the New Testa- ment we find that it records the birth, life, and death of One Wio, while clearly man, also claimed to be God, and Who proved the truth of His claim by His whole life, miracles, teachings, and death, and finally by His triumphant resurrection. We find, moreover, that He founded a Church which should, so He said, continue to the end of tune, which should serve as the reposi- tory of His teaching, and should be the means of ap- plying to all men the fruits of the redemption He had wrought. When we come to the subsequent history of this Church we find it speedily spreading every- where, and this in spite of its humble origin, its un- worldly teaching, and the cruel persecution which it meets at the hands of the rulers of this world. And as the centuries pass we find this Church battling against heresies, schisms, and the sins of her own people — nay, of her own rulers — and yet continuing ever the same, promulgating ever the same doctrine, and put- ting before men the same mysteries of the life, death, antl resurrection of the world's Saviour, \\l\o had, so she taught, gone before to prepare a home for those who while on earth should have believed in Him antl fought the good fight. But if the history of the Church since New-Testament times thus wonderfully confirms the New Testament itself, and if the New Testament so marvellously completes the Old Testa- ment, 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 the Old Testament, and Whose story, as told ui the New Testament, so perfectly cor- responds with its prophetic delineation in the Old Testament, must be what He claimed to be, viz. the Son of God. His work, therefore, must be Divine. The Church which He founded must also be Divine and the repository and guardian of His teaching. In- deed, we can truly say that for every truth of Chris- tianity which we believe Christ Himself is our testi- mony, and we believe in Him because the Divinity He claimed rests upon the concurrent testimony of His miracles. His prophecies. His personal character, the nature of His doctrine, the marvellous propagation of His teaching in spite of its running counter to flesh and blood, the imited testimony of thousands of martyrs, the stories of countless saints who for His sake have led heroic lives, the history of the Church herself since the Crucifixion, and, perhaps more remarkable than