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 FAITH

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FAITH

any, the history of the papacy from St. Peter to Pius

(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 the Vatican Council has said, " the Church herself, is, by her marvellous propaga- tion, her wondrous sanctity, her inexhaustible fruit- fulness in good works, her Catholic unity, and her enduring stability, a great and perpetual motive of credibility and an irrefragable witness to her Divine commission" (Const. " DeiFilius"). "The Apostles", says St. Augustine, " saw the Head and believed in the Body; we see the Body, let us believe in the Head" [Sermo ccxliii, 8 (al. cxliii), de temp., P. L., V, 1143]. Every believer will echo the words of Richard of St. Victor, " Lord, if we are in error, by Thine own self we have been deceived ; for these things have been con- firmed by such signs and wontlers in our midst as could only have been done by Thee ! " ( de Trinitate, I, 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 certam knowledge of Divine revelation; but this knowledge precedes faith ; it is not thefinalmotiveforouras.sentto the truths of faith; as St. 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 be- cause it adheres to the testimony of one in whcm truth is infallibly found" (De Veritate, xiv, 8); this knowledge of revealed truth which precedes faith can only beget human faith, it is not even the cause of Divine faith (cf. .Suarez, De Fide, disp. iii, 12), but is rather to be considered a remote disposition to it. We must msist upon this because in the minds of many faith is regarded as a more or less necessary conse- quence of a careful study of the motives of credibility, a view which the Vatican Council condemns expressly: " If anyone says that the assent of Christian faith is not free, but that it necessarily follows from the argu- ments which human reason can furnish in its favour; or if anyone says that Cod's grace is only necessary for that living faith which worketh through charity, let hun be anathema" (Sess. IV). Nor can the mo- tives of credibility make the mysteries of faith clear in themselves, for, as St. Thomas says, "the arguments which induce as 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 beget knowledge of faith's mysteries, but only faith" (in Sent., Ill, xxiv, Q. i, art. 2, sol. 2, ad 4""). On the other hand, we must not minimize the real proba- tive force of the motives of credibility within their true sphere ; " Reason declares that from the very outset the Gospel teaching was rendered conspicuous by signs and wonders which gave, as it were, definite proof of a definite truth "(Leo XIII, "iEterni Patris").

(e) The Church has twice contlenmed the view that faith ultimately rests on an accumulation of probabili- ties. Thus the proposition, "The assent of supernat^ ural faith . . is consistent with merely probable knowledge of revelation", was condemned by Inno- cent XI m 1679 (cf. Denzinger, Enchiridion, 10th ed., no. 1171); and the Syllal)us " Lamentabilisane" (July, 1907) condemns the proposition (XXV) that "the as- sent of faith rests ultimately on an accumulation of probabilities". But since the great name of Newman has been dragged into the controversy regarding this last proposition, we may point out that, in the " Gram- mar of Assent" (chap, x, .sect. 2), Newman refers solely to the proof of faith afforded by the motives of credibility, and he riglitly concludes that, since these are not demonstrative, this line of proof may be termed "an accumulation of probaliilities". But it would be absurd to say that Newman therefore based the final a.ssent 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).

V. Analysis of the Act op Faith froii the Sub-' JECTIVE Standpoint. — (a) The light of faith. — An angel understands truths which are beyond man's comprehension; if then a man were called upon to as- sent to a truth beyontl the ken of the hmnan intellect, but within the grasp of the angelic intellect, 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 a truth beyond the grasp of both men and angels, he would clearly need a still higher light, and this light we term "the light of faith" — a light, because it enables him to as.sent to those supernatural truths, and the light of faith be- cause it does not so illumine those truths 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" (Heb., xi, 1). Hence St. Thomas ("De Veritate", xiv, 9, ad 2"") says: "Al- though 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, 'in God's light we shaU see light' (Ps. xxxv,

(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 of deductive or inductive reasonings, or to intuition of first principles, would be impossible without the light of reason, so, too, assent to a supernatural truth would be inconceivable with- out a supernatural strengthening of the natural light; "Quid est enim fides nisi credere quod noii vides?" (i. e. what is faith but belief in that which thou seest not?) a.sks St. Augustine; but he also says: "Faith has its eyes by which it in some sort sees that to be true 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 a supernatural gift and is not the necessary outcome of assent to the motives of credibility. No amount of study will win it, no intellectual conviction as to the credibility of revealed religion nor even of the claims of the Church to be our infalliljle guide in matters of faith, will produce this light in a man's mind. It is the free gift of God. Hence the Vatican Council (III, iii) teaches that " faith is a supernatural virtue by which we, with the inspiration and assistance of God's grace, believe those things to be true which He has revealed". The same decree 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 way necessary for salvation without the illumination of the Holy Spirit, Who bestows on all a sweetness in believ- ing and consenting to the truth". Thus, neither as re- gards the truth believed nor as regards the motives for believing, 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 tlie intellect assent- ing to a truth which is beyond its grasp, e. g. the mys- tery of the Holy Trinity. Hut to many it will .seem almost as fut ilo to ask the intellect to assent to a propo- sition which is not intrinsically evident as it would be to ask the eye to see a sound. It is dear, however, that the intellect can be moved by the will either to study or not to study a certain truth, though if the