Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 5.djvu/841

FAITH (De utilitate credendi); and it is in the same spirit that he says: "Ego vero Evangelio non crederem, nisi me Catholicæ Ecclesiæ commoveret auctoritas" (Contra Ep. Fund., V, 6—"I would not believe the Gospel if the authority of the Catholic Church did not oblige me to believe").

(b) Naturalism, which is only another name for Materialism, rejects faith because there is no place for it in the naturalistic scheme; yet the condemnation of this false philosophy by St. Paul and by the author of the Book of Wisdom is emphatic (cf. Rom., i, 18-23; Wis., xiii, 1-19). Materialists fail to see in nature what the greatest minds have always discovered in it, viz., "ratio cujusdam artis, scilicet divinæ, indita re- bus, qua ipsæ 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 va- garies of Humanism blind men to the fact of man's essentially finite character and hence preclude all idea of faith in the infinite and the supernatural (cf. "Nat- uralism and Humanism" in "Hibbert Journal", Oct., 1907).

XII. —"He that believeth and is baptized", said Christ, "shall be saved, but he that believeth not shall be condemned" (Mark, xvi, 16); and St. Paul sums up this solemn declaration by saying: "Without faith it is impossible to please God" (Heb., xi, 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 Hun, consequently, due service which we express by the term religion. Now true religion is the true worship of the true God. But it is not for man to fashion a worship according to his own ideals; none but God can declare to us in what true worship consists, and this declaration constitutes the body of revealed truths, whether natural or supernatural. 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 the Reformation 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 the true faith was to be known and put into practice. The attitude of many outside the Church is now one of absolute indifference; faith is regarded as an emotion, as a peculiarly subjective disposition which is regulated by no known psychological laws. Thus Taine speaks of faith as une source vive qui s'est formée au plus profond de l'âme, sous la poussée et la chaleur des instincts immanents"—" a living fountain which has come into existence in the lowest depths of the soul under the impulse and the warmth of the immanent instincts". Indifferentism in all its phases was condemned by Pius IX in the Syllabus "Quanta 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 of salvation and can attain to eternal salvation in any form of religious worship"; XVII, "We can at least have good hopes of the eternal salvation of all those who have never been in the true Church of Christ";

XVIII, "Protestantism is only another form of the same true Christian religion, and men can be as pleasing to God in it as in the Catholic Church."

XIII. —Christ's prayer for the unity of His Church, the highest form of unity conceivable, "that they all may be one, as thou, Father, in me, and I in Thee" (John, xvii, 21), has been brought into effect by the unifying force of a bond of a faith such as that we have analysed. All Christians 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, one baptism, one God and Father of all" (Eph., iv, 3–6). The objective unity of the Catholic Church 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 unchanging God 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 of belief 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 universal human reason as a criterion of truth; thus Mr. Campbell writes: "One cannot really begin to appreciate the value of united Christian testimony until one is able to stand apart from it, so to speak, and ask whether it rings true to the reason and moral sense" ("The New Theology", p. 178; cf. Cardinal Newman, "Palmer on Faith and Unity" in "Essays Critical and Historical", vol. I, also, Thomas Harper, S.J., "Peace Through the Truth", London, 1866, 1st Series.)

I. Patristic. The Fathers in general have never attempted any analysis of faith, and most patristic treatises De fide consist of expositions of the true doctrine to be held. But the reader will have already noticed the precise teaching of on the nature of faith. Besides the gems of thought which are scattered throughout his works, we may refer to his two treatises De Utilitate Credendi and De Fide Rerum quæ non videntur, in P. L., VI, VII.

II. Scholastics.-The minute analysis of faith was worked out by the theologians of the thirteenth century and onwards; they followed mainly the lines laid down by St. Augustine. , Summa, II-II, QQ. i-vii; ''Quæst. Disp., Q. xiv;, De actibus fidei et intellectus et de libertate Voluntatis'' (Paris, 1512); , De fide, spe, et charitate, in Opera, ed. (Paris, 1878), XII;. De virtute fidei dirinæ (Venice. 1718);, Comment, on the Summa, especially on the De Fide, in Opera, ed. (Paris, 1886), VII:, De Fide et Operibus (1532), especially his Commentary on the Summa, II-II, QQ. i-vii.

III. Modern Writers.— The decrees of the Vatican Council, a handy edition by (London, 1907); cf. also ''Coll. Lacensis, VIII; Pius X, Syllabus, Lamentabili Sane'' (1907); In., Encyclical, Pascendi Gregis (1907);, Propedeutica ad Sacram Theologiam (5th ed., Rome, 1906), I, xvi, xvii; Newman, Grammar of Assent, Essay on Development, and especially The Ventures of Faith in Vol. IV of his Sermons, and Peace in Believing and Faith without Demonstration, VI; , Apologie du Christianisme. Fr. tr., V, conf. iv, La Foi, and VI. conf. xxi, La Vie de la Foi:, La Foi et l'acte de Foi (Paris, 1898); , The Groundwork of the Christian Virtues, ch. xiv, The Humility of Faith;, The Light of Life (1889), ii; , The Assent of Faith, taken mainly from , Theologie der Vorzeit, IV, and serving as an introductory chapter to the tr. of, Revealed Religion (1895); , Oxford Conferences on Faith (London, 1905); Implicit Faith, in The Month for April, 1869; Reality of the Sin of Unbelief, ibid., October, 1881; The Conceivable Dangers of Unbelief in Dublin Review, Jan., 1902; in , Dictionnaire de theologic catholique, s. v. Croyance.

IV. Against Rationalist, Positivist, and Humanist Views.— , The Introduction of Rationalistic Principles into Revealed Religion, in Tracts for the Times (1835), republished in Essays Historical and Critical as Essay ii; St. Paul on Rationalism in The Month for Oct., 1877;, The Clothes of Religion, a Reply to Popular Positivism (1886); The Agnosticism of Faith in Dublin Review, July, 1903.

V. The motives of faith and its relation to reason and science. —. The Grounds of Faith (1852, and often since); Faith and Reason in Dublin Review, July, 1889;, Faith and Science in Westminster Lectures (London, 1906); , La credibilité et l'apologétique (Paris, 1908); in , Dictionnaire de theologie catholique, s. v. Crédibilité.

VI. Non-Catholic writers.—Lux Mundi, i. Faith (10th ed., 1890);, Foundations of Belief (2nd ed., 18951; , Essay on Faith (1838), in Aids to Reflection; , Religion as a Credible Doctrine (1903), xii.

VII. Rationalistic Works.-The Do We Believe correspondence, held in the Daily Telegraph, has been published in the form of selections (1905) under the title. A Record of a Great Correspondence in the Daily Telegraph, with Introduction by. Similar selections by the Rationalist Press (1904);. The Life of Reason (3 vols.. London, 1905-06); Faith and Belief in Hibbert Journal, Oct. 1907. Cf. also, ibid., for Jan., 1908, and July, 1906.

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