Sect. 38Nature of Theological FaithNature of Theological Faith

I. Theological Faith is assent given to the Word of God in a manner befitting its excellence and power. It is also termed Divine Faith, in opposition to human faith—that is, faith founded on the authority of man; Supernatural Faith, because it leads to supernatural salvation and has God for its Author and Generator; Christian Faith, because its subject-matter is the Revelation made by Christ, and because it is interwoven with the Christian economy of salvation; Catholic Faith, because it is assent to the doctrines proposed by the Catholic Church. These four appellations are not exactly synonymous, but they all designate the same act, though under different aspects.

II. The nature of Theological Faith has been clearly defined by the Vatican Council, sess. iii., chap. 3: “Seeing that man wholly dependeth upon God as his Creator and Lord, and seeing that created reason is entirely subject to Uncreated Truth, we are bound to submit by Faith our intellect and will to God the Revealer. But this Faith, which is the beginning of man’s salvation, the Church confesseth to be a supernatural virtue, whereby, with the help of God’s grace, we believe what He revealeth, not because we perceive its intrinsic truth by the natural light of our reason, but on account of the authority of God the Revealer, Who can neither deceive nor be deceived. For Faith, according to the Apostle, is ‘the substance of things to be hoped for, the evidence of things that appear not’ (Heb. 11:1).”

This definition means (1) that Theological Faith is faith in the strictest sense of the word—that is to say, assent on authority, implying an act of the intellect as well as an act of the will; (2) that it is faith in an eminent degree, because it implies unlimited submission to God’s sovereign authority and an absolute confidence in His veracity, and is therefore an act of religious worship and a theological virtue; and (3) that it is influenced, not only externally by Divine authority, but also internally by Divine Grace, and consequently is supernatural. These three characteristics of Theological Faith distinguish it from all natural knowledge with which the Rationalists confound it, and also from all forms of rational or irrational, instinctive emotional Faith.

The classical text Heb. 11:1, is quoted by the council in confirmation of its teaching. It describes Faith as the act of spiritually seizing and holding fast things that are beyond the sphere of our intellect—things the vision of which is the object of our hope and the essence of our future happiness. It tells us that Faith is a conviction pointing and leading to the future vision, and even anticipating the fruition of it. Hence it implies that Faith, like the future vision itself, is a supernatural participation in the knowledge of God and a likening of our knowledge to His, inasmuch as our Faith has the same subject-matter as the Divine knowledge, and resembles it in its inner perfection. The literal meaning of the text is as follows: “The substance, ὑπόστασις, of things to be hoped for” is a giving in hand, as it were, a pledge and security for the future good gifts, and so a sort of anticipation of their possession; “the evidence ἔλεγχος, of things that appear not, μὴ βλεπομένων,” is an evident demonstration, a clear showing, hence a perfect certitude and conviction, concerning things invisible. These expressions are applicable to the habit of Faith without any figure of speech; to the act of Faith they apply only figuratively as being the result of the giving in hand and the clear manifestation. Moreover, these relations of our Faith to the Beatific Vision bring out, as clearly as the definition of the council, the difference between Theological Faith and every other sort of faith or knowledge.

III. We are now in a position to trace the genesis of Theological Faith. The believer, moved by grace, submits to the authority of God and trusts in God’s veracity, and strives to conform his mental judgment to that of God and to connect his convictions in the closest manner with God’s infallible knowledge. Grace makes this connection so perfect that a most intimate union and relationship are established between the believer’s knowledge and the Divine knowledge; the excellence and virtue of the latter are thus communicated to the former, and mould it into an introduction to and participation of eternal life.

IV. We subjoin some remarks on the use of the term Faith in theological literature. Fides is used to signify either the act (credere, fides quâ creditur); or the principle of the act (gratia fidei, lumen seu virtus fidei); or its subject-matter (fides quæ creditur), especially the collection of creeds, definitions, and the like. A distinction is sometimes drawn between Explicit and Implicit Faith, founded upon the degree of distinctness with which the act of Faith apprehends its subject-matter; also between Formal Faith, which supposes an explicit knowledge of the motive and an express act of the will, and Virtual Faith, which is a habit infused or resulting from repeated acts of Formal Faith, and produces acts of Faith as it were instinctively without distinct consciousness of Formal Faith. The expression Credere Deum signifies belief in God as the subject-matter of the act—”I believe that God exists;” Credere Deo means belief on the authority of God—”I believe what God says;” Credere in Deum implies both of the former meanings—”I believe in God on God’s authority.”