De inspiratione sacrae Scripturae: theologica disquisitio

The material object of faith can be taken in two ways. In one way indeed merely materially, for that which in fact falls under divine revelation, prescinding from the particular end toward which the intention of the one revealing is borne. And thus, to the object of faith indiscriminately and under the same title belong all things whatsoever that are proposed in divinely inspired Scripture (according as and in the respect in which they are proposed, as was said elsewhere), because to all and each of them there is in fact equally applied the formal motive of faith, which is the authority of God speaking. You will not, then, take in this sense the distinction between things that are or are not of faith and morals, as though there were some things in Scripture about which faith ought to be, and others about which it ought not to be, but it would remain free to each one, at his own judgment and pleasure, to believe or disbelieve them. For most certainly, supposing now an inspiration extending itself to all and each of the parts of Scripture, a position of this kind would sound nothing less than open impiety. Unless perhaps someone be so foolish as to say that God is worthy of faith when He reveals the Trinity of persons, and no longer is so when He testifies to any fact whatever belonging to the order of human affairs; which be far from us altogether. Under this consideration, therefore, there neither is nor can be any distinction, difference, or degree, throughout the whole extent of the scope of divine revelation or inspiration, because it is no less an infidelity to disbelieve the least point whose revelation is established than to disbelieve even a primary article among the principal ones.

But now there comes another consideration of the material object, in which account is now had of the intention directing divine revelation or inspiration. For God in revealing stands as in human affairs a teacher to his disciples, and indeed a teacher of some particular discipline. For just as among us one teaches geology, another physics, another mathematics, another medicine, and each one so always conducts himself that whatever is taught by him is taught in relation to the principal object of the science of which he is the doctor and teacher: so too it happens in the revelation of God. Whence it immediately follows that since the things revealed by God are determined to a certain special order of truths, while nevertheless not all and each obtain an equal degree in the aforesaid order, there will now surely be room for certain distinctions in those things that constitute the material object of faith. And although these distinctions do not tend, nor can they tend, to this, that some things be said to be of greater credibility than others, they yet contribute very much to understanding why and how not all things revealed are equally necessary for us to know; and especially why, and for what cause, an infallible means either of preservation or of authentic interpretation ought not to have been provided by God with regard to all things.

It is therefore to be known that the primary object of faith, which they call that of attribution, is God Himself as supernatural end, because under divine revelation and theological faith other things do not fall « except according as they have some order to God, namely as through certain effects of the divinity man is helped to tend toward divine fruition »¹. — This certainly the Apostle teaches us, Heb XI-1, when he says: Now faith is the substance of things to be hoped for. For in whatever way substance is taken there, whether with St. Thomas for that which is the first beginning in us of future beatitude, and the first foundation², or with others for that which even now bestows on the things to be hoped for a certain subsistence in our mind³, it is always true that faith is principally concerned with the object of that beatitude which we ought to hope for; which object is nothing other than God Himself, to be possessed in intuitive vision. — And the same conclusion will also come from those things that are added a little below: He who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder to those who seek Him. For there the Apostle intends that in which the whole doctrine of faith is recapitulated and, as it were, abridged in a compendium. Whence the theologians also by common consent consequently teach that these two things are to be explicitly known and believed by all, even by a necessity of means. But now, what does that mean, that He is, and that He is a rewarder to those who seek Him? Namely, that He is, surely as standing beneath His own revelation, since the discourse is of the necessity of believing; and thereby, that He is under that aspect under which He is proposed to men as an end transcending the order of nature—that order, I say, in which His invisible things are known only through the things that are made and in them. Wherefore it is immediately added: And that He is a rewarder to those who seek Him. A rewarder, namely, of that reward which alone is everywhere announced in the writings of the new testament, and which is the reward of the aforesaid eternal life. If, then, the whole object of faith, taken as a whole, is contained and as it were hinged, both in the divine being as it is an end exceeding nature, and in providence as it extends itself to all things that are dispensed and disposed by God in time for the salvation of men, all things there surely converge upon God the supernatural end, who is therefore most rightly set down as the object of attribution. — And this same thing is excellently confirmed from the fact that we see Scripture, which is a certain repository of revealed truth, begin with the genesis of the world and end in the apocalypse of eternity, comprehending between these two extremes the whole way of the human race in its order to God. For the beginning is in the word of God bringing the universe out of nothing, (Genes. I). The end is in the word of God recalling man to Himself in heavenly glory, (Apocal. XXI-XXII). Finally, the middle part is placed in the formation of morals, and also in the historical as well as dogmatic presentation of the mystery of the incarnation of Christ the Lord, who is at once the way and the term, the term to which one must come and the way by which one comes to the term.

These things being now premised, you will understand without difficulty which are those things that are marked in the Scriptures by the special name of matters of faith and morals. For they are those which were divinely inspired by direct intention, account being had of the scope that God revealing or inspiring set before Himself. I mean all those things that in any way contribute to the knowledge, whether speculative or affective, of the end, and also of the means conducing to the end, for instance the precepts, counsels, sacraments, and finally the whole economy of the kingdom of Christ the Redeemer, from its first preparation immediately after the fall of our first parents, down to its perfect constitution in the Church of the new testament. And although among these there still occurs a distinction between those things that are of the substance of the doctrine and those that are only of its complement, as being ordered only to a more thorough knowledge of the truths of salvation (from which indeed multiple degrees of necessity arise as regards proposition, preaching, knowledge, and explicit faith in the things to be believed), all nevertheless come without any contradiction into the order of those things which the Council of Trent says pertain to the edification of Christian doctrine.

But besides these, there are found in the Scriptures certain things which are asserted to have been inspired not by direct intention, but purely by concomitance, on account of a merely material connection with the rest. I mean those adjuncts which, of themselves altogether indifferent to the doctrine of faith, nevertheless had to coalesce into one body of sacred history, because without them that sacred history could not be written out, at least in a human and connatural way⁴. Think of the many chronological, physical, geographical, genealogical circumstances recorded in the books of the old testament. That Adam according to the Vulgate lived nine hundred and thirty years, Seth nine hundred and twelve, Enos nine hundred and five. That the name of one of the rivers of paradise was Phison, of the other Gehon. That Cain begot Enoch, Enoch Irad, Irad Maviael, etc. Likewise, that Paul left his cloak at Troas, that the Christians came to meet him as he arrived at Rome at the Appian Forum and the Three Taverns, and six hundred other things of this kind. And most certainly, without discussion and as it were a priori, it is established that such things are of a kind that no one is obliged to learn them, and thereby to believe them explicitly. Nay, it is established that there was no necessity that the error of copyists or translators should be prevented by a special assistance of God in the versions or in any transcriptions whatever of the original Scriptures, since an infallible preservation of these was by no means a matter of interest for the utility of the faithful. From this it is also well explained how in the codices or versions of Scripture that we now have in our hands things of different authority can be distinguished, without its being permitted to extend this distinction to the originals themselves, as they came forth from the hagiographers. Finally it is established that in the aforesaid things there is not required the authentic interpretation or proposition of the Church, and that these same things are for this reason contradistinguished in the Council of Trent from matters of faith and morals, as above, in which it is lawful for no one to interpret Scripture against that sense which the holy mother Church has held and holds, or even against the unanimous consent of the Fathers. For although, under the tenor by which they came down from God's inspiration, they are to be called matters of faith, they are not however matters of faith contributing to the edification of Christian doctrine⁵. From this special condition of theirs there finally follows what has just been said: that there was no need, either of a peculiar providence that they should be preserved incorrupt in the editions of Scripture, or of an authentic magisterium that they should be proposed to the knowledge and explicit faith of Christians.

And the distinction indeed between those things which, by an abbreviated formula, are or are not called matters of faith and morals, in the sense we have stated has hitherto been understood, expounded, and handed down by theologians.