Tractatus de Deo uno secundum naturam

On the existence of God as revealed and therefore to be believed by faith.

« The existence of God is known not only by the light of reason, but has also been proclaimed by the revealed word of God; wherefore the same thing is, under one aspect, a preamble of faith, and under another aspect a truth of faith, to be believed on account of the authority of God revealing it, whose act of faith is hindered neither by the evidence of rational knowledge nor by the priority of the knowledge of God as revealer, which by nature precedes every formal act of faith and is presupposed to it in the manner of a foundation. »

I. In the preceding thesis we considered the supernatural facts, the fulfilled prophecies, the wonderful conversion of the nations, the supernatural charisms, etc., as a means of knowing God, insofar as reason itself demands, from the effect, or rather from the complex of effects of greatest intensity and widest extent, a cause and perfections of the cause corresponding to the effect; and in this sense we said that the whole supernatural, just as the natural, can metaphorically be called the doctrine and speech of God. But if that whole objective supernatural manifestation is viewed in relation to its immediate purpose and according to its most proper character, it readily appears that it constitutes not only metaphorically¹, as the objective guidance to the knowledge of God, doctrine and speech, but in the proper sense an essential element of the word and revelation of God ². For those supernatural facts are a kind of royal apparatus by which the words themselves are adorned as the words of God; they are the seal of divinity with which the words are marked, and by which the doctrine proposed in words is shown to be evidently credible and to be believed; and thus the facts and the words together constitute one speech of God. Compare the analysis of the act of faith in the Appendix to the Treatise on Tradition. Thus the composite speech of God is expressed everywhere in Scripture: « Salvation first began to be declared through the Lord.... God bearing witness with signs and wonders Heb. II. 3. 4; if you will not believe me, believe the works Io. X. 38; Lazarus is dead, and I rejoice for your sake, that you may believe » etc. Io. XI. 15. « For our faith is not established except by hearing and by sight, » says St Maximus (or another ancient author, serm. in Epiphan. n. 3. in Append. Opp. Ambros. serm. 10. ed. Maur.)

But God's speech does not now present the truth to the intellect so that it may understand it in itself; rather it is so that it may believe it by supernatural faith, on account of the authority of God revealing. The object (material) of this faith therefore is all and only those things which are stated explicitly or implicitly in God's speech. Now the doctrine of God's existence is stated in God's word in many ways: first indeed directly, from the intrinsic nature of speech in any revelation; then also reflexively, and from the meaning of the words, whether when God reveals himself as eternal, necessarily existing, Exod. III. 14. 15; Apoc. I. 4. 8; IV. 8. etc., or when it is expressly commanded: « he who comes to God must believe that he is » Heb. XI. 6. In this text of the Apostle, on account of some disagreements among theologians, who speak somewhat differently on this question, two things should be noted. a) The discourse there is about faith, which is the foundation of justification, as the Council of Trent itself declared, Trid. sess. VI. cap. 6.; and therefore faith cannot be understood in a wider sense, as persuasion and knowledge of God derived from some source other than revelation (cf. Propos. 23. among those condemned by Innocent XI in the year 1679.). b) By the Apostle, faith in God's existence is commanded as a truth distinct from the other articles of faith.

Therefore, without doubt, the existence of God is contained in the revealed word of God, and consequently is to be believed by supernatural faith.

II. The evident demonstration of the existence of God, and the knowledge proceeding from the light of reason, in no way hinders the intellect, illumined and strengthened by the supernatural light of faith, from assenting to that same truth on account of the authority of God revealing, at the command of the will supernaturally moved. For although a) the material object is one and the same, its knowability is nevertheless twofold: one from the mediate evidence or certainty which is made known by demonstration, the other from divine testimony; by the former the truth is referred to reason to be understood, by the latter to the supernatural habit of faith to be believed. Hence it follows that the same material object, under that aspect of knowability in which it is affected by the authority of God revealing, which is extrinsic to it, is indeed objectively certain but not evident, and so the assent to the truth under this formal aspect is free; but under the other aspect of knowability it can be evident, and therefore the assent to the truth is necessary and independent of the free choice of the will. Hence it is further understood how the object of faith, under its formal aspect, is not apparent, and how faith, even in those things which are otherwise evident, is a conviction³ and « the proof of things not seen (πραγμάτων ἔλεγχος οὐ βλεπομένων) Heb. XI. 1. And likewise it is understood that a man who evidently knows that God exists can indeed not deny the existence of God, yet can deny faith in the existence of God, that is, assent to this truth on account of the authority of God speaking; because that God has spoken is indeed objectively most certain, but not so evident that assent or dissent does not depend on the free command of the will. b) In each assent the principle eliciting rational understanding and the principle eliciting faith do not stand in the same way; for rational assent can be from the mere light of nature, while assent of faith is elicited by supernatural powers. Therefore c) each assent is of a different order, both as to its formal motive and as to its subjective eliciting principle.

Now acts of this kind, which refer to the same material object but under a different formal reason, are in no way incompatible in the same man who both knows and believes. « Faith and knowledge, says B. Albertus M. 3. dist. 24. a. 9, are about the same thing but not according to the same, and so the one does not nullify the other... Faith, however, does not assent on account of reason (demonstrating the truth of the thing in itself), but reason there is under faith, and likewise knowledge. » And Alexander of Hales, 3. P. q. 68. m. 7. a. 3.: « in a philosopher, he says, coming to faith, the same thing is known and believed, but known in comparison to reason, believed in comparison to the first truth on which it rests for its own sake; it is known as to speculation, but believed as to this, that it rests on the first truth. » The same opinion is that of St Bonaventure, 3. dist. 24. a. 2. q. 3: « it can be said that, when someone is at once knowing and believing, the habit of faith holds the primacy in him, and therefore with such an assent of faith he assents to the truth itself for its own sake, so that propter signifies the reason principally moving him (i.e. he assents on account of the authority of God, the first truth); by an assent of knowledge he also assents to the same on account of the reason, so that propter does not signify the reason principally moving him... so that the one is principal, the other subordinate. » Cf. Gregor. de Valentia in S. Th. 2. 2. disput. I. Puncto 4. §. 2; Suarez de fide disp. III. sect. 9; Card. de Lugo de fide disp. II. sect. 2; Card. de Aguirre Theol. S. Anselmi T. I. disp. VII. As for St Thomas, Cardinal Aguirre, l. c. sect. 5, has tried to show from those passages read at 2. 2. q. 5. a. 1 that the knowledge of vision in the homeland is the only one with which the holy Doctor taught that faith cannot coexist; and that he can be probably explained in this way, Cardinal de Lugo also indicates, l. c. n. 59. But the teaching of the Angelic Doctor at 2. 2. q. 1. a. 4. 5. and de verit. q. 14. a. 9 certainly seems contrary; nor does the passage to which both Cardinals appeal teach anything other than that among the angels, in the state of the wayfarer, there could be and was faith, although they understood more truths and more perfectly than we do; yet he does not teach that, concerning the same truths of which the angels had evident knowledge, faith was also present at the same time. Nay, in the very place cited by Cardinal Aguirre, 2. 2. q. 5. a. 1, the holy Doctor (in the body of the article, at the end) seems rather to imply the opposite. We confess, therefore, that in this question we do not dare to appeal to the authority of St Thomas⁴.

III. What we have said so far about all the other truths that can be known both by the light of reason and by revelation applies equally to the existence of God. But in this foremost truth there is, moreover, a particular difficulty: how it can be believed by faith on account of the authority of God speaking, since the very foundation of the act of faith is already the knowledge, and supernatural knowledge, of the existence of God. For the authority of God speaking can move me to believe only insofar as I already know that God exists; and that knowledge itself must be supernatural, for the act of faith to be supernatural. When therefore I say: « I believe that God exists, because God, who is infinitely truthful, has said that he exists, » in this very formal motive of believing, the existence of God is already affirmed, and it cannot be a motive for me to believe unless insofar as in it I already embrace the existence of God as certain. An indirect answer to this difficulty lies ready to hand. For if the act of faith were excluded on this ground, that before the act of faith there is necessarily presupposed the firmest assent to the existence of God, it would follow that faith in the existence of God would be impossible, not only for those who have evident knowledge of God's existence through demonstration, but absolutely, by its nature, and so for all the faithful. How alien this is to Christian ears, no one fails to understand. For Christians, when they profess: « I believe in God, » have in mind that they believe in God simply, and not only according to the mysteries and attributes which are added afterwards in the Creed. See the explanations of the Creed by the Fathers in Greg. de Valentia, l. c.

The direct answer must be sought from the analysis of the act of faith, which we have given elsewhere. In every act of faith these are included, at least implicitly and virtually, as elements: a proposition known immediately, either evidently or obscurely: if God speaks, he is infinitely truthful, who can neither be deceived nor deceive; the other proposition: God has revealed this, e.g. the Trinity of the divine persons. Looking at the marks and that whole apparatus of the motives of credibility by which speech presents itself as divine, or, looking at the speech with all its components (see n. I.), I understand with certainty, though not evidently in such a way as to remove freedom, that this word is God's. But as to each of these propositions, insofar as it is, as it were, a premise to the act of faith, assent is not given from the motive of the authority of God speaking, or because God has said that he is infallible and that he has revealed this truth, e.g. the Trinity; rather we assent insofar as each truth is presented to the intellect in itself. Nevertheless each assent, when it enters into the act of faith itself, is elicited by supernatural powers added through grace to the intellect and the will, so that the firmness of the adherence is what it ought to be: supernatural, and above all things (see Card. de Lugo, De Fid. disp. 1. sect. 6. and 7.). Finally, thirdly, there follows assent to the proposed truth itself, e.g. to the Trinity, on account of the authority of God revealing; this is the formal act of faith, elicited with supernatural firmness of assent by the powers of elevating grace, which both illumines the intellect and above all moves and strengthens the free will⁵.

Now if in this analysis you substitute for the proposition « God is three in persons » this other: « God exists; » then in the first and the second of the three propositions this very existence of God is indeed affirmed implicitly or indirectly; but there the assent is not given by believing on account of the authority of God revealing his existence, but by understanding it in the objective fact of such a speech, by which God shows himself existing to the intellect; in the third proposition the existence of God is affirmed reflexively and explicitly from the formal motive of the infallible word of God. Hence in this act of faith: « The infallible God has revealed that he exists; therefore on account of his authority, and out of reverence for it and with a pious affection of faith, I believe that God exists, » there is indeed a double assent to the existence of God, but in a different manner and from a different motive; the former is implicit and not on account of the authority of the one speaking; the latter, which is the formal act of faith, is explicit and on account of the authority of God speaking. And so I assent reflexively under one aspect to the truth which I already know under another aspect, namely on account of the infinite authority of God speaking, to whom this supreme obedience of faith and of latria is owed by his creature.

Therefore intellectual and supernatural knowledge of the existence of God is presupposed to the act of faith by which we believe God's existence on account of the authority of God, who reveals his own existence. But since assent to a truth from one motive does not exclude another assent to the same truth from a different motive, that prior and presupposed intellectual knowledge does not exclude a formal act of faith in the same existence of God, which is given out of the due and absolute obedience of the rational creature toward the supreme truth and the authority speaking. Yet in this due obedience there is at the same time contained the answer to the question what the purpose is, and what the necessity or the usefulness of this faith in the existence of God is, if that existence is already presupposed as known; and this from what has been said of knowledge raised by grace.