Tractatus de divina traditione et Scriptura

1. Assent is the adhesion or rest of the mind in the object of the judgment as true. In simple apprehension there is no assent.

Assent properly belongs to the intellective faculty; the rest of the will in its object, which is the good, is rather called consent, because the will, to inhere in its object, requires some prior setting-forth of the object through the judgment of the intellect, so that it as it were feels with it. « The will, says St. Thomas, regards some preceding power, namely the intellect, whereas the intellect does not; and therefore to assent properly pertains to the intellect, because it imports absolute adherence to that to which assent is given; but to consent is properly of the will, because to consent is to feel together with another, and thus it is said in order or by comparison to something preceding » S. Th. Veritat. q. 14. a. 1. ad 3.

2. The objective certitude of a thing is the very truth of the thing manifested by those reasons which demand firm assent; or in other words: objective certitude is the worth of the reasons demanding firm assent without fear of error.

Whence subjective certitude in the unqualified sense will be firmness of assent without fear of error corresponding to the objective worth of the reasons by which truth is manifested to the mind ¹.

Merely subjective certitude, moreover, may perhaps be called firmness of assent without fear of error, prescinding from the worth of the reasons (motives) which demand assent.

From this is understood the repugnance of error underlying an assent simply certain. For if the objective and really existing worth of the reasons manifested to the intellect demands firm assent of the mind, and the mind assenting according to the worth of the reasons were still deceived, falsity would inhere in things themselves, which we have seen a little above to be repugnant. For in that hypothesis things themselves would have such a relation to the intellect that by that very manifestation of themselves, by which they are knowable as true, they would demand a false judgment of the intellect. Conversely the intellect, operating according to the order of truth to itself and according to its nature, by which it is made for truth, would be deceived in the very end of its nature, embracing error for truth; nor would it now be ordered to truth, but by the very faculty of knowing the true would be ordered to error — and thus would be not the image of God but a metaphysical contradiction.

Hence certitude is also commonly called the necessary nexus of the judgment with truth. The intellect namely knows certitude reflexively, insofar as it sees the necessary nexus of its judgment with truth; and it sees this very thing because it knows the objective worth of the reasons to require firm assent before any intellect whatever.

3. Objective evidence is the very cognoscibility of the object manifesting itself to the intellect with such clarity as of itself and necessarily to determine assent. Although evidence (ἐναργεία) by the classical authors was perhaps called only that objective clarity, and evident only the object of cognition, by later authors cognition too is said to be evident (as it were seeing), and evidence (as it were a seeing) to be in the intellect.

Subjective evidence, therefore, is the very clarity of intellection with necessity of assent corresponding to objective evidence.

4. With this laid down we can now declare the origin of subjective certitude. I say that certitude in the unqualified sense — which alone is true certitude — arises in two ways: naturally indeed from the mode in which the worth of the reasons manifests itself to the mind; supernaturally also from the special mode in which the mind tends to truth or assents to truth.

We explain the former mode thus. Certitude can be generated naturally from the evidence of the truth, and also apart from the evidence of the very truth which is rendered certain. The worth of the reasons (the formal motive) demanding firm assent can indeed be manifested to the intellect in two ways: a) so that the clarity of the manifestation of itself determines and carries away assent to the very truth which is manifested by the reasons; and consequently the truth manifested to the mind is evident, whereby the very possibility of fear, whether prudent or imprudent, is excluded. b) The manifestation can be such that before any intellect whatever the worth of the reasons demands firm assent, yet does not carry away assent to the manifested truth, in that it excludes indeed the possibility of prudent fear of error, but not of imprudent fear. On this hypothesis the intellect therefore remains of itself indeterminate between the firm assent to be given to the truth, corresponding to the known worth of the reasons, and the negation of such assent. But the determination of a faculty of itself undetermined to one side belongs to the will. The will has a most sufficient motive to incline the intellect to firm assent and to exclude imprudent fear — or, as it is commonly said, to command the firm assent of the intellect. The will, I say, has a most sufficient motive for commanding firm assent in this very thing: that the intellect exhibits to it the worth of the reasons which demands firmness of assent; and this good of right order has moreover often joined with it other goods most efficacious for moving the will ². The will, moreover, remains free to command or not to command assent, because consent is not proposed to it by the intellect as a clearly known absolute good. If therefore the will inclines the intellect not to the firm assent demanded by the worth of the reasons or formal motive, but on account of some apparent good rather to the denial of assent, the order of the intellect to truth as its end and the right order of the will to the good are violated more lightly or more gravely — namely according as and insofar as the proposed truth and the manifesting motives induce an obligation of assenting of greater or lesser gravity and necessity. From this it is anew understood what I have already said above: that firm assent corresponding to the objective worth of the reasons, although given freely, has a necessary nexus with truth, and so is assent simply certain.

Further from what has been said it is understood that all evident cognition is also certain, yet not all certain cognition is necessarily evident. Certitude therefore extends more widely than evidence of truth. Nevertheless in all cognition which is certain from the very mode of manifestation of the reasons, some evidence is necessarily present, namely the evidence of the worth of the reasons.

5. I said in the second place that certitude can supernaturally arise from the very mode in which the intellect tends to its object. This, however, is not to be so understood as if supernatural assent could not be — and of itself had to be — objectively certain also from the mode of manifestation, by which either the truth is in itself evident to the supernaturally elevated intellect or the worth of the reasons demanding firmness of assent is evident — one or other of which we have said to be always necessary for natural certitude. But I say that supernatural certitude, i. e. the necessary nexus of cognition with truth, arises from the supernatural mode in which the mind supernaturally elevated tends to its object, even if the worth of the reasons were not manifested in such a way as before any intellect whatever to demand firm assent. This we now explain.

From the manifested worth of the reasons which demands firm assent, and from the firmness of assent corresponding to the worth of the reasons, there is constituted certitude in the unqualified sense, because such assent has a necessary nexus with truth, nor can error ever underlie it. But this is true if the manifested worth of the reasons absolutely excludes, and before any intellect whatever, the possibility of prudent fear, and demands firmness of assent. If, however, the manifestation be such that not before any intellect whatever but only before some intellect, and as it were per accidens, it excludes prudent fear, then such assent does not have a necessary nexus with truth, nor is it repugnant that error underlie it, so long as the act of assent is elicited by the natural powers of the intellect. But if the subjective act of assent proceeds from a supernatural interior principle, and therefore of its nature can never be elicited with error supposed, but only by adhering to truth, then such assent intrinsically and from its own nature has a necessary nexus with truth; and if such assent exists, it is altogether repugnant that error underlie it.

Whence firm supernatural assent corresponding to the worth of a motive so manifested that before this determinate intellect — though not before any intellect whatever — it excludes prudent fear, is simply certain; yet in the same circumstances natural assent would not be certain simply. The reason of the difference is that firm natural assent does not of its nature exclude the possibility of error, but only insofar as its firmness corresponds to the manifestation of the motives which evidently, and before any intellect whatever, excludes prudent fear; whereas supernatural assent from its very nature excludes the possibility of error, even if the manifestation of the motive is per accidens so constituted that not before any whatever but yet before this determinate intellect it excludes prudent fear. The supernatural mode of the act therefore supplies what is per accidens lacking to the mode of objective manifestation for constituting certitude simply. Why moreover a manifestation excluding prudent fear before at least this determinate intellect is required is easily seen. For an imprudent assent could not be supernatural.

We do not yet treat of supernatural faith; but since all this of itself looks to the declaration of the very act of faith, nor is any other example at hand of such supernatural assent, we apply the principles set forth to the act of faith, so that considered in the concrete they may be more easily understood. Without doubt the motive of faith — namely the authority of God and the speech of God, or the authority of God revealing these determinate truths — is manifested of itself, and can in the Catholic Church easily be applied to individual believers in such a way that before any intellect whatever the very mode of manifestation excludes the possibility of prudent fear; and therefore the worth of the reasons demanding a most firm corresponding assent is simply evident. Nevertheless for the unlearned the objective manifestation sometimes so stands that not before any intellect whatever, but yet before them, it excludes prudent fear. Then indeed it is not from the mode of manifestation that it is repugnant for error too to be proposed under such a mode; yet error is repugnant in the act of faith, which is a theological virtue, from the very proper character of supernatural assent.

« The assent of faith, says Card. de Lugo, has certitude and infallibility first of all from its principle (by which it is elicited), which, since it is a supernatural habit or an aid supplying for a habit, requires the concurrence of God for true assents alone. Then it has infallibility from the formal object, at least proximate, which we have said to be the mediated revelation of God taken adequately... since it is no less repugnant for God to deceive through others than through Himself immediately. Speaking of the proposition of the parish priest, for example: although taken in itself it does not have an infallible connexion with the truth of the revealed thing, it may still be said that, as it is attained by the assent of faith, it has infallibility. For although the parish priest can propose what is false, faith (habitual) nevertheless requires that God concur to its assent only when the parish priest proposes true revelation — and this suffices for the infallibility of faith » Lugo de Fide disp. I. sect. 8. n. 171. To the same point belongs what the same Cardinal says disp. VI. sect. 1. n. 21. « Note, he says, that it is not even required for certain assent that the object be so proposed that it can prudently be judged that under such a grade of motives nothing false can be proposed; for this judgment in the unlearned would for the most part be false before the assent of faith, since sometimes with equal motives something false is proposed to them as pertaining to faith... Whence we have said it to be required, and to suffice, that the object be so proposed that it can evidently be judged to be incompatible here and now with prudent doubt — a judgment which is given even in the rustic before the act of faith;... for it is evident to him that the object to be believed is so proposed that here and now he himself cannot prudently dissent or doubt concerning the truth of the object. »

Corollary 1. Not every assent given without fear of error is an assent simply certain.

Corollary 2. Although certitude negatively considered, insofar as it is the exclusion of actual fear, has no diverse grades, there can nevertheless, with the positive elements considered, be diverse grades both of objective certitude as to the worth of the reasons, and of subjective certitude as to the firmness of adherence. There is therefore no exclusion of comparison between greater and lesser certitude, which for the rest is common among theologians.