Tractatus de divina traditione et Scriptura

We can indeed know a truth not only inasmuch as it manifests itself to our intellect, through internal reasons, immediately or mediately in itself; but also from an external reason, inasmuch as we are rendered certain that it is known as true by some other intellect. Thus anyone, even one altogether without astronomical science, can know a future eclipse of the sun, inasmuch as he is rendered certain that it is known by astronomers as about to occur from fixed and (physically) immutable laws. The knowledge of the astronomer is knowledge of the truth in itself, from the causes seen through, and so is science from internal reasons; the knowledge of the unlearned man rests solely on the foreknown science and truthfulness of the astronomers. Although the science of the astronomers may be said to be connected with the future eclipse as the posterior with the prior, this foreknown connection does not, however, effect that the unlearned man understands the truth (that there will be an eclipse at such an hour) in itself, why it is so and how it is so; but for his intellect that authority of the astronomers is an external reason for knowing the existence of the object to which they testify.

This mode of knowledge is not science and understanding of the truth in the proper sense, because it does not read within, as the Scholastics are wont to say; but it is faith, because, trusting in the science and truthfulness of another, it gives assent to a truth, which assent itself is signified by the verb to believe. Inasmuch as the formal object is regarded, we believe someone; inasmuch as it is assent to the material object, we believe something ¹. Comprehending both we are said to believe in someone; but this is not properly said except in relation to the first truth which is God, inasmuch as by faith in God we tend toward Him as toward the supreme truth and the ultimate end; whence also in the Creed we believe in God, and we believe the holy Church (cf. S. Th. 2. 2. q. 1. a. 9. ad 5.). See on this whole manner of distinguishing Gregor. Nazianz. or. 31. (al. 37.) n. 6; Rufinum in Symbol. n. 36; s. Aug. in Io. tract. 29; serm. 144. c. 2; theologos in 3. dist. 23; in S. Th. 2. 2. q. 2. a. 2.

As therefore in the intellect specifically so called the formal object or motive of assent is the internal reason of the true immediately manifesting itself to the intellect, and in science specifically so called the formal object is principles a priori or at least a posteriori manifesting the truth to be known intrinsically and in itself, though mediately and through another; so the formal object or motive of assent in faith is the foreknown science and truthfulness (authority) of another, which, because it does not render the truth intelligible in itself for the intellect assenting, is for that intellect an external reason demanding assent to the truth. Faith, therefore, taken generically, is assent to the object of a judgment as true, given on account of the authority of one testifying. Cf. S. Th. de Verit. q. 14. a. 1.

2. It is established from what has been said that the knowledge of a truth to be believed is, from the very nature of faith, always mediated; we know, namely, the truth to be believed as the material object through another foreknown truth as through the formal object, by which the former is manifested as to be believed.

There is therefore presupposed to every assent of faith (whether natural or supernatural, whether of divine or of human faith) a manifold knowledge. For there is prerequired a) knowledge that the other neither errs in his acquaintance with or science of the truth, nor deceives in his manifestation of it; b) knowledge of the existence of such a manifestation; c) that in some way, if not distinctly at least confusedly, the sense of the testimony be understood; which cannot be done unless the mind apprehend, by at least analogical concepts, the very things signified by the external or internal terms or words. It is manifest, moreover, that these very prerequisite knowledges, namely in divine faith, i.e. to be rendered on account of the authority of God speaking, suppose the mind already informed by many ideas and intellectual principles. Whence the doctrine of those is evidently repugnant who think that either the first knowledge of the human mind, as the condition for explaining the use of reason and as the foundation of all certitude, or altogether all certain knowledge, must be derived from faith, in which the formal object and motive of assent is authority whether divine or human (the authority of the consensus, as they think, of the human race). As regards divine faith, hither pertains the proposition subscribed by order of the Holy See (8. Sept. 1840. and 11. Iunii 1855.): « The use of reason precedes faith, and leads man to it with the help of revelation and grace. » Cf. Encycl. S. P. Pii IX. 9. Nov. 1846.

Corollary 1. Faith differs from science by its formal object, by which the material object is manifested and on account of which it is to be believed, and consequently by its mode of knowledge. Nor does it follow thence, however, that there cannot be some science of faith, namely of the divine faith which is believed. For there can be a science of the foundations of faith; and, faith being supposed, there can be some science of the very truths of faith, while some are assumed as principles for understanding others as consequent upon them; and finally the truths of faith can serve as principles for understanding more fully and more profoundly other truths which of themselves are not of faith. Cf. Concil. Vatican. Constit. de Fide cap. 4. This science of divine faith is sacred theology, which according to its accidental form, and according to its amplitude and even profundity, can be various in various ages, yet simply can never fail in the Church of God, because the guardians of the faith are by divine institution also teachers of the faith, and because from the sweet divine providence the human element is required for the custody of the deposit under the assistance of the Holy Spirit by this very fact, that the Church is governed not by perpetual new revelations and inspiration properly so called, but through the assistance of the Holy Spirit (de Tradit. th. XXV.).

Corollary 2. The Rationalists, of all the most diverse classes, can admit no faith which would be assent on account of the authority of God revealing, since they deny the very foundation, namely revelation. When, therefore, many of them are nevertheless loud in commending religious faith, they necessarily pervert its essential notion. They distinguish faith as it is in the common run of men, as knowledge of religious truths under symbolic coverings without scientific knowledge and therefore in the lowest grade; then the rational faith which others call metaphysical, as it is in learned men and philosophers, faith already refined and elevated to science. Since therefore this faith, to which alone they attribute pure truth, is nothing else than the science of divine things pertaining to religion, according to the diverse account by which they explain religion and the science of divine things, they hand down ever different definitions of religious faith. For the speculative Rationalists there is in its full truth no other faith than speculative science; whence for the pantheists the supreme perfection of religion and the ultimate refinement of faith consists in this, that man knows himself to be identical with God. The Kantians acknowledged no faith other than the approval of religious (moral) ideas on account of practical exigency, that man may preserve his own dignity. Those called Pietists place faith in a certain religious sense of soul or interior sensible experience, which is traced back to a certain blind instinct, whether fanatics derive it from the Holy Spirit (Methodists, Quakers etc.), or rationalistically place it in a certain vague sense of dependence, which, cohering with rational nature, is said to be the one essential mark of true religion (Schleiermacher). The Rationalists called vulgar say that faith in general is the assent of the mind to an object which is understood to be true not immediately in itself but mediately from demonstration; whence they declare religious faith to be the persuasion of reason concerning divine things (Wegscheider Instit. §. 2. et alii plurimi.)

Little different from these, as regards the very notion of faith, is the doctrine of George Hermes. For he calls every firm persuasion induced by constraining reasons, theoretical or practical, faith in the proper sense. « Excluding false credulity, he says, even that which by accident believes what is true, but according to reason is no less worthy of reprehension, the definition of faith must be this: faith is in us the state of certitude or persuasion concerning the truth of the thing known, into which state we are brought through the necessary assent of theoretical reason or through the necessary consent of practical reason. This rational faith is the supreme end of all philosophy, the one true norm of man in this life, and the necessary condition for his elevation » (Hermes Introd. philos. in theolog. p. 259.).

Other recent writers call faith the immediate knowledge of truths which have not been deduced and demonstrated from principles at least logically prior. In inverted order others (namely the Güntherians) signify by the same name of faith the knowledge of the cause from the effect, of the ontological foundation from phenomena, of what is ontologically prior from what is posterior; namely what is called faith by them is nothing else than science a posteriori. Such knowledge of the cause from the effect, where it has religious truths for its object, they think to be that faith by which we are named and are faithful. Thus one of them (in Lexico Ecclesiastico Friburg. T. IV. p. 522.). « What is faith in the sublimest sense? Faith is the apprehension of those things which underlie phenomena and experience. The Christian knows and believes the existence of God, while he beholds His majesty and divinity in the universe. » But this is certainly not the virtue of Christian faith; nay, knowledge of the cause from even supernatural effects, formally as it is an inference of reason, is not faith properly so called; but it pertains under one account to science, under another account to the motives of credibility, and again under another to the foundations of faith (Tract. de Deo th. VIII.).

In all these theories the formal object of divine faith, namely that the assent is on account of the authority of God revealing, is removed, another formal object, that of science, being substituted for it. By this very fact the essential character of faith properly so called, which is a theological virtue, is wholly perverted, and in place of the Christian there is introduced a philosophical faith, if it please to call that science, improperly and from some analogy, faith. Vide Conc. Vatican. Constit. de Fide cap. 3. can. 2.

There is indeed, between the twofold mode of knowledge which, as we have said, is called faith by these recent writers, and faith properly so called, some analogy, which could have been the cause of the interchange of the name. For as to the former mode, where immediate understanding of truth is called by the name of faith, there is some analogy in this, that just as the immediately evident truth, so the truth of the word of God is not demonstrated from another ontologically prior principle. In this sense faith is called by Clement of Alexandria « grace leading from indemonstrables to the principle of the universe » Strom. 1. II. p. 364; l. VII. p. 757. 772. cf. inter Opp. s. Basil. comment. in Ps. 115. n. 1. The other mode, namely knowledge of the cause from effects, can be compared with faith, in that just as substance as the ontological principle manifests itself in its phenomena and operations, and from these manifestations we understand it (ἐκ τῶν φαινομένων το νοούμενον) cf. S. Th. 2. 2. q. 8. a. 1; so God manifests Himself and His truth in the word of the hearing of faith, and from this we know God. Further, just as knowledge of substance from its phenomena is direct and in a qualified sense immediate, as far as can be done for the present condition, yet in comparison with intuition of substance in itself is imperfect and mediated knowledge; so knowledge through faith in comparison with knowledge of God from creatures is more direct and immediate, but in comparison with intuitive vision is itself also mediated and imperfect « through a glass in a dark manner » 1. Cor. XIII. 12. But such analogies do not remove the essential distinction between faith and the rational knowledge of the cause from the effect, according to the formal object; which distinction is much greater still, if faith formally inasmuch as it is supernatural be compared with natural knowledge, of which matter there is no place to speak now. The name of faith, therefore, can be judged common to each mode of knowledge not univocally but only analogically.