Tractatus de divina traditione et Scriptura

ON THE ACT OF DIVINE FAITH.

1. Every assent of our intellect is either immediate, where the objective truth is manifested to the intellect from itself, and not through another truth precognized, or it is a mediate assent, where the truth is manifested not through itself, but through another truth precognized. Mediated knowledge of truth, therefore, can have place only insofar as it rests upon another truth precognized as upon a principle; and thus unless there be some truth immediately known, upon which as upon a principle the subsequent mediate knowledges rest, no knowledge at all (through judgment) can have place (see above, ch. II). The declaration of what, in each mediate knowledge, that immediately known truth is, is and is called the resolution of knowledge into its principles.

Every assent of faith properly so called is necessarily mediate, and thus bound up with another, immediate assent to some truth which is the principle or formal object on account of which the assent of faith is rendered (above, ch. II. §. III). The inquiry, therefore, into and the determination of the immediately known truth, to which assent is no longer rendered on account of another distinct formal motive, and which is the formal motive of the assent of divine faith, is called the analysis of the act of faith or the resolution of the assent of faith into its (intrinsic) principles.

2. The revealed truth which we believe, e. g. that there are three divine persons, is the material object of faith. The assent to the revealed truth rests upon another truth precognized. This, however, is twofold: a) that God is infallible in knowing and in revealing (infinite knowledge and veracity, which, as the infinite majesty and dignity to which assent is due, is called in one word the authority of God); and b) that God has revealed this truth to be believed, e. g. the Trinity of persons. Each complex together is called and is the authority of God revealing. This authority of God revealing, therefore, is the reason on account of which belief is given, or is the formal object of divine faith.

Every act of divine faith, therefore, necessarily includes assent to three truths distinct from each other: to the revealed truth itself (in the material object), which is the formal act of faith; to the authority of God, and to the existence of such a divine revelation, which latter assent to each of these two truths can be called the assent to the principles of faith. Whether now this act be a twofold distinct act, or one complex act having for its object the authority of God revealing this or that; there is always required, at least prior in reason, the knowledge of this twofold truth. For neither the authority of God considered in itself, unless it be considered in the revelation of this determinate truth, nor the existence of revelation, unless it be known as of a God infallible in knowing and in revealing, can be the reason for believing with divine faith this revealed truth as such. Hence in every act of faith there is, as they say, a virtual discourse, or an assent to one truth on account of another twofold truth precognized, to which the assent either explicitly precedes, or is implicitly included in the very act of faith.

3. Concerning this matter there never ought to have been, and much less after the definitions of the holy Vatican Council, ought there to be disputation among Catholic men. For what? Is it not evident that faith in God revealing this or that truth, e. g. the Most Holy Trinity or the incarnation of the Word, can in no way be rendered, unless the assent of the mind to this revealed article be rendered on account of authority, i.e. on account of the infinite truth (in knowing and in speaking) of God revealing this very article to be believed? Do not all catechisms teach, and have not all the faithful always and everywhere elicited and do they not elicit the act of faith in this one way: I believe this proposed thing, this article, e. g. that there are three divine persons, that the Word is incarnate, because God, the infinite truth, who can neither be deceived nor deceive, has revealed this very thing? The definition of the holy Council is so lucid that no place is left for ambiguity. « Faith, which is the beginning of human salvation, the Catholic Church professes to be a supernatural virtue by which, with God breathing upon and helping by grace, we believe the things revealed by Him to be true, not on account of the intrinsic truth of things seen by the natural light of reason, but on account of the authority of God Himself revealing, who can neither be deceived nor deceive. » « If anyone shall have said that divine faith is not distinguished from natural knowledge concerning God and moral things, and therefore that it is not required for divine faith that the revealed truth be believed on account of the authority of God revealing; let him be anathema » (Vatican Council, sess. III. ch. 3 and can. 2 on Faith).

Now it is indeed evident that these three things to which the act of faith is said to be referred—the revealed thing, e. g. the incarnation of the Word; the authority of God who can neither be deceived nor deceive; the fact of God actually revealing, or the fact of revelation—are three truths wholly distinct from each other. Further it is declared: we believe the revealed thing to be true; we therefore render the assent of the mind to one of those three distinct truths, on account of the other two truths, namely on account of the authority of God Himself revealing, who can neither be deceived nor deceive; not on account of the authority of the infallible God considered only in itself, nor on account of the fact of revelation considered apart from the authority of the infallible God, but on account of the authority of God revealing, who namely not only can reveal truths, but actually reveals this truth to be believed, so that the authority of God, of infinite and substantial truth, as it were informs the fact of revelation, or the word of God.

For a) to the infinite truth considered only in itself neither ought nor can any other assent of the mind be rendered in order to revelation than this universal one: whatever God the truth shall have revealed is necessarily true and to be believed by the created reason wholly subject to the uncreated truth. This, however, with the fact of revelation not yet supposed, is in the end a conditional assent: if God the truth reveal anything, it is necessarily true and to be believed; but in no way is it or can it be an absolute assent to this or that truth, e. g. to the Trinity of persons or the incarnation of the Word. Hence St. Thomas concedes that even unbelievers hold « that God (if He speaks) speaks nothing but the truth »; but he places the distinction between the believer and the unbeliever in this, that the unbeliever « does not believe God speaking (actually) in man » (3. dist. 23. q. 2. sol. 2. ad 3). Likewise the Angelic Doctor joins, as one included in the other, these two: « to adhere to the testimony of God speaking, in which the truth is infallibly found; » and « to adhere to the truth which consists in the divine knowledge » (St. Th. De Verit. q. 14. a. 8. O). On the other hand, therefore, b) the reason for believing with divine faith (as is evident of itself) neither is nor can be conceived to be testimony, unless formally considered as the revelation or word of God Himself. « I have given them Thy word... sanctify them in the truth, Thy word is truth... yet I ask not for these only, but also for those who shall believe in Me through their word » ¹ (through the word which was given to them by Christ, and to Christ, albeit otherwise, by the Father) (Jn. XVII. 14 ff). « When you had received from us the word of the hearing of God ², you received it not as the word of men, but, as it truly is, as the word of God » (1 Thess. II. 13). Further c), since the act of faith is elicited by ourselves (with the grace of God inwardly breathing upon and helping), we certainly cannot, on account of the authority of God revealing, who can neither be deceived nor deceive, believe the things revealed by Him to be true, e. g. the mysteries of the Trinity or of the incarnation of the Word, except insofar as the authority of God (actually) revealing, on account of which we believe, is known to us. « The formal object cannot exercise the office of object... unless it be known by the intellect under that character under which it can move it, because by an unknown object the intellect is not moved » (Suarez, disp. 3. sect. 6. n. 1). And thus God the infallible truth, and God actually revealing by His word the truths to be believed, is the objective reason, and the same, applied to us through (supernatural) knowledge, is the formal reason in us (subjective) on account of which we believe the things revealed by Him to be true.³.

These things I do not see how they can be called into doubt by any theologian, since as to the matter itself they are the Catholic doctrine declared and defined anew by the holy Vatican Council. Hence it is indubitable, as we have said, that the assent of faith properly so called is necessarily from its very essence a mediate assent, i. e. an assent to one truth on account of another truth, and that not only objectively existing, but also subjectively known, upon which the very formal act of faith rests: « we believe the things revealed to be true on account of the authority of God revealing. » The same is thus expressed by St. Thomas. « Faith of which we speak assents to nothing except because it is revealed by God; hence faith rests upon the divine truth itself (namely revealing, as the antecedent member has it) as upon a means » (St. Th. 2. 2. q. 1. a. 1).

4. By the name of discourse in the act of faith, concerning which certain theologians now again dispute many things less rightly, nothing else is understood than assent to one truth on account of another known truth, since namely the one is laid open to us only through the other.

If by one act of the mind assent is rendered to one truth on account of another, since one, e. g. the incarnation of the Son of God, is laid open and as it were illuminated to us through another known truth, namely through the infallible truth revealing this mystery, this we call a virtual discourse; if by distinct acts assent is rendered to the infallible authority of God, to the existence of the word of God revealing this mystery, and finally, on account of the authority of God revealing, to this mystery itself, it is called a formal discourse (see Card. de Lugo, disput. 7. sect. 1). In every act of faith properly so called, therefore, at least a virtual discourse is contained, by the very fact that we believe the things revealed by God to be true on account of the authority of God Himself revealing. « For what is a virtual discourse concerning the incarnation, except to be moved by the divine authority to believe it; or how can the divine authority move to believing the incarnation, except insofar as such a connection appears between the one and the other, that God supremely truthful revealing the incarnation cannot be, without the incarnation being true? » (Card. de Lugo, disput. 7. sect. 1. n. 7). « The act of faith, although it seems simple, includes in it a virtual discourse » (Suarez, disput. 3. sect. 12. n. 10).

A virtual discourse of this kind, namely the ascent from one known truth, and on account of that truth which we precognize (at least prior in reason), to another truth which is laid open to us solely through it—this virtual discourse, I say, is certainly declared in the doctrine of the Council, by which it is said that « it is required for divine faith that the revealed truth be believed on account of the authority of God revealing. » For « that on account of signifies a connection; otherwise one thing would not be believed on account of another, » as de Lugo rightly notes (disp. 1. sect. 13. n. 293).

5. Certain recent theologians, more or less perverting the opinions of others, think they must demonstrate with great contention that the act of faith is not a « logical conclusion. » There is no leisure to examine the new opinions of these theologians ⁴; but lest the errors of the « logical conclusion » which they suppose and impugn be attributed to us or to the ancient theologians, I may note three things still, clear of themselves.

a) In the analysis of the act of faith there is no question of the « practical judgment » which precedes faith, when from the motives of credibility a man judges these truths to be credible and to be believed as revealed by God of infallible truth. In impugning the « logical conclusion, » the recent theologian seems to exhibit the state of the question as if Card. de Lugo or anyone else had ever said that the unbeliever, from the motives of credibility, forms the practical judgment that the proposed thing is credible and to be believed, and thence by a « logical conclusion » attains the act of faith. But certainly none of the ancient theologians ever said this, nor can anyone of sound mind say it. For from that practical judgment there does not follow a « logical conclusion »: it is the duty to believe, therefore God is three in persons, because God the truth Himself has revealed this; but the « logical conclusion » would only be this: therefore, unless by free will I incline the intellect to faith on account of the authority of God revealing, which has been sufficiently proposed to me, I violate my gravest duty toward God, and expose myself to eternal damnation. The question, therefore, is not concerning the acts which precede, but in no way enter into the very act of faith; but in faith itself, when we already believe the revealed truth not indeed on account of the motives of credibility, but on account of the authority of God revealing, it is asked whether and what is the order of the objects of faith to which we assent, whether by one complex act or by several distinct acts. Here, therefore, we say that the assent of faith to the revealed thing rests upon another truth which in the very act of faith is precognized, namely that the infallible God has revealed this thing to be believed; and therefore the formal assent of faith is not, nor can it be, immediate, but is necessarily mediate, as rendered on account of another truth (prior in reason) precognized.^[322. The theologian who lately disputed at length against the « logical conclusion » considers the assent of faith in relation to the antecedent practical judgment concerning credibility and the duty of believing, and through that judgment says the thing to be believed is presented in the same manner as in an immediately evident judgment (e.g. the same thing cannot at once be and not be) the ap-⁵.

b) The adversaries at times seem so to dispute as if the question were whether the act of faith is a logical assent to a consequent truth on account of a naturally seen legitimate consequence. The suspicion of this error seems to be thrust upon them by that oft-repeated warning: the act of faith [is but] the apprehension of the terms. Whence he concludes: « the assent of faith according to its logical character is not a mediate assent, but is to be considered and held as an immediate assent. » But certainly these things wholly pervert the state of the question, and are not true in themselves, nor do I see in what sense they can be understood. That practical judgment is indeed presupposed before the act of faith, but it does not enter into the very formal assent of faith concerning whose elements the question is; and if it were introduced, it certainly would not stand in the manner of the apprehension of terms in an evident judgment, but as a judgment concerning one thing joined to a judgment concerning another thing. But as we have said, the question concerns the elements of the very act of faith, when we believe the revealed truth (and thus render assent to it) « not on account of the intrinsic truth of the thing seen, but on account of the authority of God revealing. » Where indeed the authority of God revealing is enunciated by the Vatican Council itself, not only objectively as existing, but also subjectively as apprehended by us through assent, as the cause, i.e. as the reason, on account of which we render assent to the revealed truth. And thus one truth (or rather twofold: God infallibly actually revealing), apprehended by (supernatural) assent, is to us the reason on account of which we assent (by the formal act of faith) to another truth (e.g. that the Word is incarnate); which assent of faith is therefore essentially mediate.

Hence neither can we follow, nor (I frankly confess) understand, the doctrine of some theologians who think the « virtual discourse » in the act of faith is excluded for this reason. « Since the divine revelation is not the cause of the revealed thing, but a pure attestation, and the believing faithful does not perceive any connection between the revelation and the revealed thing; but revelation is as it were the light under which he knows the revealed thing, and the faithful immediately believes by reason of the divine testimony: therefore, just as the eye in seeing colors by means of light does not discourse virtually even on the part of the object, so neither does faith in believing by reason of the divine testimony » (Card. Gotti, De Fide q. I. dub. IV. §. 2. n. 12). Certainly the divine revelation is not the efficient cause of the revealed thing, yet it is nevertheless for believers the objective cause or reason, and indeed the sole one, through which the truth of the revealed thing is manifested to them, and on account of which, once known, they assent believingly to the revealed thing as true. Hence the faithful does not indeed perceive the connection as between cause and effect, but certainly perceives in every act of faith, at least virtually with his believing mind, the absolutely necessary connection between the attestation of God who can neither be deceived nor deceive, and the truth of the thing which He attests. « It cannot be believed with certain faith, unless it be believed with certainty on account of authority »—and this is not to be a « logical conclusion. » But those very theologians who teach that in the act of faith there is or can be a formal discourse (as Card. de Lugo, Vasquez and others) never dream of such an absurdity of a « logical conclusion. » Namely the mind, elevated through the light of faith, holds with firmness above all things both the truth of God essentially infallible and the existence of the divine testimony (the formal object of faith) concerning the thing to be believed (the material object of faith), or in the complex, the authority

of God; nor can it be believed with certainty on account of the authority of God, unless the connection of the divine authority with the truth of the revealed mystery be believed with certainty (that is, be held most firmly) » (Card. de Lugo, disp. 7. sect. 3. n. 40). Further, similitudes devised by us are not proofs, but can be employed to illustrate a truth demonstrated from elsewhere, if rightly used; but if applied preposterously, they neither prove nor illustrate, but obscure and pervert. The eye indeed proceeds to the vision of a body without the light being seen, but the body, by reflecting light into the eye, forms an image of itself; hence this similitude can be employed to illustrate the mode by which the true from its intrinsic character manifests itself to our mind. But as regards faith, it holds insofar as nothing can be the object of faith unless it be manifested to us and as it were illuminated by the divine testimony (St. Th. Verit. q. 14. a. 8. ad 4). But the testimony of God does not illuminate the revealed thing in such a way that it shines forth to us from its intrinsic character (which will come to be in the light of glory); for in the act of faith the mind does not assent to the proposed thing on account of its intrinsic character seen (which would not be an act of faith), but solely on account of the authority of God revealing, which is a reason extrinsic to that thing, e.g. to the fact of the incarnation, and a distinct truth; and thus « faith in believing by reason of the divine testimony » assents to one truth in such a way that this assent rests wholly upon another truth as upon the reason on account of which assent is given. This, however, is a mediate assent, and this we call a virtual discourse. That the faithful « immediately believes by reason of the divine testimony » can indeed be said, insofar as there is no other medium (under which), no other objective formal reason for believing besides the testimony of God revealing; yet by this very fact the assent is not immediate, because it is not from the intrinsically seen truth of the thing itself, but mediate, because it is from infallible extrinsic testimony. In this way St. Thomas also indicates that there is discourse in faith. For as the first among the reasons why the Apostle (Heb. XI. 1) calls faith an argument, the Angelic Doctor assigns this. « Argument sometimes signifies the very act of reason discoursing from principles to conclusions... Faith can be called an argument in the first (this) way (namely as a discoursing act), in inasmuch as reason assents to something from the fact that it is said by God, and thus from the authority of the speaker assent is effected in the believer; because even in dialectics some argument is taken from authority » (St. Th. De Verit. q. 14. a. 2. ad 9). ...the authority of God actually revealing this truth to be believed. This is what St. Thomas calls « the intellect adhering to the truth which consists in the divine knowledge, » and « adhering to a testimony in which the truth is infallibly found » (St. Th. Verit. q. 14. a. 8. O). In this adherence there is indeed already implicitly contained adherence to the very revealed thing by the testimony, just as assent to the premises contains implicit assent to the consequent. But the believer does not therefore assent to the thing proposed by the divine testimony because by natural reason he sees through the rules of logic and their firmness; but the intellect, from the command of the will, under the light of grace supernaturally and with firmness above all things adhering to the testimony of God revealing, who can neither be deceived nor deceive, on account of the authority of God attesting in particular this or that truth, as on account of the formal reason for assenting, under the same light of grace assents also to the truth revealed by God. By the same supernatural act, therefore, by which it holds the infallible revelation of God as the formal motive for believing the revealed truth, it also holds the connection of the infallible revelation with the truth of the revealed thing; for to be the formal motive for believing a truth, and to have this necessary connection with the truth to be believed, is one and the same. But that it is necessary for divine faith that the revealed truth be believed on account of the authority of God revealing is established among all Catholics and has been declared anew by the holy Council. (See de Lugo, disput. 7. sect. 3.).

c) Finally, that disputation and caution against the « logical conclusion » so exhibits the doctrine of the theologians whom it impugns as if they reduced the act of faith to certain abstract concepts of truths, and thus in the end not the living God, the revealing truth, but an abstract concept in our mind would be understood as the formal motive for assenting, as a logical antecedent to a logical consequent. Hence they say the doctrine of Cardinal de Lugo and others is to be reduced to a « logical and mechanical conception, » by which is corrupted the « transcendental character proper and necessary to faith, as elevation to intimate union with God. » These words, lest by pressing their signification we be compelled to ascribe graver errors to them, seem to be reducible to this sense. Faith transcends the natural mode of knowing; for it does not rest upon the proper powers of reason in knowing the truth, but with supernatural firmness rests upon, and is thus united to, the truth of God Himself revealing.⁶ Since this « transcendental character » of divine faith is said to be corrupted by Card. de Lugo and the other learned men impugned by the recent theologian in question, there seems consequently to follow against them an accusation too grave, as if they both imperilled in general the supernatural character of faith, concerning which we spoke a little above, and specifically, by reducing faith « to a logical and mechanical mode of conceiving through logical conclusions, » did not in believing rest upon the substantial uncreated truth revealing, but by a concept formed in the mind as by a formal motive « through a logical conclusion » were induced to hold another truth consequent upon that concept.

But certainly this latter objection, already once raised, as Card. de Lugo records (disp. 7. sect. 2. n. 23; cf. sect. 3. n. 38), turns upside down the whole human mode of thinking and knowing. Namely, we cannot conceive the infallible truth and revelation of God as certain and really existing except by a judgment of the mind (which in the act of faith is elicited under the light of grace and by supernatural powers), just as we cannot enunciate it except by some proposition and affirmation; but that to which we adhere and upon which we rest in believing is not our concept and our judgment, but the substantial truth itself actually revealing, which by our supernatural judgment we apprehend as really existing. This infallible revealing truth, therefore, is the formal motive under which we believe the thing revealed by it to be true. And in the same way, what we believe is the revealed thing itself, e.g. the Most Holy Trinity, which yet we cannot believe—or (as Augustine speaks) think with assent—except by some (supernatural) judgment of our mind. « The act of the believer is not terminated at the enunciable, but at the thing; for we do not form enunciables except that through them we may have knowledge of things, as in science so also in faith » (St. Th. 2. 2. q. 1. a. 2).

6. With the Catholic doctrine defined anew by the holy Council now supposed, that « the revealed truth is to be believed on account of the authority of God revealing, » there arises a great question—which indeed was not held among the ancients, but among rather more recent theologians since the sixteenth century has been held with great contentions, and is now again excited by some—how this very truth of the authority and utterance of God is to be known. If each is known through itself, and thus the assent to it is immediate, in it the analysis of faith rests as in an ultimate principle. But if even each of those truths, or either, is known through another truth as through a formal principle on account of which assent is rendered, and thus the assent is mediate, it must further be asked what that other precognized truth is, until there be arrival at some immediate assent, no longer rendered on account of another distinct truth, upon which as upon a principle and motive it rests (cf. above, ch. III. §. I. n. 1).

If the preceding assent to the formal object of faith is said to be mediate and rendered on account of another precognized truth, it will be most difficult to define what it is, and how then a progress to infinity is not admitted, without ever arriving at an ultimate immediate assent. But if each of those assents is said to be immediate, a twofold difficulty arises; for first it will seem to be an assent from the powers of reason alone, and therefore natural, which in no way can be admitted; then it can scarcely be conceived how that assent, especially as to the existence of the revelation or utterance of God, should be immediate. Concerning each of these, therefore, we must first speak.

1. The assent of divine faith is ontologically supernatural, as corresponding in proportion to the beatific vision in the homeland, as the inchoation of its perfection (ch. III, § II). Hence faith is called divine, to distinguish it from human faith, not only objectively by reason of the formal object and by reason of the principal material object, which is God, but also subjectively on account of the intimate supernatural character of the act itself. Further, from this very supernatural character of the assent elicited by supernatural powers there is also a supernatural firmness of adherence; for the pious will, elevated by grace, commands adherence to the revealed truth in esteem above all things, and the formal adherence of the intellect itself has supernatural firmness from the elevation of the intellect by the superadded powers of grace; and this twofold character of elevation is both through the supernatural infused and permanent habit of faith and through actual grace (a transient help) of illumination in the intellect and of inspiration in the will (cf. Second Council of Orange, can. 7; Vatican Council, ch. 3). Since, however, the formal assent of faith includes, and presupposes as the principle on which it rests, assent to the formal object (to the authority of God revealing), this assent too, insofar as it enters into the act of faith, must be supernatural and, through the powers of grace, most firm in esteem above all things. For a supernatural formal assent of faith could not rest, as upon its principle, upon a natural assent of a lower order and of lesser firmness.

This was Suarez's reason, as he himself admits (disp. 3, sect. 6, n. 6), for holding that the very assent to the authority of God speaking must necessarily be through a formal act of faith on account of the authority of God speaking. On the one hand, namely, he laid down the principle that before the formal act of faith no supernatural knowledge is given; on the other hand, it is certain that that assent to the authority of God speaking must be supernatural; hence it followed that this assent is a formal act of faith. But if this be so understood that, in every act of faith, the authority of God revealing must again be believed on account of the formal motive of the locution of God revealing His own authority and His own locution, a progress to infinity is most manifestly introduced, without ever arriving at any immediate assent. Cf. above, ch. III, § I. Hence Cardinal de Lugo has refuted, somewhat sharply, this understanding of the doctrine of Suarez (l. c., n. 8), where he tries to show that assent to the authority of God is an act of faith and nevertheless an immediate assent. «However this be explained, he says, it is all playing with words, since the assent is never reduced to some immediate assent to some object, to which we assent not on account of another but on account of itself, which is nevertheless necessary in every intellectual assent» (Lugo, De Fide, disp. I, sect. 6, n. 82).

Indeed, if the words of Suarez are pressed in their proper signification—in which, I confess, they are understood by theologians both approving and attacking that remarkable opinion—they all too manifestly either introduce a process to infinity or involve a contradiction; nor do I find that anything valid toward its elucidation has been brought forward even by the most recent defenders of the Suarezian opinion, except what at length coincides with our view: namely, that the intellect, through the habit and light of faith, adheres by a supernatural assent to the First Truth not as to a material object on account of testimony as the formal object, but on account of itself, insofar as it presents and manifests itself in the very act of supernatural revelation—so that, no differently than in truths known per se, the material object of the assent is identified with the formal object (ch. II, § I). I do not assert that this is the very doctrine of Suarez; but I say that his doctrine, with its contradictions cut away, must be reduced to this view—a reduction which, once made, makes the pair, Suarez and Cardinal de Lugo, with the explanations of each joined together, exhibit a splendid illustration of the truth.

2. The doctrine of Suarez, which, unless tempered as I have said, contains a process to infinity or a contradiction, is reduced to these heads. He concedes that the formal object of faith, on account of which a thing is believed, and the material object, which is believed on account of it, are distinguished from each other at least in reason. The formal object in every act of divine faith is the testimony of the First Truth (God) as known; the material object is each and every thing alone concerning which He testifies. Hence it is essential in every act of faith that there be precognized—by a cognition that is indeed supernatural—(at least as prior in reason) both that God is the infallible truth in knowing and in speaking (able neither to be deceived nor to deceive), and that God has revealed this truth, e.g., the incarnation of the Word, because this precognized pair is the one necessary formal object on account of which the material object, e.g., the Incarnation, is believed.¹

But now, after this most lucid doctrine has been declared and demonstrated, this same Suarez contends that that precognition both of the truth of God and of the existing revelation, which is presupposed in every act of faith as its foundation and formal motive, is itself also through an act of faith. Accordingly, in this act of faith, which we may call fundamental—while I believe that God is the truth, solely on account of the testimony by which He says that He is the truth—there is necessarily distinguished again, at least in reason, the formal object on account of which I believe, namely the testimony of the infallible truth revealing that it is the truth, and the material object, namely that God is the truth, which I believe on account of the testimony. For without this distinction no act of faith can be conceived or exist which, by Suarez's own admission, is essentially assent to a revealed thing on account of the infinite truth revealing. The first fundamental act, therefore, is: I believe that God is the infallible truth (material object), because God the infallible truth has revealed this (formal object). This formal object, which is enunciated in the causal proposition, is, by Suarez's own express doctrine, precognized in priority of reason before the formal assent of faith which rests upon this very precognized truth as upon its medium (as he himself puts it). Further, this precognition must again be an act of faith, since it is the precognition of the formal object of faith which, in the Suarezian view, must be precognized through an act of faith. Accordingly, this second fundamental act of faith is again resolved into a formal object to be precognized by another act of faith, and so to infinity. a) I believe the Most Holy Trinity, because God the infinite truth has revealed it; b) I believe that God is the infinite truth, and I believe that God has revealed the Trinity, because God says that He is the infinite truth and that He has revealed the Trinity; c) I believe that God has said each member of this pair, again on account of the testimony by which He says that He has said it; and this testimony I again believe on account of a testimony distinct in reason; for necessarily (as we have said, and as Suarez admits) every act of faith has a formal object on account of which a thing is believed, distinct at least in reason from the material object which is believed. And thus a terminus is never reached, unless a halt is made at last in embracing the truthfulness and the locution of God not on account of a testimony distinct in reason, which would be the motive of the assent—and therefore not through a formal act of faith—but through an immediate assent to the truthfulness of God and to the existence of the locution of God as knowable, presenting itself through itself (to the intellect elevated by the light of grace).

3. The eximious Doctor certainly perceived the absurdity of a process to infinity of this kind, which seemed to underlie his doctrine. In the explanation, however, by which he tries to remove it, he speaks in such a way that he either contradicts his own principles concerning the analysis of the act of faith, or at length—as far as the substance of the matter goes, though in more obscure words—means precisely what Cardinal de Lugo afterwards most luminously declared. The explanation of Suarez runs as follows. «If the formal object be compared to the material, then in the order of nature (if each is known by diverse acts) or of reason (if each is known by one complex act) the formal object as known is presupposed to the material... But if the formal and the material object as known be the same (namely the same thing under a diverse aspect, however), as when I directly believe that God is the First Truth, on account of Himself and because He Himself has said this, then the priority of nature is much less, but that of reason suffices, through a certain reflexion which is virtually included in the very act, and also in the object, because (God), in saying what is true, consequently says that He is truthful in what He says, as I have explained.... Nor is repugnant to this faith that mode of resolution which is objected ², whether that resolution take place by means of discourse or without it; for it must always be admitted that the resolution takes place from the material object to the formal; but the formal object itself is not resolved into another, but is believed through itself, because it can testify concerning itself, and thus is reflected upon itself, and in such a way testifies concerning itself as to make evidently credible not only the other things which it says, but also the things which it testifies concerning itself, which pertains, as I have said, to the infinite excellence of the divine truth» (disp. 3, sect. 6, n. 8).

In the first place, there is no question whether God, whether explicitly or implicitly (in every act of revelation), has also revealed that He is truthful (with which Suarez deals here) and that He has revealed the mysteries (with which he disputes in another place below). We concede indeed that these things are revealed, and accordingly can and must be believed by a formal act of faith on account of the authority of God revealing—just as we say that the very existence of God must be believed by faith even by those who know it by natural evidence (Tract. de Deo, th. IX). This, therefore, is the one question: whether in every act of faith the formal object itself (the truthfulness of God and the existence of revelation) must ultimately be believed again by an act of faith, whether virtually or really distinct. Suarez, affirming it in the words cited, lays down the following. a) In every act of faith, the formal object on account of which I believe is presupposed, as precognized at least in the order of reason, to the material object which is believed; and this, as essential to the act of faith, is no less true even if, in reality, the formal and the material object be the same; e.g., under one aspect I precognize (in priority of reason), as the formal object, God truthful and revealing, while under another aspect, solely on account of the truthfulness of God thus precognized, who says that He is truthful, I believe that God is truthful. In every act of faith, therefore, there is a virtually distinct twofold assent: one to the formal object as to the foundation and motive of believing, the other to the material object on account of that motive: «it must always be admitted that the resolution takes place from the material object to the formal.» b) The formal object itself, in every act of faith, must again be believed through an act of faith; and yet, although from what was asserted just before, in every act of faith «the resolution always takes place from the material object to the formal,» we are now suddenly told that, in this act of faith by which the formal object of the prior act is to be believed, no resolution takes place: «but it is believed through itself.» But this is a manifest contradiction: it is essential to every act of faith that a material object be believed on account of a formal object precognized (in priority of reason), and that thus a resolution take place from the material object to the formal; nevertheless there is given an act of faith in which no such resolution has place, and accordingly in which a material object is not believed on account of a formal object. If these things are so, that assent, in which such a resolution is denied, is not an assent of faith properly so called, because what is said to be believed is not believed on account of another precognized truth; but it is a truth which presents itself to the mind as knowable through itself and is known through itself.

If, then, that saying—«the formal object is not resolved into another, but is believed through itself»—has this sense: that the truthfulness of God revealing, which is the formal object for the other revealed mysteries, must be believed by an act of faith properly so called, in such a way that, on account of the (in priority of reason) precognized truthfulness of God saying that He is truthful, the truthfulness of God is to be believed, and yet it is asserted that no resolution takes place from the material object to the formal, i.e., that truthfulness under one aspect is not believed on account of the precognized truthfulness of the testimony under another aspect—then there remains the evident contradiction which I have just demonstrated. If it is conceded that this resolution takes place, and yet it is asserted that in every act of faith the formal object must again be believed by faith properly so called, the process to infinity demonstrated above is evident.

4. Because this matter seems to me so manifest, I have therefore thought—not indeed that certain other theologians, who profess to defend the doctrine of Suarez against Cardinal de Lugo, are to be understood in another sense; but that the eximious Doctor himself can perhaps be understood in another sense, which I indicated at the beginning of this inquiry (p. 656), or at any rate that his doctrine can be admitted only with this tempering applied. When, namely, it is said that «the formal object (the precognized truthfulness and locution of God) is not resolved into another, but is believed through itself,» the word to believe must be taken in a somewhat broader sense, in which it is often employed by Cardinal de Lugo in this disputation and by other theologians, concerning the supernatural assent, elicited through the habit of faith and through grace, to a truth which, in the very revelation of the mystery, presents itself to the mind as the formal object through itself and not through another precognized truth on which, as the motive of the assent, it would rest. Thus not only is that absurd process to infinity and every contradiction excluded, but a most luminous truth is had in what is said: «the formal object is not resolved into another, but is believed through itself,» namely, it is apprehended by knowledge through itself and not through another as the formal object in the act of faith, and accordingly, on account of it as (in priority of reason) precognized, the revealed material object is believed.

Indeed, what Suarez chiefly, nay solely, has in view in that whole disputation (disp. 3, sect. 6) is to prove and obtain that the knowledge of the formal object in divine faith cannot be natural but must necessarily be supernatural; which scope of his he proposes in the very title of that section: «whether the First Truth is the formal object of faith as known by the light of nature, or as supernaturally known?» But in this assertion of supernatural knowledge, fullest assent must indeed be given to him by all.

In this sense alone could he also appeal to the doctrine of St. Thomas; for it is indeed absurd to attribute to the Angelic Doctor the view that the formal object of faith, insofar as it is the truth of God, which can neither be deceived nor deceive (the sole subject of Suarez's dispute there), must necessarily be believed by an act of faith properly so called.³ less «demonstratively» proved than the existence of God, and on the other hand the Angelic Doctor, II-II, q. 1, a. 5, and often elsewhere, most expressly teaches that «it is impossible for the same thing to be known and believed by the same person,» and only that «by those who have no demonstration, the things that can be proved demonstratively must be presupposed through faith» (see Tract. de Deo, th. IX). That this is indeed the view of St. Thomas, Suarez himself (ibid., sect. 9, n. 1) is compelled to admit. Hence whoever would ascribe to St. Thomas the opinion that in every act of faith the formal object itself, insofar as it is contained in the infallible truthfulness of God, must necessarily be believed by faith properly so called, would indeed assert that it follows from the doctrine of St. Thomas that no one who «knows demonstratively» the infallible truthfulness of God could believe anything by divine faith, since he cannot believe the very formal motive of faith—namely the truthfulness of God—«of which he has the demonstration.» But that these things are not only false but laughable, no one fails to see. Either, therefore, Suarez has appealed to the doctrine of St. Thomas altogether preposterously, or this very appeal suggests that Suarez is not to be understood of an act of faith properly so called, by which the formal motive of the truthfulness of God would have to be believed «not through another but through itself.»

The doctrine of Cardinal de Lugo (De Fide, disp. I, sect. 6) therefore seems to me altogether true—a doctrine which, by the arguments of theologians whether older or more recent who have undertaken with every effort to overthrow it, I judge to have been not only not shaken but rather more confirmed, since I see that nothing has hitherto been accomplished by them except either to say things manifestly false or irrelevant to the matter, or to deflect the Cardinal's view into an alien sense, and at length to be compelled to settle upon explanations which coincide with the true sense of this prince among theologians. In this chapter, therefore, as in several others, I think true what the Doctor of the Church, St. Alphonsus, says: «the most learned Lugo, who after St. Thomas can without rashness readily be called prince among the other theologians,..... often, with no one going before him, puts the sickle to the root in such a way that the reasons which he brings forward can with difficulty be solved» (St. Alphons., bk. III, n. 552). If you require the authority of other theologians, there agree in the same view after Cardinal de Lugo the gravest doctors: Petrus Hurtado, disp. VII, sect. 6 (a different man from Gaspar Hurtado, with whom Cardinal de Lugo had some dispute); Ripalda, De Fide, disp. III; Cardinal Pallavicinus, in Cursu theol. De Fide, nn. 56–58; Haunoldus, De Fide, ch. I, controv. V, § 5; Amicus, disp. II, sect. 1, n. 27; Mastrius, in III Sent., disp. VI, q. 7, a. 4, n. 39; and others. Furthermore, the whole explanation of the proposed question which we adopt is reduced to this sum.

5. The authority or truth of God, both in knowing and in speaking, insofar as it is the formal object of faith, cannot ultimately be believed on account of the authority of God revealing this truth of His in knowing and in speaking. For although you say with Suarez that God, by the very act of revelation by which He says, e.g., that there are three divine persons, also reveals His own truthfulness, it must still always be asked: if the truthfulness of God is believed on account of the formal motive and solely because God reveals it, how do you know the truthfulness of God in this very revelation by which He explicitly or implicitly says that He is infinitely truthful? If you again believe this truthfulness because God reveals it, the same question will return; and so there will have to be progress to infinity, without ever arriving at the foundation on which all subsequent assents to the truthfulness of God and to the revealed mystery rest. But if it is said: God, in revealing, e.g., the Most Holy Trinity, by that same locution reveals His truthfulness in an exercised act—a truthfulness which by assenting I hold not from another distinct motive (as, because God is truthful in revealing His truthfulness) but immediately on account of itself—this at length is nothing other than that by such an assent I hold the truthfulness of God, not by assenting on account of testimony as the formal motive, whether really or rationally distinct, because God has said that He is truthful, but because the truthfulness of God in the act of revelation presents itself to me immediately through itself as most certain. And thus I see the duty, out of due submission of latria toward God, of holding the infinite truthfulness of God most firmly and above all things; and at the same time I see the duty of assenting with the same firmness to the proposed truth (as, of the Most Holy Trinity)—not because this truth presents itself to me immediately through itself as the object of adherence, but on account of the formal motive of the infinite truthfulness of God revealing it. Hence this second act is certainly a formal act of faith; but whether that prior assent to the truthfulness of God, presenting itself to me immediately through itself as the object of adherence, is to be called faith, will be rather a question of the name, concerning which I shall say something later.

Namely, assent to the authority of God is immediate, where the formal object and the material object are the same (cf. above, ch. II, § I); wherefore the truthfulness of God in knowing and in speaking must first be certain to us not from testimony as an extrinsic ground of assent, but from its own intrinsic ground. Yet this assent, although it is from the intrinsic ground seen, is not natural; but insofar as it enters into the act of faith, it is elicited by supernatural powers, while the will elevated by grace commands assent above all things,⁴ and the intellect adheres to the truth no longer by natural but by supernatural powers.

This supernaturality of the assent to the truth of God, insofar as it is the principle of faith, must necessarily be admitted, both a) because (as we have said) the formal assent of faith, supernatural and elicited above all things on account of the testimony of God, rests upon that prior assent; but a supernatural assent, and one above all things, cannot have as its foundation a natural assent, and therefore one of a lower order and less firm; and b) still more evidently, because the assent of faith must in its entirety be supernatural, but it would not be thus supernatural if in its foundation, which is the knowledge of the truthfulness of God, it were natural; and c) because the supernaturally elevated intellect cannot be engaged with the material object, e.g., the mystery of the Trinity to be believed, without being at the same time engaged with the formal object (i.e., with the truth of God in testifying), on account of which it is believed—just as the will cannot love the neighbor with supernatural charity on account of God, and yet be borne toward God not with supernatural charity but with merely natural love. Although, therefore, the authority of God must be known not from testimony but from its intrinsic ground, it is nevertheless referred to the intellect elevated by the supernatural light of faith. For just as the light or power of the natural intellect, as we have already observed above, avails not only for the science of conclusions from principles and on account of principles, but by this very fact, and a fortiori, also for the understanding of the principles on which the truth of the conclusions rests, from themselves; so the supernatural habit and light of faith avails not only for believing revealed truths on account of the authority of God revealing, but also, as it were a fortiori, for the supernatural assent to the authority of God revealing, on account of itself and accordingly apprehended in itself and not through another. «The very testimony of the First Truth stands in faith as a principle in demonstrative sciences» (St. Th., Verit., q. 14, a. 8, ad 16). But it must be well observed and held that, in the present order, supernatural acts are given before faith formal and as it were complete, by which we are named and are faithful; for it is certain that there precede pious supernatural knowledges and volitions tending toward faith: supernatural desires for faith, prayers, an affection of credulity, the will to believe. Whoever would deny that these first as it were conceptions of faith must be from supernatural grace would savor of the Semipelagians, and would fall into propositions 26, 27, 29 condemned in the Bull «Unigenitus»; the 5th condemned by Alexander VIII; the 22nd of the Pistoian [synod]. A fortiori there must be admitted the supernatural knowledge of the authority of God and of the locution of God which enters into the very act of faith.⁵

6. If it now be conceded that the divine authority, insofar as it is the formal object of faith, is apprehended not from the formal motive of the divine testimony but from itself, by supernatural knowledge, it is further asked how this knowledge of authority is immediate, and not rather deduced from another precognized truth. The difficulty is in this: that the authority of God seems knowable only from the precognized divine nature, and that as existing; but the existence of God (before divine faith) seems knowable only by the natural light from creatures or from human faith; whence the ultimate resolution of divine faith would come to rest in natural knowledge, which is plainly false, as is certain.

Theologians dispute concerning this matter perhaps more subtly than is needed; but their answer is generally reduced to a twofold form. First, the knowledge of a conditioned truth suffices: God, if He speaks, is infallible. This knowledge does not yet include the affirmation that God exists, but only hypothetically affirms: if the infinitely perfect God exists and reveals something, He is infallible. In this way the truth is without doubt immediately evident from the very (though acquired) idea of God, or at least immediately known by all with an obscure and confused knowledge. But this suffices for there to be, under the supernatural light, an immediate supernatural assent, and one most firm. Hence no other precognized truth need be sought. The actual existence itself of God and of the divine authority is then affirmed in the other principle of faith, namely in the proposition: «God has revealed this.» In what way the existence of revelation is to be known, we shall say a little later. There would therefore be three known truths: if God speaks, He is infallible (immediate knowledge); God has revealed, e.g., the Most Holy Trinity (concerning which proposition, below); on account of the infallible authority of God I believe that there are three divine persons (the formal assent of faith). So de Lugo (disp. I, sect. 6, n. 100); Ripalda (De Fide, disp. III, sect. 1); and others.

The other answer is that of Petrus Hurtado, which comes to this. It may be admitted that the really existing authority of God is first known mediately from the precognized divine nature; and likewise the first knowledge of the existing divine nature, or of God as the most perfect being, is mediate from precognized creatures or from human faith. But then, after the knowledge has already been acquired, a man, thinking nothing of the medium of demonstration, can immediately judge from the very terms: God exists; the existing God is infinitely truthful. This immediate knowledge could of itself be natural; but for constituting the foundation of the supernatural act of faith, God, by elevating the intellect with infused light, brings it about that the act of knowledge is supernatural. So Hurtadus, disp. VI, sect. 4, n. 41.

This latter explanation of Hurtado, to be admissible, must be understood in this sense. Some natural knowledge of God is ordinarily prerequired—not indeed as a foundation, but as a condition—for the supernatural act of assent to the authority of God to be elicited, in nearly the way in which some say (Suarez, disp. III, sect. 12, n. 13) that an acquired and natural knowledge of the existence of revelation is ordinarily prerequired, as a condition, for a supernatural assent to that same existence of revelation to be elicited. In this way St. Thomas also speaks of the «preambles of faith,» such as are the natural knowledge of the existence of God and of the other things that can be known concerning God through natural reason. «For thus faith presupposes natural knowledge, as grace nature, and as perfection the perfectible» (St. Th., I, q. 2, a. 2, ad 1). But the act of knowledge and assent which, as the foundation, is contained in the very act of faith, since it is from a superadded supernatural light, is itself ontologically or according to substance (as they commonly say) supernatural, and therefore essentially or according to its being wholly differs from the natural knowledge of the authority of God. In this sense, therefore—considering the powers by which it is elicited, considering its origin, and according to its being—it can and must be called a new knowledge, but not according to the objective mode of knowing, as a more recent theologian contends: namely, that the authority of God, insofar as it ultimately manifests itself through itself from its intrinsic ground and not through testimony, should nevertheless ultimately be believed by faith on account of testimony. For this, first, is in itself repugnant; and then, concerning the supernatural light which is given to us in the way, where even supernatural knowledge is still through a mirror and in an enigma, it remains altogether certain what St. Thomas said of our knowledge «through the ray of revelation»: that through it we do not come to know otherwise than «according to our mode,» according to which «the divine ray shines upon us.»⁶

Although these things are so, I do not think that we should rest in the explanation of Hurtado alone, even understood in this sense, but that there must be superadded to it the declaration of Cardinal de Lugo, upon which that of Suarez also falls, if it be understood or tempered in the way I have said above. Namely, not only the subjective illumination, but also the objective manifestation itself of the authority of God, insofar as it constitutes the formal object of faith, is supernatural. For the authority of God is known through itself and as the immediate object of adherence in the very supernatural divine locution which presents itself to us as divine locution. In this way Cardinal de Lugo said that the authority of God is immediately knowable in the very fact of revelation which is enunciated by the proposition: «God has revealed this.» But concerning the mode in which the fact of revelation is known from itself immediately and supernaturally, the chief difficulty arises, to be diligently explained.

1. For the formal act of faith it does not suffice to have known the infinite veracity of God as the formal object on account of which the assent of faith is rendered, unless the truth of God be known as revealing some truth, i.e. unless at the same time the existence of revelation be known. For it is not because God is truthful that I can believe e.g. the Most Holy Trinity, unless I know that the truthful God has revealed this mystery. We believe therefore a determinate truth on account of the authority of God revealing this truth (see above p. 645 sq.). Hence it remains to be asked how the existence of revelation is known, insofar as it enters into the very act of faith. That the very existence of revelation cannot ultimately¹ be believed on account of a divine testimony really or rationally distinct — because God has said that He has revealed this or that truth — but must be known from itself and from its own inward reason, and likewise that this cognition must be supernatural, is proved in the same way in which we demonstrated this of the divine authority.

While God speaks to men, whether immediately as to the prophets and His first legates or through His legates, He must indeed, as becomes Him, render His word recognizable to the men for whom it is destined, by certain characters and as it were seals, as divine; or, what comes to the same, render it recognizable to men that it is God Himself who speaks either immediately or through His legates. «He hath placed in us the word of reconciliation; for Christ therefore we are ambassadors, as though God exhorted through us» 2. Cor. V. 20. «When you had received from us the word of the hearing of God, you received it not as the word of men, but as it truly is, the word of God, who worketh in you who have believed» 1. Thess. II. 13. Now the signs and characters by which the word, as though sealed, is presented as recognizable as the word of God revealing, are the manifold supernatural facts and charisms which are understood to be able to be from none but God bearing witness through them on behalf of His word. «Dealing confidently in the Lord, who gave testimony to the word of His grace (ἐπι τω κυριω, τω μαρτυρουντι τω λογω της χαριτος αὐτου), granting signs and wonders to be done by their hands» Act. XIV. 3. «How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation, which, having begun to be declared by the Lord, was confirmed unto us by them that heard, God also bearing them witness (συνεπιμαρτυρουντος του θεου) by signs and wonders and divers powers (δυναμεσι) and distributions of the Holy Spirit» Heb. II. 3. 4.

2. That what we say of the conspicuous characters of the divine locution may be conceived a little more distinctly, and how the existing divine revelation manifests itself from itself, it must be noted that the divine locution is composite of words enunciating truth and of facts by which the words are exhibited as divine locution. «As human custom speaks by words, so the divine power speaks also by facts, and as words new or less in use, sprinkled moderately and becomingly into human discourse, add splendor to it, so in wondrous facts that signify something the divine eloquence is in a certain way more brilliant» Aug. to Deogratias, ep. 102, q. 6, n. 33. Whence also in the same sense it was said: «our faith consists not by hearing only, but also by sight» (St. Maximus or another, serm. on the Epiphany n. 3, in the Works of St. Ambrose, Appendix, serm. 10).

If the summit of divine revelation in Christ be considered: first of all the whole life of Jesus Christ, the miracles, the death, and above the rest the resurrection; the choice of a few rude men for the conversion of the human race; the mission of the Holy Spirit beheld in its evident effects; then the whole history of the human race and above all the history of the people of Israel with all its supernatural manifestations as preparation and pedagogy unto Christ, and the whole subsequent Christian history as an effect flowing forth from Christ Himself; the apostolic preaching, the wondrous propagation of religion, the means to the proposed end all contrary to those which men employ, and which, humanly viewed, would seem fitted not so much to obtain as to impede the effect; while the effect, from no human cause, was immense and universal in the human race — amid iron and fire, amid every kind of torments by which rage was vented for three centuries and more — the conversion of all ideas of the theological and moral order, the transformation of the whole of public and private life; no less wondrous the preservation of the whole institution through the course of the centuries, in every age a morally perpetual sanctity and the constant heroic exercise in many, the esteem in all, of virtues nowhere known outside this religion, and supernatural charisms manifesting themselves even by external effects; finally this whole complex of divine things, both universally and in the individual facts, long before promised and foretold — all these things, I say, viewed together are so many rays by which the word proposed as divine shines forth and manifests its divine origin² (cf. Tract. de Deo th. VIII.). See the Vatican Council, Const. de Fide ch. 3, can. 3; the Encyclical Letter of His Holiness Pius IX, 9 Nov. 1846.

3. According to this St. Thomas explains the act of faith: that the faithful man knows God speaking «by sure tokens,» and thus receiving the word as the word of God, believes God Himself (this namely is the formal object and motive of faith) in the things which are said by this word (the material object of faith). The difficulty proposed was this. «There is none so unbelieving as not to believe that God speaks nothing but the truth; therefore to believe that the things which God speaks are true is not an act of faith; but rather to believe that the things which the messenger of God speaks are true; and thus to believe man is more an act of faith than to believe God.» The Angelic Doctor answers. «It is to be said that the faithful man believes man not insofar as he is man, but insofar as God speaks in him, which he can gather from sure tokens; while the unbeliever does not believe God speaking in man» S. Th. 3, dist. 23, q. 2, a. 2, sol. 2, ad 3. Moreover, according to the doctrine of the Angelic Doctor, faith as regards the material object has no inquiry of reason, because namely we assent to it solely on account of the testimony of the first truth; but as regards the locution of God, which is the formal object on account of which it is believed, it has inquiry to this extent, that the divine locution is not to be believed on account of testimony but is to be known from divine facts. «Faith has no inquiry of natural reason demonstrating what is believed; it has however a certain inquiry into those things by which man is induced to believe, for example that they are said by God and confirmed by miracles» 2. 2, q. 2, a. 1, ad 1. But he had said a little before that this very fact, that they are said by God, is the formal object of faith in all things which are believed: «in faith, if we consider the formal nature of the object, it is nothing else than the first truth; for faith does not assent to anything except because it is revealed by God» ibid. q. 1, a. 1, Θ.

4. When therefore a word distinguished by the characters of divine locution is presented to man, it is knowable from itself — not indeed evidently but certainly (as we shall presently explain) — as a word not of men, but, as it truly is, the word of God. It is therefore an object sufficiently proposed, not so as necessarily to determine the assent of the intellect, but so that the will, moved and strengthened through grace, may command with a pious affection of credulity and from the debt of obedience to the infinite truth the most firm assent; and thus the intellect, likewise enlightened and strengthened by grace, may most firmly assent to the truth that it is God who has revealed this (e.g. the dogma of the Most Holy Trinity). Whence it appears, and is well to be noted, that this assent is not merely philosophical (as the Hermesians substituted for the reasonable service of faith a faith of natural reason, necessary from evident arguments), and that no less as regards this assent than as regards the act of formal faith is that proposition damnable: «the will cannot effect that the assent of faith be in itself more firm than the weight of the reasons impelling to assent deserves» Prop. XIX among those condemned 2 March 1679.

If it is asked about the name, whether such a supernatural assent of which we speak is to be called an act of faith, we say that it is not faith formally, because it is not from the formal motive of the one testifying; for it is not here believed that God has revealed the Trinity because God says that He has revealed it. Such an act of faith can indeed without doubt also be elicited, of which we shall speak afterwards; but then for that material object of faith — «God says that He has revealed the Trinity» — the formal motive of assenting must again be a locution of God knowable from itself, or at least must ultimately be presented in a locution of God knowable from itself, lest there be a progress to infinity, as was declared above concerning the cognition of the authority of God. But as regards that immediate assent of which the question is: if by the name of faith is understood a supernatural assent from the habit and light of faith, commanded by the free will from the debt of obedience toward the supreme majesty, and an assent to the divinity of the locution which is presented as knowably divine, indeed an assent entering into the very act of formal faith as its principle and foundation — all these properties belong to such an immediate assent. For these reasons Card. de Lugo too says that this assent is better designated by the verb to believe than by the verb to know (disput. I, sect. 7, n. 129), just as St. Thomas and other theologians very often take the verb to believe in a broader sense. But because that assent is immediate, it is not properly and formally an act of faith, which would have to be elicited from the formal motive — because God says that this locution is His — not insofar as the locution is known from itself as divine. The divine testimony therefore, apprehended from itself through a supernatural assent, holds itself as the principle through which and on account of which the truths enunciated by the testimony are believed by the formal act of faith.

5. St. Thomas most certainly never taught that the divine testification itself, as the formal object, is in every act of faith to be believed with faith properly so called. He set himself to solve this difficulty. «The first truth (God) is compared to faith in two ways, namely as testifying, and as that about which faith is (as the formal object by testifying, and as the material object revealed by the testimony, e.g. that God is three in persons). But it cannot be posited as the object of faith as it is testifying; for thus it is outside the essence of faith³; nor again as that about which faith is, because thus whatever enunciations might be formed about the first truth would be believable, which is patently false. Therefore the first truth is not the proper object of faith.» In this objection two things are said: one is supposed as clear of itself, namely that God formally as testifying, or the existence of the divine testimony, is not that about which faith is; the other is intended to be proved, namely that God, the first truth, is not the object of faith even as the material object about which faith is, because thus every enunciable proposition about God would have to be believed by faith. Now in the answer, whoever should follow the opinion impugned by us would necessarily simply deny the supposition, that with reference to faith there can be distinguished God as testifying, about whom faith is not, and the same God as that about which faith is; for in that opinion God as testifying is first and above all that about which faith is. But in our opinion this distinction must be admitted, namely that God insofar as He is testifying is ultimately not that about which faith formally and properly so called is. What was further added in the objection, «as testifying it is outside the essence of faith,» is distinguished: it is outside the essence of faith as the material object of faith, I concede; as principle and formal object, I deny. Hence the whole solution, or at least principally, is to be referred to what is said of the material object, namely that God is not that about which faith is. But this very thing is the answer of St. Thomas. «It is to be said that the first truth is said to be the object of faith to the extent that faith is about it⁴; yet it is not necessary that whatever enunciation formed about God be believable, but only that which the divine truth testifies to (this is the solution of the reason adduced in the objection)... But the very testimony of the first truth holds itself in faith as a principle in the demonstrative sciences» S. Th. de Verit. q. 14, a. 8, ad 16. He says namely: as in the demonstrative sciences the principle is the object of the intellect immediately known, while the consequent is the object of science known from the principle (see above p. 597); so in faith the testimony of the first truth is the object known of itself by the intellect supernaturally elevated through grace; that to which the divine truth testifies is the object of faith formally so called⁵.

The same fallacy recurs in the other citation of the adversaries, no less patent, provided the context of St. Thomas be kept before the eyes. Namely in the 9th objection which he sets himself, it is again asserted that the first truth is indeed the medium of the cognition of faith, but that the truths about God are not the object of faith more principally than the truths about creatures: «in any cognition that into which we are led is the object; while that through which we are led into it is the medium. But in faith we are led to assent to certain truths about God and creatures through the first truth, inasmuch as we believe (hold by assent) that God is truthful. Therefore the first truth does not hold itself as the object of the cognition (of faith)» (as principal, about which is that whole disputation of Thomas). In the answer the Angelic Doctor concedes that the first truth is the motive or formal object of faith, insofar as it is attesting — how this attestation is to be known he does not say in this place — but at the same time says that the first truth (God) is the chief material object of faith, because it reveals the truths to be believed principally about itself and consequently about creatures. «It is to be said that although through the first truth we are led into creatures, yet principally through it we are led into itself, because it principally testifies about itself; whence the first truth holds itself in faith both as medium (insofar as it testifies) and as object» (insofar as about it principally is the testification or revelation) ibid. ad 9. But what those things are which the first truth testifies about itself, and into which through the very first truth attesting we are led, the holy Doctor declares in the following article 9, as also elsewhere very often. They are namely, for all the faithful, all and only those things which, revealed by God, simply surpass human reason, and for some are also those things which, though of themselves they do not exceed the power of reason, yet exceed their actual cognition; for the Angelic Doctor constantly holds the opinion that knowledge and faith about the same object cannot stand together. Whence we said above how falsely there is attributed to him that opinion of the more recent authors from the seventeenth century on, by which they contend that in every act of faith even the infallibility of God must be believed with faith properly so called. See the distinguished Fr. Kleutgen in the Appendices to the «Theology of Antiquity,» fascicle III, § XI, p. 197 sqq. (Beilagen zu den Werken über die Theologie und Philosophie der Vorzeit), in which Appendix, and much more in the work of Theology itself, Vol. IV, tract III, you will find what pertains to the doctrine of Faith excellently proved and explained. Perhaps as to the thing itself even Suarez, as we said above concerning the assent to the veracity of God, does not differ much from this explanation; although he speaks obscurely on account of that principle of his, that an assent which is supernatural and from the grace of faith must be an assent of faith. What he says in his principal explanation we certainly accept. «Even among men, although the speaker, by an express reflex act, does not say that he speaks, by speaking he sufficiently says it by an exercised act; and by this reason, when something is sufficiently proposed as said by God, by that very fact that locution is sufficiently proposed as the word of God; and therefore not only the thing said, but also the locution itself is to be received and believed (the thing said to be believed formally, the locution to be received as divine through the grace of faith and from the free obedience of the mind toward God, yet not to be believed ultimately from the formal motive, because God says that He speaks) according to that of Paul 1. Thess. II. 13: when you had received from us the word of the hearing of God, you received it not as the word of men, but as it truly is, the word of God. In this way therefore the divine word says both the thing said and itself, and by this reason through infused faith it is believed not through resolution into another word but through itself» disp. III, sect. 12, n. 12.

6. Finally, lest what we have said about the locution of God composed of words and facts, wrongly understood, give occasion for confusing the formal motive of faith with the motives of credibility, the several diverse aspects of the divine facts are to be distinguished. That complex of facts of which we have spoken, insofar as they are referred to this word by which determinate truths to be believed are proposed, can and must be viewed in three ways. a) The facts can be considered as they are referred to the truth which is proposed as revealed; thus they exhibit to the intellect that truth as evidently credible, and consequently the intellect exhibits to the will the evident duty of believing. This judgment — that the truth is credible and to be believed — under the consideration of the motives is not immediately free but necessary, because it is evident. In this way, if those facts are viewed, they are and are properly called motives of credibility; but they are not the formal motive of faith, which is solely the first truth revealing. For we do not believe by divine faith e.g. the Trinity from the formal motive that miracles and the other signs were performed for confirming the truth; but solely because God has revealed this truth. Miracles so viewed only render evident the credibility of this truth. b) The facts can be considered in themselves, as they are referred to manifesting the existence of revelation. Thus they are the reason by which there is exhibited to the intellect as certain, yet not as evident, the existence of revelation, and consequently are the reason on account of which the intellect at the command of the will assents to the existence of revelation. In this way too, when viewed, they are wont to be called motives of credibility, although thus they rather exhibit the existence of revelation or the divinity of the locution as certainly intelligible, as has been said, than as believable by faith and to be believed. Finally c) the complex of facts can be viewed formally as in conjunction with the word it completes the divine locution. Thus they enter into and compose the locution of God, which is the formal motive of faith; for God speaks not by words alone but together with the words also by all those facts. Cf. de Lugo disp. I, sect. 7, n. 130, 131; Ripalda de Fide disp. III, sect. 4.

7. The whole series of the acts of intellect and will in order to the act of faith, which we have considered distinctly, we can now enumerate together.

a) The infallibility of God in knowing and speaking shines forth to the mind from its own inward reason, whether under the hypothetical form: «if God speaks, His word is infallible»; or under the absolute form (presupposing the acquired cognition of God existing as a condition): «God is infallible in speaking.» The mind assents by a supernatural act, not by natural powers but by the supernatural light of faith by which it believes the revealed truth itself; and through the same light of faith this assent, from submission toward the supreme majesty, is estimatively above all things. This authority of God is of itself indeed evident; accidentally for some it can be not evident but only certain. The command of the will supernaturally elevated is required as regards the assent itself simply, if the manifestation is not evident; but even if it be evident, there is still place for the command of the elevated will as regards the firmness of the assent. And so already this act is free either simply or in a qualified sense, and therefore meritorious.

b) Some locution (e.g. that there are three divine persons), composite of the formal word and of divine things and facts, is proposed to the intellect as a divine locution. The things and facts are referred both to manifesting the divine origin of the locution, of which in the complex, when viewed, they are an inward element; and to manifesting the credibility of the enunciated truth (e.g. of the Trinity of persons), and to manifesting the duty of believing. For as to the first, by those things and facts as inward reasons there is evidently excluded a prudent fear lest perhaps such a locution not be divine, and a firm assent to the divinity of the locution is demanded. As to the second, through those things and through those facts, insofar as they are referred to the enunciated truth (the Trinity of persons), the intellect, as through motives of credibility, evidently knows that this truth is credible and to be believed. Each of these judgments — namely the judgment about the worth of the reasons demanding a firm assent to the divinity of the locution, including the other about the credibility of the thing said and the duty of believing — each, I say, is from evidence; yet each is supernatural, because the intellect elicits the assent not by natural powers but strengthened by the powers of grace⁶. But although each object which we have mentioned is evidently known — namely the worth of the reasons for the divinity of the locution and the credibility of the thing said — yet the very divinity of the locution is not evident to us directly, but only objectively certain, of which we shall speak presently.

c) While therefore the intellect under supernatural illustration sees this worth of the reasons for the divinity of the locution, and the credibility of the thing said, and the duty of believing, the will through the inspiration of grace freely conceives a pious and supernatural affection of credulity.

d) The will supernaturally elevated, from submission toward the divine majesty, freely inclines the intellect to a most firm assent to the divinity of the locution, with all fear of the opposite excluded; and the intellect at the command of the will, through the superadded powers of grace, assents most firmly, estimatively above all things, to the truth: «such a locution as this is the locution of God.»

Grace both of the will and of the intellect for all the antecedent acts is given in order to the formal assent of faith itself.

e) Finally, with the supernatural assent to the formal object supposed — «God is infinitely truthful, and God has revealed this doctrine, e.g. that there are three divine persons» — there follows, with divine grace illustrating and inspiring, the supernatural assent, estimatively above all things, to the revealed truth itself from the formal motive of the authority of God speaking, and thus adhering solely to the first truth. This now is the formal act of faith.

1. For the freedom of the formal assent of faith it is necessarily presupposed and required that the assent to the formal object be free at least in one or the other of its parts, the divine authority and the revelation. For under evidence the freedom of assent has no place; yet it is wholly evident that, with the infallibility of God posited and the locution of God posited, what is contained in this locution is true. Therefore when each of these two actual judgments is necessary: «whatever God says cannot but be true; God says that there are three divine persons;» then surely the assent to the truth, that there are three divine persons, is also necessary. For in order that the assent be free with the freedom of specification, of which we treat here, it is necessary that the negation of the object or doubt about it be also in the power of the mind. But negation or doubt in the conclusion (there are three divine persons) already contains negation or doubt concerning one or the other of the premises; by this very fact, that one doubts or denies that there are three divine persons, one already doubts or denies either that whatever God says is true, or that God has said this, or both together. For no one can doubt the evident consequence: if whatever God says is true, and if God says that there are three divine persons, it evidently follows that it is true, as said by God, that there are three divine persons. But now, by hypothesis, each of those judgments in the premises would be evident, and therefore necessary without possibility of doubt or negation; therefore doubt or negation in the consequent would also be impossible, and by this very fact there would be no freedom of specification.

2. Someone might perhaps, conceding all that we have said, further contend that with an actual assent to the formal object, however necessary, there could still stand not indeed freedom of contrariety, but nevertheless freedom of exercise in the formal act of faith, because the assent to the revealed truth itself can be suspended on account of the special difficulty which is found in it. But is this suspension of assent only a diversion of the mind from the object, or is it doubt about the truth? Where the freedom of assent on account of defect of evidence is in question, there is never question of the freedom of turning thought away from the object; for in that way we are free even in the judgment 2+2=4. But doubt about the truth of a singular proposition together with an actual and most firm judgment that it is contained in the general proposition and that the general proposition is most certain — e. g. doubt about the truth of the Trinity together with the actual judgment that the Trinity is revealed by God and that whatever is revealed by God is necessarily true — surely cannot stand together. For while you assent to each formal object, you already virtually assent to the revealed truth itself; if therefore that prior assent were necessary, the posterior could not be free, except perhaps with that freedom of diverting thought, of which we do not treat. Moreover this very diversion of thought from the revealed object is necessarily at the same time a diversion from the formal object; therefore even this qualified freedom of exercise could not stand together with an actual necessary consent to the truth of each premise. For it cannot actually be judged: the infinitely truthful God says that this is true; and at the same time the judgment be turned away from this truth. At most the judgment could be not explicit but only implicit.

What is said of the special difficulty which is usually found in the material object can indeed effect that assent be denied or suspended, if it is free; but by that very fact assent to one or the other of the premises is also suspended or denied. One can indeed be induced by a special difficulty to doubt e. g. concerning the unity of nature in three persons, but by that very fact one already doubts whether this doctrine is revealed by God; for as to the other point, whether God is truthful in revealing, no one can doubt unless perhaps one very ignorant or delirious.¹

It is commonly said that the freedom of the assent of faith comes from the fact that we do not understand the material object in itself and intrinsically. But this, first, those who hold with us that even things which from their inward reason are elsewhere evident can be believed by divine and free faith (cf. Tract. de Deo th. IX. n. II) cannot admit universally; then, even in truths which we in no way understand in themselves, although from this reason a special difficulty in assenting can arise, the freedom of faith cannot be explained from it, except insofar as there is at the same time supposed the inevidence and the freedom of assenting in one or the other formal object. For if the formal object in each of its parts were evident, even though it manifested the existence with evidence, although it did not declare the inward reason of the object which is believed, there would already be no freedom in believing the existence of such a truth as evidently manifested. When therefore St. Thomas or other theologians consider the freedom of faith in relation to that inward inevidence of the material object, they are to be understood to speak, with the inevidence of the formal object supposed, of that special difficulty which arises from the reason of the truth to be believed not being seen through. That the evidence of the divine locution suffices to take away the freedom of assent even to the revealed thing, although this remain obscure in itself, see in St. Thomas 2. 2. q. 5. a. 2. Moreover, as I have already said, the inward inevidence of the truth to be believed, or of the material object, is not necessary in order that it be able to be the object of a free act of faith, provided the formal object be not evident. For although one evidently knows rational truths, one can nevertheless believe them by a free act of faith, if at the same time they are proposed by a revelation which one knows certainly but not evidently to be divine; then indeed faith will be called «the evidence of things that appear not» Heb. XI. 1, not indeed by reason of the material object, but nevertheless by reason of the formal object.

Thus the very possibility of doubts concerning the truth of revealed doctrine, which doubts arise from the difficulty ingrained in the doctrine, supposes and shows the freedom of assent to one or the other of the two truths constituting the formal object. See Suarez disp. III. sect. 8. n. 19-21; de Lugo disp. II. sect. 1. n. 9. sqq. But now, since the act of faith is from its nature a free act, as is confirmed not only by experience and facts, alas all too much, but is altogether certain from Scripture, from the doctrine of the Fathers and the consensus of theologians, and from its intimate reason, because it is a meritorious act of virtue (see Suarez disp. VI. sect. 6), and finally from the express definition of the ecumenical Vatican Council (Constit. de Fide ch. 3. can. 5.); and since moreover the veracity of God is perhaps evident to all, or at least can be, and therefore assent to it, considered in itself and not considering its supernatural firmness above all things, is or at least can be necessary; it follows that the divinity of the locution is not, and insofar as it pertains to the formal object of the free act of faith cannot be, evident, although it is and is known most certainly.

3. But how the divinity of the locution is certain and yet not evident is easily explained from what has been declared above. If the word or doctrine be considered as clothed with that sacred apparatus, so to speak, of which we spoke, evidently the dignity of the reasons before every intellect demands a firm assent and excludes prudent fear of the opposite; there is therefore objective certitude (above ch. I. n. II. 2.) shining upon the intellect from the very inward reason of the revelation viewed in the complex, as it stands composed of words and facts. But although so many reasons manifesting the existence of revelation shine forth that the exclusion of prudent fear of the opposite is evident, so that while the reasons are discerned, and at least while the reasons are actually considered, assent is ravished to this truth: «that the existence of revelation can and ought prudently to be held without fear of error;» and although therefore in the composite sense, together with the actual consideration of the reasons, there remains no freedom for this other judgment: «that it can prudently be doubted concerning the existence of revelation;» nevertheless the existence itself of revelation is not directly evident, but only objectively certain, i. e. the manifestation of the reasons is not clear to the degree that it excludes even the possibility of imprudent fear. Therefore the assent of the intellect is not ravished, with freedom taken away, to this judgment: «revelation exists;» it is not ravished, I say, necessarily, at least where the question is not of revelation in the abstract and viewed generally, but of the revelation of singular truths in the concrete.² Whence the intellect, remaining of itself indeterminate to rendering or denying assent, must be inclined to the one or the other by the will; if however, with the reasons seen through, it denies assent, it necessarily judges at the same time that it acts imprudently and against a certain duty. While therefore the complex locution of God, i. e. the formal locution by doctrine and the real locution by facts, is exhibited to the mind, it is understood immediately from itself and from its ingrained reason, and not through another distinct motive, with certitude yet not through evidence, as the word not of men but, as it truly is, the word of God. The first judgment: «due is a firm assent: this locution is divine,» is a judgment from evidence; the other judgment: «this locution is divine,» must be a judgment certain with fear of the opposite excluded, yet it is not from direct evidence, and therefore for a firm assent the command of a free will is required.

If anyone thinks that at least for the first promulgators of the faith, the prophets and Apostles, the divinity of the revelation was evident in the strict sense, on this hypothesis the assent to the thing said could indeed be called an act of faith, because it would have been assent on account of the known authority of God revealing; yet the assent would not have been free, and would therefore be of another nature — which he would necessarily have had to defend from the principles which he lays down concerning the analysis and the proper nature of our faith.³ Nor does the other theologian to whom appeal is made, Aegidius Coninck, enounce anything other than full certitude and moral evidence (as Suarez calls it) of the fact of revelation, when he says (de Fide disp. II. dub. 2. n. 68.) that learned and pious men after long meditation and exercise can arrive, from the motives of credibility, at gathering the truth with so great certitude and evidence as almost to convince their intellect, so that they cannot doubt of it, according to that (Ps. 92), thy testimonies are become exceedingly credible. With equal truth one might say that holy men are often furnished with so great grace that they almost cannot commit mortal sin. Finally, I do not think the authority of St. Thomas 2. 2. q. 5. a. 2. is rightly adduced for that evidence of demonstration in the faith by which the faithful are praised and of which we speak, since the Angelic Doctor there most clearly teaches that the faith in which the intellect would be convinced by the evidence of signs «so as manifestly to know that this is said by God, who does not lie,» is not that «which is praised in the faithful of Christ;» but that in this way faith is not free, as e. g. in the demons; «for they see, he says, many manifest (i. e. to them evident) signs, from which they perceive that the doctrine of the Church is from God,» and therefore they do not believe freely, «but are compelled rather to believe from the perspicacity of their natural intellect,» to which namely the evidence of signs shines forth for demonstrating the truth of the fact of revelation, «although they do not see the very things themselves which the Church teaches.» It ought to be reckoned of another nature than the virtue of our faith is; whence some prefer to call such assent prophetic cognition rather than faith. But from this very fact it appears that even those holy men of God did not, at least in all revealed truths, have such strictly so-called evidence of the revelation, since surely no one can deny that they had the meritorious virtue of faith and of the same nature as our faith. Suarez disp. III. sect. 8. n. 5. sqq.; de Lugo disp. II. sect. 1.

From all that has been said it is clear how the command of the will stands in the formal act of faith. The will strengthened by grace must incline the intellect to a most firm assent to be rendered to the revealed truth on account of the authority of God speaking; whence the command of the will cannot incline the intellect to assent to the revealed truth without at the same time inclining it to assent to the divinity of the locution; and therefore a free act of the will has place with respect to the material object of faith, because there intervenes a free act of the same will with respect to the formal object, i. e. with respect to the divinity of the proposed revelation.

Corollary 1. Men do not commit the sin of internal negation of faith in such a way that, retaining assent to the existence of the revealed word, they deny to be true the things which God says by His word; for that cannot be done. Whence we have seen St. Thomas concede «that no one is so unbelieving as not to believe that God speaks only truth.» But unbelievers sin in that, with revelation sufficiently proposed as evidently credible and to be believed, they nevertheless deny assent to the existence of such revelation, and consequently deny assent to the truth proposed by revelation. For the supreme majesty and authority of God exacts this absolute obedience of the rational creature, that when the word of God is sufficiently proposed, a most firm assent be rendered. «The believer believes a man insofar as God speaks in him, which he can gather from certain experiences; but the unbeliever does not believe God speaking in man» St. Th. l. c. (above p. 646.). Hence it is also clear that the authority of God, as the formal object of faith, is indeed with respect to the intellect of the believer (as we have said) infinite truth in knowing and veracity in revealing; but with respect to the will, that it may command assent, the motive included in the authority is also the supreme majesty of God. Thus too by St. Thomas, in the place presently to be cited, the «reason inclining the will» is called «the first truth itself or God.»⁴

From these things it further follows that habitual faith consists in that disposition of soul effected through a permanent supernatural gift, according to which a voluntary subjection of the intellect under the authority of God is as it were connatural to man, and a promptness, under the aid of actual grace, to believe whatever is sufficiently proposed as divinely revealed. From this it is understood that habitual faith remains the same, whether the explicit knowledge of the material objects of faith be more ample or less ample; and at the same time the intimate reason is rendered why the habit of faith is utterly lost when, by deliberately denying assent even to a single sufficiently proposed truth, sin is committed against faith.

Corollary 2. The firmness of assent can be understood in two ways: first, so that from the very mode of knowing the physical possibility of fear of the opposite is excluded; secondly, insofar as the assent is free, and therefore from its nature does not exclude the physical possibility of fear, but from the command of the will adheres to its object with the exclusion of all actual fear. That former firmness is proper to evidence, and therefore there is no question of it in the act of faith. Firmness viewed in the other way, in the assent of divine faith, is estimatively above all things, i. e. the will strengthened by grace so commands the firm assent of the supernaturally illuminated intellect, with exclusion of fear of the opposite, that, so far as depends on freedom,⁵ it would hold as false all things known by natural science, if they were opposed to the truths of faith sufficiently proposed, because the infinite authority of God is worthy of this absolute obedience of the mind. «The certitude which is in science and intellect is from the very evidence of those things which are said to be certain; but the certitude of faith is from the firm adherence to that which is believed. In those things therefore which we believe through faith, the reason inclining the will, as has been said, is the first truth itself or God, in whom there is belief, who has greater firmness than the light of the human intellect, in which principles are beheld, or than human reason, according to which conclusions are resolved into principles; and therefore faith has greater certitude as to firmness of adherence than is the certitude of science or intellect; although in science and intellect there is greater evidence of those things to which assent is given» St. Th. 3. dist. 23. q. 2. a. 2. sol. 3. Cf. Ripalda de Fide disp. XI. sect. 3. n. 37. 43. 45. sq. From these things two points are understood.

a) The reason appears why formal heretics who refuse assent to some truth of faith sufficiently proposed to them do not, even concerning the other truths of faith to which they assent, elicit acts of faith above all things, as supernatural acts of divine faith must be. For as it is repugnant that God the supreme good be loved with charity above all things in the observance of the other commandments while one is violated, and thereby God is appreciatively not preferred to some good; so God the first truth cannot be honored with obedience and subjection of mind appreciatively above all things in believing the other truths, while this obedience is denied in some one truth sufficiently proposed. For in this very thing consists the disposition of soul through habitual faith and the firmness above all things which is included in every act of divine faith, that man on account of the authority of God alone be equally prompt to subject himself to every truth as soon as it is sufficiently proposed as revealed. Cf. de Lugo disp. XVII. sect. 6. n. 122. ⁶

b) Likewise from what has been said it is clear why the possibility of doubt, and even actual indeliberate doubt, does not hinder the firmness of faith. For the exclusion of fear of the opposite, as we have said, is from the command of the free will; as long therefore as the deliberate resistance of the will against the fear of error perseveres, the firmness proper to faith also remains. Cf. St. Th. l. c. ad 2.; Ripalda disp. XI. sect 2. n. 18. 19.

Corollary 3. Although the authority of God and the divine locution are the motive and formal object of faith, and under that aspect these motives, at least in the first act of faith, are understood not through an assent of faith on account of the authority of God revealing, but from a manifestation knowable from within, in the way we have declared; nevertheless under another aspect both the authority of God and the existence of the divine locution are also the material object of faith, and thus truth to be believed on account of the authority of God revealing. For God has revealed, whether explicitly or at least by exercised act, both His infinite veracity and the existence of His revelation. But in this act of faith the authority and locution of God, as the formal object on account of which belief is given, is known in the way explained above from inward reasons, and the same authority and locution is believed as the material object. There is therefore in such an act of faith a twofold supernatural assent to the same object viewed under a twofold different aspect. By one act I know beforehand the authority of God revealing from inward reasons; then by another act at least virtually distinct (the act of faith), on account of the authority of God revealing I assent to each of these truths: «God is infinite veracity,» «God has manifested Himself by supernatural revelation.» See Tract. de Deo th. IX.

Corollary 4. Although from what has been said the cognition of the formal object is ultimately not mediated through an act of faith on account of the motive of the authority of God revealing, but immediate from inward reasons; yet that supernatural and most firm assent to the authority of God, and still more the inevident and free assent to the divinity of the proposed locution, can in the wider signification of the name be called assent of faith, both because each truth is the formal object of faith and enters as motive into the very act of faith, and especially because each assent is elicited by the intellect under the supernatural light of faith. Cf. de Lugo disp. I. sect. 7. n. 129.