Tractatus de divina traditione et Scriptura

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.