Tractatus de divina traditione et Scriptura

ON THE NECESSITY OF THE PROPOSITION OF THE TRUTH THROUGH THE CHURCH.

The state of the present question must first be declared. Some theologians have taught that the ultimate analysis of faith terminates in the infallible authority of the Church. For to one asking why we believe this or that truth, we answer: because God the infinite truth has revealed it; but to one further asking how it is established that God has revealed it, we render the reason of our faith: because the infallible Church teaches it. They report that of this opinion were Durandus, Gabriel Biel, Almainus in 3. dist. 23-25, Michael Medina 1. V. de recta in Deum Fide, and others, whose meaning Petrus Hurtadus de Fide disp. VII. sect. 2. explains as not altogether certain beyond controversy. The common consensus of theologians disapproves this doctrine. For if the authority of the Church is assumed as infallible under the assistance of the Holy Spirit, then it is itself the material object of faith, which is believed, and therefore cannot be the principle into which faith is ultimately resolved. For it still remains to be asked why this very assistance of the Holy Spirit for constituting an infallible Church is believed; and surely it must be answered that it is believed on account of the authority of God revealing. But if the authority of the Church is understood as merely human, insofar as it is constituted by wisdom, integrity of life, constancy, and the agreement of so great a multitude through all ages, then this authority indeed constitutes a motive of credibility, but not the formal object on account of which the truth proposed by the Church is believed with divine faith, and into which therefore the resolution of faith is made; since the assent of divine faith can be only on account of the authority of God revealing. How this matter is to be understood, and what is true and what false in that doctrine of the fewer theologians as it is commonly reported, we shall try to declare here according to the principles demonstrated a little before in the analysis of faith and in the Tract on Tradition.

We shall consider three things: a) how the Church, as a divine fact, pertains to the divine locution itself; b) how therefore through the Church the divinity of the revelation is knowable to all; finally c) how the formal testimony itself of the Church stands with respect to divine and Catholic faith.

1. The locution which is now proposed as divine, and whose divinity is to be known from inward reasons in the way we have said in the whole preceding chapter IV. — this locution, I say, now proposed, did not now first proceed from God, but, having set forth from God many centuries ago, has been preserved even to us. Whence to know this word (e. g. «God is one and triune») as divine is the same as to know that this word which is now proposed, long ago revealed by God, has been preserved even to us. But now the organ instituted by God for the promulgation, propagation and preservation of the whole revelation is the teaching Church, i. e. the Apostles constituted by Christ and their perennial successors. Hence God by things and facts rendered the Apostles first knowable as His legates in promulgating the revelation. «Going into the whole world preach the Gospel to every creature... But they going forth preached everywhere, the Lord working with them and confirming the word with signs that followed» Mark XVI. 20.; Heb. II. 4. etc. The successors are joined in unbroken series immediately with the Apostles themselves, and, united among themselves in communion and doctrine throughout the whole world, reach even to us as one body. From the connection with the Apostles and with Christ Himself, those things and facts of Christ and the Apostles pertain to the whole subsequent Church, which itself moreover is distinguished in every age by new things and facts as seals demonstrating its divine institution and connection with Christ and the Apostles. For the things and facts indicated above (p. 671. sq.) all pertain to the Church, and cohere with the Church, whether as its efficient and constituting principles or as effects and, if it is lawful so to speak, as its vital acts, by which the Church herself is manifested as a divinely instituted and supernatural society. Read the admirable letter 137 of St. Augustine, n. 15. sqq. to Volusian, and the booklet on the profit of believing n. 32. 35.

Thus therefore the Church, the body with Christ as head, from the origin of the human race even to us is exhibited as morally one great divine fact, in which Christ, historically knowable in His life, His miracles, the fulfilled prophecies, the sanctity and sublimity of His doctrine, His manner of teaching, His death and resurrection and glorification, is the principle and the end, the Alpha and the Omega; while the manifold series of antecedent and consequent facts, which are the manifestations of the Church herself, proceed from Christ and converge to Christ as rays to a centre, whether as preparations or as effects, and partly demonstrate Christ Himself as their supernatural cause, partly are more perfectly understood from Christ known in Himself, just as generally a cause is known from its effects and in turn effects from their cause. As therefore Christ the Lord Himself, and then the Apostles, exhibited themselves by things and facts as knowable divine legates, so the Church, both through her very connection with Christ as head and founder and with the Apostles as her first planters, waterers and members, and through new and perpetual series of things and facts, exhibits herself as the continuation of the legation of Christ and the Apostles. Cf. Tract. de Traditione th. IV. sqq.

2. Hence it already appears how the Church, viewed according to the things and facts by which her divine institution and mission is rendered knowable, is as it were an element composing the divine locution perpetually enduring and perpetually knowable. The preaching and first promulgation of the revelation — speaking now of the New Testament — accomplished by Christ and the Apostles was composed of words and things, and through the things the locution was knowable as divine, «the Lord giving testimony to the word of His grace, granting signs» Acts XIV. 3.; that is, the revelation composed of words and things was from its ingrained reason knowable as divine, demanding assent to this truth: that such a locution (which is the subject) is a divine locution (which is the predicate). See above p. 672. in the note. In the same way therefore the revelation which is now proposed by the Church as revelation derived from Christ and the Apostles consists not only of words but also of the whole series of things and facts by which the Church is exhibited as divinely instituted and as discharging a legation for Christ for the preservation and preaching of doctrine. Therefore not only in the personal preaching of Christ and the Apostles, but also perpetually in the Church, those things and facts — namely the connection of the Church with Christ and the Apostles, the wondrous propagation and preservation, the agreement, the supernatural charisms manifesting themselves, the constancy in the faith received, the martyrdoms, the whole manifested spiritual life of the Church, all those things namely which we have called the Church viewed according to things and facts — compose the divine locution itself, insofar as it stands composed of the twofold element of words and things.

3. But here sedulous attention must be paid to the threefold diverse consideration of things and facts which we declared above at p. 680., lest anyone be deceived in so grave a matter, or give occasion of erring by his manner of speaking. As we have often said, the formal motive of faith is solely the authority of God speaking. Whence if things and facts be viewed in themselves and apart, they are in relation to the divine locution signs manifesting its divinity to the intellect, in relation to the thing to be believed signs manifesting its credibility, and thus in each way they are motives of credibility. Only when considered in the third way — that God composes His locution and His divine eloquence, according to the saying of Augustine, of words and facts — do the facts enter into the divine locution itself to be known from its inward reasons, and in this way enter into the formal motive itself. Thus when a king speaks through his legate, the formal motive of believing the royal word with due faith is the authority of the king speaking, not the royal diploma and seal or the retinue with which the legate appears. But if those things be considered as an element composing with the words one royal locution, which thus viewed in the complex is knowable from itself, in this way those things enter into the formal motive itself.

1. A careful consideration of the doctrine just expounded is of great moment on account of the corollaries which follow from it. For from it is understood how easy and obvious it is, even for the unlearned, to know in the Catholic Church the divinity of the proposed revelation, without the certain though inevident cognition of which, as of its formal object, faith can have no place. I say that this cognition is obvious in the Catholic Church even to the unlearned, because the Church — both as a complex of things and facts (as a motive of credibility) evidently showing the credibility of the doctrine and the duty of believing, and insofar as it composes the divine utterance itself, rendering the divinity of the utterance certainly knowable — is easily known even by the unlearned in a perhaps confused but certainly sufficient manner, so that it is evident to them that they are bound to assent to the existence of a divine utterance, and evident that what is proposed in such an utterance is credible. For all can easily know e. g. that their priests cohere in faith and doctrine with the Bishops by whom they were sent to teach and feed the faithful, and that the Bishops are united with the Roman Pontiff and with the Church throughout the whole world. Whence it easily becomes known to them that the proposed doctrine stands in the faith of the whole Church. Nor is even a confused notice of some properties of the Church and of the miracles by which revelation was confirmed any less obvious to them. But this cognition of things and facts is in itself quite sufficient to beget the evidence of credibility and of the duty of believing most firmly on account of the authority of God revealing; nor, as to the sum of the matter, is cognition by philosophical and theological science any different. In the learned an ampler and more distinct science of the motives of credibility is chiefly required for the defense of the faith and for detecting fallacies¹.

2. For the divine goodness and wisdom has rendered its word thus knowable, and exhibits the revealed truths as thus credible by motives of credibility in the Catholic Church, so that in this Church and in this Church alone all, even the unlearned, have in a manner accommodated to them the foundations of a certitude by which every prudent doubt is excluded, not only relatively for the present culture of their mind, but absolutely for every stage of science; and consequently, even for them, from the motives which they actually know, it is and remains unchangeably certain that opposing reasons, whatever they may be, can be nothing but apparent.

Since indeed God destined His revelation, completed through Christ and through the Holy Spirit sent upon the Apostles, for all nations and all times, He therefore sent His legates for all nations unto the ends of the earth and for all times unto the consummation of the age (Matth. XXVIII. 19; Act. I. 18.), distinguished in perpetual succession and mutual agreement by the marks of a divine mission and authority. This then is the institution of the Church, easily knowable in its apostolicity, catholicity, unity and sanctity, that through it Christ the Head might perpetually preserve, preach and unfold the whole revealed doctrine.

In this Church therefore, and through this Church alone, God willed to render the proposition of the whole revealed doctrine accommodated to all nations and all times; for the Church was so instituted by Christ and distinguished by such marks that it most truly is and must be called a certain great and perpetual motive of credibility, or rather the compendium of all the motives by which the divine revelation is exhibited as knowable, and the revealed doctrine as credible and to be believed. For all the motives of credibility with which Christ Himself, and with which the Apostles in the power of the Holy Spirit, illustrated their preaching belong to the Catholic Church in its manifest connection with Christ and the Apostles, and to no other communion, just as to it alone belongs the continuation of those motives in the wonderful propagation and preservation of the Christian religion, in its effects exceeding all natural causes, in the manner and multitude of martyrdoms, in the manifold manifestation of charisms (cf. St. Augustine, de utilit. credendi c. 17.).

And although the ruder Catholic faithful neither know all these things distinctly nor are able to explain them, yet they know in a manner accommodated to them the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church, and in it there ever stands before their eyes an unchangeable, fully sufficient and certain motive of credibility, a complex of the motive and the motives, so that they rest upon most firm foundations, ready always, each according to his condition, to give satisfaction through the Church to everyone asking a reason for the hope that is in them.

3. Since therefore a mode of the divine utterance accommodated to all men, and as regards all revealed truths according to the present economy and institution of Christ, is found in the Catholic Church alone, and since all the divine facts which constitute both the motives of credibility and the element composing the divine utterance itself intimately pertain to the Catholic Church, through which alone the integral divine revelation has been and will be preserved through all ages as knowable and credible to all nations; it follows that even those who are ignorant of the Catholic Church owe to this very Church, at least indirectly, whatever knowable and credible proposition and exhibition of revelation reaches them. In particular for those who, being in heretical communion outside the Church, are invincibly and therefore inculpably ignorant of it, the divinity of revelation is as it were illuminated and rendered knowable by rays proceeding from the Catholic Church. Especially for the unlearned ordinarily the present utterance as divine is knowable in no other way than through the Church, insofar as it exhibits itself by things and facts in connection with Christ and the Apostles as the guardian of the deposit; so that even to those who, inculpably dwelling outside the body of the Church, believe with divine faith, the word of God must be said to reach through the Catholic Church. For although such material heretics are instructed by the ministers of their sect, yet they know the divinity of the utterance in the truly revealed dogmas proposed to them, insofar as the present utterance stands together with the perpetual succession and with the series of divine facts pertaining to the Catholic Church, which they, by hypothesis, inculpably fail to know is Roman.

4. But in this whole matter of the proposition of faith, both for those who are in the body of the Church and for others who do not yet belong to it, the first and chief regard must be had to supernatural internal grace, whether as the infusion of a permanent virtue (Council of Trent, sess. VI. chap. 7.), or as the aid of “illumination and inspiration” for salutary acts of faith and for its very beginning. Faith therefore is not a natural conviction proportioned only to “what weight of reasons impelling to assent may merit” (Prop. XIX among those condemned by Innocent XI, 2 March 1679.); but the assent of faith and its firmness is supernatural, from grace elevating and strengthening both the will, from whose command or inclination it is elicited, and the intellect, which on account of the First Truth revealing adheres to the revealed truth with an assent answering to the dignity of the divine authority (above, chap. IV. §. IV. coroll. 2.).

a) From this supernatural grace is explained how a most firm divine faith can have place, even if the external proposition be not of such a kind as of itself to render the credibility of the proposed truth absolutely evident. If at times a revealed truth is by accident so proposed to the unlearned that it could not beget the evidence of credibility before any intellect whatever, it is nevertheless necessary that at least according to their capacity there become evident to them the exclusion of prudent fear and the duty of believing. This being posited, the will, aided by grace, can and must incline the intellect to assent above all things on account of the authority of God speaking, and the assent itself of the intellect strengthened by grace will be supernatural. In this hypothesis, therefore, God by internal illustration supplies what is lacking to the external proposition. For as in general, even where the external proposition of the divine utterance is fullest, a supernatural internal illustration is still required, so it is easy for God to enlighten the intellect to attain with full certitude the existence of revelation, even where by accident the mode of external proposition does not render the truth evidently credible before any intellect whatever. So teach Suarez, disp. IV. sect. 5. n. 9., and others, appealing also to the doctrine of St. Thomas, 2. 2. q. 2. a. 9. ad 3. “He who believes,” says the Angelic Doctor, “is induced by the authority of divine doctrine confirmed by miracles and, what is more, by the interior instinct of God moving him; hence he does not believe lightly.” See more in St. Th., Quodlibet 2. a. 6.

And although under such external motives, of themselves insufficient for the absolute evidence of credibility, what is false can sometimes be proposed to the unlearned under the name of revelation; indeed under the same motives there can at once be proposed for belief one object that is true and in reality revealed, and another that is false and not revealed (if e. g. there were proposed to them as the doctrine of the Church both that there are three divine persons and that all three became incarnate); yet the inducing motives do not stand in the same relation to each assent, because the internal supernatural persuasion supplies the defect in the external proposition as regards the true revelation, whereas it cannot be referred to a false revelation, as is evident of itself. The assent itself to each proposition will not be of the same firmness, for towards the revealed truth the firmness will be that of a supernatural assent, towards error merely natural². For on the one hand the external proposition is in itself most diverse, one true and the other false, which diversity from the magisterium of the Church as the proximate rule of faith can, upon inquiry made, ordinarily be easily known even by the unlearned; and on the other hand also by reason of the aid of grace in men who at once believe a revealed truth and a false proposition which by invincible error they suppose revealed, the disposition as regards each must not be judged equal. In the supernatural adherence of faith to revealed truth they are aided by grace, nor can they ever have just cause to call it into doubt³; but as regards adherence to the false proposition they are so aided by grace that, opportunity given, they are drawn back from that persuasion by the external doctrine of the Church and by internal aid, and they themselves best understand that in this retractation they act not against but according to their duty⁴.

b) From the same supernatural grace of faith it is understood the more clearly how far from equal, indeed wholly opposite, is the condition of those believing with divine faith and of the followers of a false religion. For the latter are induced by grace to an examination of the apparent reasons for their error and of the reasons for the truth, and in this examination, the more sincerely they deliberate before God, with divine illustration implored and from desire of salvation, the more will God, who wills all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth (1 Tim. II. 4.), lead them by His grace away from error and bring them to the knowledge of the truth. On the other hand, from a true faith once received and believed under the light of grace, unhappy men lapse into deliberate doubt or wholly into denial by neglecting grace and resisting it, since “God does not forsake, unless He be forsaken, that we may live piously and justly always” (St. Aug., de natur. et grat. contra Pelag. c. 26.; Council of Trent, sess. VI. chap. 11. 13.; Vatican Council, de Fide chap. 3.). The casting away of a good conscience always precedes and accompanies shipwreck concerning the faith. “War in them a good warfare, having faith and a good conscience, which some rejecting have made shipwreck concerning the faith” (1 Tim. I. 19. cf. Heb. VI. 4. sq.; 2 Pet. II. 21.).

c) From both heads — both from the mode of the proposition of faith in and through the Catholic Church, proportioned to all, even the unlearned, for begetting the evidence of credibility, which by further examination and ampler doctrine can only be more distinctly explained and confirmed; and most of all and properly from the supernatural light, by which God forsakes no one unless He be forsaken, and from the supernatural firmness of faith — is understood how false is the doctrine of Hermes, who bids Catholics, at least the learned and theologians, to submit the faith received from Mother Church and already believed to such an examination that they call this very faith seriously into doubt and hold it uncertain, until a solicitous inquiry persuades them what is to be followed and what religion embraced. From this figment, in fact and in principles, the doctrine of certain others differs not much. As, they say, by an examination instituted, there can dawn upon a man the duty of passing from the false religion in which he was reared to the Catholic Church, so in the same way (as some phrase it, “by his own right”) a Catholic man, by an examination instituted, can through invincible error and without fault fall away from the Catholic faith hitherto believed. As though divine truth and error, supernatural faith in the Catholic Church and adherence in error, were of an equal or like condition!

This error was explicitly condemned as heretical by the most holy Vatican Council, in the cited place, ch. 3, and can. 6. Moreover, for the confirmation of the doctrine expounded in this paragraph, let the proscription of propositions 19, 20 and 21 among those condemned by Innocent XI be weighed. “The will cannot effect that the assent of faith be in itself firmer than the weight of the reasons impelling to assent merits.” “Hence one can prudently repudiate the assent which he had as supernatural.” “A supernatural assent of faith, useful for salvation, stands with only probable knowledge of revelation, indeed with fearfulness by which one fears lest God has not spoken.” See Dominicus Viva, “Theses damnatae,” Vol. I, p. 203 sqq.

d) Finally, from what has been said it follows that the necessity of internal grace in relation to the external proposition of faith must be viewed in a twofold manner. A real divine utterance, as composed of things and facts, is objectively and in itself such that an utterance so made and in this manner can necessarily be known as divine. “Shall we not,” says Richard of St. Victor, de Trin. b. I. c. 2., “be able to say to God with all confidence: Lord, if it is an error, by Thee Thyself have we been deceived; for these things have been confirmed in us by so many and such signs and portents as can be wrought by none but Thee?” And yet, on the one hand, when the reasons are weighed, there is evident only the duty of assenting both to the divinity of the utterance and to the truth of the revealed matter, that is, credibility is evident; the assent to the existence of the divine revelation and to the truth of the revealed matter nevertheless remains free, and hence to render it there is required the command of a pious will; while on the other hand the supernatural order of revelation and the very character of supra-rational truths and of supra-sensible things, and finally the opposition against the inclinations of sensuous nature, render difficult and morally impossible for the powers of nature a firm and unchangeable assent to all sufficiently proposed truths, even if the question were only of a merely natural assent of faith; whereas that the assent of faith as it ought to be — proportioned, that is, to the divine revelation and to the supernatural end, and hence supernatural — is absolutely impossible for natural powers is established. Wherefore, considering even the difficulties alone, prescinding from the supernatural order of faith, the external grace of revelation and of the proposition of faith, with all motives of credibility however evident, does not suffice for the due subjection of intellect and will under the authority of God speaking; but a special internal aid of God is required for this disposition of soul, namely for readiness to embrace most firmly whatever sufficiently proposed truths. But the habit of faith proportioned to the end of the present elevation is ontologically supernatural and infused of itself, i. e. one which cannot be acquired by acts but can be effected in the soul by God alone through supernatural operation. Moreover, for a supernatural act of faith, that one may believe as one ought, internal supernatural grace is absolutely necessary both of illustration for the intellect and of excitation and strengthening for the will. It is plain, therefore, that the faith which is the foundation and root of the whole spiritual life and of eternal salvation is a special gift of God, not only by reason of the external vocation but most of all by reason of the internal vocation and unction (1 John II. 20.).

Insofar as God in conferring His gifts with effect requires our cooperation also, there is without doubt required a diligent consideration of the motives under the light of grace, both for embracing and for preserving the faith (cf. Vatican Council, l. c.; Encyclical of the Holy Father Pius IX, 9 Nov. 1846.); but he would be most perniciously deceived who supposed that by philosophical inquiry, whether alone or chiefly, he could persuade himself or others of divine faith. Our cooperation under grace and with grace in this whole business, that faith may be attained and may remain in faith, consists above all and before all and after all in great humility of soul, in profoundest reverence towards the divine majesty, in instant and constant prayer: “unless you become as little children, you shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.”

1. In the foregoing declarations there is already contained how the testimony of the Church, viewed in itself, stands to divine faith, which was the third point proposed in this chapter. First of all it is certain that the testimony of the Church formally, insofar as it is of the Church — just as the testimony of the Apostles and prophets insofar as it is from men — is not the formal object and motive of divine faith, since such a motive can be nothing but the authority of God speaking, and hence the word of God formally as it is of God: “when you 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 works in you who believed” (1 Thess. II. 13.). The only question, therefore, can be how the proposition of the word of God through the Church is necessary, that the revelation or the divinity of the word may be known and that thus there be an obligation of believing. This proposition through the Church, as we said at the outset, can be viewed in two ways: either, with infallibility not yet supposed, the testimony of the Church is viewed formally, as proceeding from a Church furnished with the marks or motives of credibility; or the Church is viewed as, and is believed by faith to be, infallible under the assistance of the Holy Spirit.

a) From the nature of the case and absolutely, the proposition of the Church viewed in neither way is necessary for the obligation of believing and divine faith to have place. For nothing else is required than that the divine utterance be rendered sufficiently knowable; and this of itself and absolutely can come about in many other ways. Thus with all those who received faith from an immediate revelation of God and were constituted the first promulgators of revelation, assuredly no proposition of the Church intervened; thus even now, speaking absolutely, the divinity of a revelation made long ago can be rendered knowable by miracles or other motives of credibility.

b) If the testimony of the Church is viewed with faith in its infallibility not yet supposed, merely as the testimony of this society furnished with so many and so great motives of credibility, then properly speaking it is nothing other than the application, to determinate truths and to their revelation, of the things and facts of which we have already so often spoken. For as the things and facts which are something of the Church itself, viewed of themselves, render the existence of revelation knowable and the truths contained in it credible, so through the testimony of the Church there are proposed the very determinate truths to whose revelation those motives of credibility pertain. This, therefore, is not so much a necessity of testimony viewed formally, or of verbal testimony, of which we now inquire, as a necessity of the divine facts in the Church, of which we spoke above.

c) If the testimony of the Church is understood with infallibility under the assistance of the Holy Spirit already supposed, certainly such authority of the Church can be neither a necessary motive nor a necessary condition for every act of faith. For this mode of infallibility and this assistance of the Holy Spirit cannot be known from internal reasons, but can only be believed by an act of faith on account of the authority of God revealing it. Whence, if this act of faith in such infallibility of the Church were necessarily supposed for all other acts of faith, at least that first act itself could not again suppose another act of faith in the infallibility of the Church through the assistance of the Holy Spirit. Nor again is knowledge of the infallibility of the Church, which depends on the assistance of the Holy Spirit, necessary for all other acts of faith. For without doubt other articles of faith can be sufficiently proposed to men with this infallibility of the Church not yet known, so that they can and must believe them with divine faith. Nor is there reason why acts of divine faith should be denied to those who, reared without fault of their own in some sect, are invincibly ignorant of this infallibility of the Church, yet have other revealed truths sufficiently proposed through things and facts derived to them, unknown to themselves, from the Church unknown to them. For such men, so long as they do not sin gravely against faith and bear a ready mind to believe and practically follow whatever revelation, and hence also the true Church once it shall be sufficiently proposed, are only material heretics, but in disposition and habit truly faithful¹.

2. Although these things are so, nevertheless in another respect, according to the ordinary providence of God, the necessity of the testimony of the Church as infallible through the assistance of the Holy Spirit is most true. For this mode of proposition is of itself the fittest for all believers to know all truths of faith in the complex without admixture of error, and in the present economy it is necessary for preserving unity of faith in catholicity, and was instituted by Christ Himself. (See de Tradit. th. VI.).

Wherefore the proposition of revealed truth through the Church, according to the ordinary providence of God and according to the economy instituted by Christ, is necessary in order that it become sufficiently known which are the revealed truths. Since commonly, and in such a way that all are bound to believe, a truth cannot be sufficiently proposed as revealed except through the Church, whether by solemn judgment or by public profession, it comes about that proposition made by the Church is required for a truth to pertain to catholic faith. Although therefore a truth not yet proposed by the Church for the belief of all is, for those to whom it becomes sufficiently known as comprised in the deposit of revelation, the object of divine faith; indeed although even a private revelation, especially by those to whom it is made, can be believed with divine faith when the divine utterance is sufficiently established for them (de Tradit. th. XXII. corollar.); nevertheless neither in the former way before the proposition of the Church, nor in the latter way ever, is the object of catholic or universal faith constituted.

3. Further, once the Church is already known as the infallible organ of the Holy Spirit for proposing revealed doctrine, it is easily plain that such testification is not merely human but is the utterance of the Holy Spirit through the Church, while the utterance of the Holy Spirit once made through the prophets and Apostles (cf. Heb. I. 1.) is now proposed by the same Spirit through the Church. But a divine utterance is the formal motive of faith. Therefore the testimony of the Church viewed in this way — not insofar as it is of men, but insofar as it is of the Holy Spirit — pertains to the formal motive of faith. St. Thomas expresses this sense in explaining the difference between the believer and the unbeliever, which we described above from the Angelic Doctor. “The believer believes a man not insofar as he is man, but insofar as God speaks in him, which he can gather from certain evidences; the unbeliever, however, does not believe God speaking in man” St. Th., in 3. dist. 23. q. 2. a. 2. sol. 2. ad 3.