Tractatus de divina traditione et Scriptura

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.