De natura et gratia libri III, cum Apologia contra Catharinum

We have therefore completed [the argument] that faith is one, namely that orthodox faith altogether distinct from hope and charity: which as it can exist without grace, so also without charity. We now proceed to demonstrate that this same faith is entirely that which is necessary for our justification. But first its cause and origin, and its effect per se without the companionship of charity, must be considered in two propositions. The first is. Faith, even while it is unformed, is a supernatural gift of God. This conclusion¹ although it is most received by theologians with the highest consent on account of the authorities of Scripture (such as that to the Ephesians:² By grace you are saved through faith: and this not from yourselves, for it is the gift of God, and many of this kind) yet they disagree somewhat about its sense. For Scotus³ in 3 Sentences, d. 23, says that by human faith (which he calls acquired) a man can assent to the whole Christian preaching. Nay, he says, we believe by the authority of the Church (which he thinks human) and by the instruction of parents, who teach their children the faith. But faith, he says, is infused by God both for the greater perfection of the soul and for the greater certainty and intensity in the act of believing. To which opinion Durandus⁴ subscribes still more explicitly, q. 1 on 2 Sentences, d. 28, saying that infused faith is not necessary except that we may believe more easily. They do not say that justifying faith, which is the companion of grace, is possible for us without the gift of God. Nor indeed do they deny that the infused unformed habit⁵ is a gift of God. For all the doctors agree on this: namely that not only formed faith but also unformed faith is a divine gift: as St. Thomas⁶ is the author, 2-2, q. 6, and the gloss on that word,⁷ If I have faith, but do not have charity. Which gift is required for a man to be a Christian. Nor again do they deny that a revelation of the mysteries of God made to the world is necessary for men to believe: for since they do not fall under natural knowledge, unless God had irradiated the world with this light, the knowledge of them would be impossible. But they affirm only this, that he who heard CHRIST, or the apostles, or other preachers, would not need any supernatural habit or inspiration in order to assent to the whole preaching: just as we assent to those narrating other natural histories. Yet St. Thomas⁸ in the passage just cited establishes the faith of this conclusion far otherwise. Namely that it is not only for greater perfection, or prompter assent, but is altogether a necessary gift of God: without which we cannot believe all things that have been revealed with certainty. Whence, he says, two things are required for faith. One, that credible things be proposed to man, which was done by the ministry of the prophets and apostles and other preachers. And these have the authority of God sending them: according to that, How shall they preach⁹ unless they are sent? Add that the authority of the universal Church¹⁰ in determining the things that are of faith is by equal reason the authority of the Holy Spirit. The other is required on the part of man: and this the Pelagians thought was free will. But this is false: because since man by believing is raised above his nature, it is necessary that this be in him from a supernatural principle moving him interiorly. Thus St. Thomas. And surely not only on account of St. Thomas and on account of Augustine, whose undoubted opinion is everywhere the same, would I have judged this sense legitimate: but, saving the reputation of illustrious authors, I do not plainly see how it is sufficiently safe to think otherwise. Wherefore St. Thomas does not report this as an opinion, but thinks the contrary Pelagian. Surely the sense of the Pelagians asserting that the beginning of faith is from us would be no other than that one who hears the preaching of faith could naturally assent with as much certainty as is in the catholic faith, and that grace would not bestow anything except that man could do it more easily. Which was condemned in the fifth canon of the Council of Mileum. But let us hear Augustine¹¹ on this matter. For although elsewhere most frequently, yet in the book On the Predestination of the Saints, chapter 2, he proposes the question in this form. First therefore we ought to show that the faith by which we are Christians is a gift of God: if indeed we can do this more diligently than we have already done in so many and so great volumes. Note, the faith by which we are Christians. Surely which without doubt can exist without grace and charity. But if at first sight it appears to you that Augustine only means that infused faith is from God, by which we are Christians, yet does not deny that the act of believing can be from nature, contemplate his mind more attentively, and you will see that he goes further. For no one could doubt that an infused habit, if there were such, would be infused by God alone: but he wants to establish that for actually believing all those things which pertain to the Christian religion, and so firmly as becomes a Christian, a special help of God is necessary, whether through a habit or through an act. For Augustine is never anxious to distinguish between act and habit. But this sense will be most clear to one considering what cause he treats there.¹² For after the Pelagians were compelled to retract their heresy (namely that the grace of God is given according to our merits), they attempted to retain at least this, that the beginning of faith is from us. With which error even Augustine himself laboured before he was bishop, as he confesses in the same book, chapter 3, and book 1 of the Retractations, chapter 23. But afterwards, having become bishop (as he says in the same place and book 2 On the Gift of Perseverance, chapter 20), he laid aside that error. And this is what he sets forth there: namely that not even the beginning of faith is from us. He thought nothing about the habit, but says that to believe itself, which is, he says, to think with assent those things which pertain to religion, no one can do except through the help of God. Because we are not sufficient to think anything of ourselves, as from ourselves. Nor is it anything else that he condemns there against Pelagius. Otherwise that assent of faith would be of some merit, to which grace would in some way be owed. And therefore concerning that assent also he cites that word of Paul: What do you have that you have not received? But if you have received it, why do you glory as if you had not received it?¹³ Hinting that anyone who naturally said that he assented to the Gospel could usurp some glory to himself. He accumulates besides several other authorities. Such as that: By grace you are saved through faith, and this not from yourselves: for it is the gift of God.¹⁴ Although this passage, as Augustine himself expounds in the Hypognosticon, book 3, is understood of faith altogether justifying, which grace follows. But that is more open: To you it is given for CHRIST not only to believe in him, but also to suffer for him.¹⁵ And: I obtained mercy, that I might be faithful. He did not say, Because I was faithful.¹⁶ He also adduces that: This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.¹⁷ Although indeed I cannot fully gather this sense from that passage of the Gospel. For it is the answer to what the disciples asked: What shall we do, that we may work the works of God? Where he was not asking for a work which was an effect of God: but which was his commandment, and pleasing to him. And therefore he answered: That you believe in him whom he has sent. From that [passage] of Luke the same truth is corroborated: Lord, increase our faith.¹⁸ As if it were his own power that they believed. And especially from that which Augustine expounds in the Hypognosticon, book 3, to the same sense. Where, when Peter confessed, You are CHRIST, the Son of the living God,¹⁹ the Lord answered: Blessed are you, Simon Bar Jonah, because flesh and blood has not revealed it to you, but my Father who is in heaven. Whence it is gathered that faith is a gift of God. Wherefore I confess that I cannot understand how it can be glossed²⁰ that it is a gift not simply necessary, but for greater, or more perfect, or easier [believing]. For that very word, 'gift of God', plainly signifies that no one can do this naturally. For when Paul says, Not from yourselves, but it is the gift of God, what else did he wish to express than that, unless from the gift of God, faith and grace cannot be had? By equal reasoning, therefore, when he says, To you it is given for CHRIST not only to believe in him, what else is it than to say, you could not believe by any other way? Wherefore Augustine noted well there the word of Paul: Charity with faith from God the Father and the Lord JESUS CHRIST.²¹ As if he had said that not only charity, but also faith by itself, namely to assent to the Gospel, can be from God alone. From God alone, I say, preceding. For as he says in both cited places, namely book 1 of the Retractations and the book On Predestination, faith is the work of God and ours.²² Ours, namely, on account of the free decision of the will: because unless we assent and cooperate, we cannot believe. And for this reason it is required of us: and therefore unbelief is a sin. But it is the work of God, because unless he breathes upon us with his peculiar inspiration and moves us, we can do nothing. But how both grace and the virtues are works of God and ours, we have sufficiently considered in the previous book, chapter 15, and the three following, and it must also be repeated by us a little later.

There is besides a great argument against those who say that our faith is begotten by human authority, namely of parents, or preachers, who instruct us: and what is much worse, they call the authority of the Church human.²³ For if I assented to the Gospel on account of the sole authority of men, truly on account of the authority of the same men, if they told me the contrary, I would change my faith. Against the admonition of Paul: If I or an angel from heaven should preach another gospel, let him be anathema.²⁴ In sum, to believe the Gospel altogether is a disposition, and indeed the greatest, to grace: therefore according to what we said in chapter 3, it cannot be except through the special help of God. Wherefore the holy Synod of Trent²⁵ says very well in canon 6 that, stirred by divine grace, we conceive faith from hearing, and in canon 3, which is taken from the Council of Orange, canon 25, it sanctions that no one can believe, hope, etc., as is fitting, without the inspiration and help of the Holy Spirit, so that the grace of justification may be conferred on him.

It must be answered to them, therefore, that although someone begins to believe on account of parents or tutors, or other preachers, he nevertheless does not believe on account of their authority, but believes them as ministers of the Church.²⁶ Nor has the habit of faith any other inclination except under that aspect. But the authority of the Church is not human: but divine, which cannot err. It is easy therefore to dissolve their remaining arguments. The first is of this kind. Those hearing the evangelical sermon could have such great faith in the preacher as to believe all things on account of his authority. Just as they can give the same faith to Livy, or to any historian, by the sole natural faculty of the intellect: and especially those who, hearing CHRIST, saw his doctrine confirmed by testimonies and miracles: therefore infused faith is not simply necessary.²⁷ But the answer to this is that those hearing the preaching in this way, or formerly that of the apostles, or of CHRIST, could indeed by natural light have some assent of opinion or human faith, such as we have to Josephus or Livy: but that certainty of faith which is necessary for Christians, by no means, unless inspired by the deity.²⁸ For it is required of a Christian not only to believe some things, but all things which are in both Testaments (at least in general) and whatever the Church has explained, as matters of faith, so firmly and certainly that, if need be, he would deny a science which philosophers thought demonstrative. Such is that inference: This divine essence is the Son, and the same is the Father, therefore the Father is the Son. For such certainty of such great supernatural mysteries the powers of natural genius are by no means efficacious. Wherefore if a child before the use of reason, snatched from unbelief (which is their second argument), were educated among Christians, he could indeed have a human opinion of Christian doctrine: yet by no means the certainty of which we have just spoken, unless baptized, or otherwise aided from heaven.²⁹ Whence if, having advanced in age, he believed in good faith that he had been baptized, although it were not so, he could with that credulity be justified through the help of God: and then faith would be infused into him together with grace. But concerning the heretic we have just said how, by faith naturally acquired, he can believe some articles.³⁰ Yet that faith is not legitimately Christian: because it is not entire.

But this is the third argument against the necessity of infused faith.³¹ If a pagan hearing the evangelical preaching were fully to receive it: that is, embracing all things with certain faith, were to ask for baptism, with this obstacle however, that he does not wish to put aside the hatreds which he exercises against his enemy, he seems then to have faith, yet without a supernatural gift. Because faith is not infused except together with grace, of which nevertheless he is not yet possessed. It is answered that although if it were clear to the Church that he brings an obstacle to baptism, he would have to be kept from the sacrament: since it ought to be administered to no one unless it is believed that grace, which is the supreme effect of the sacrament, is conferred on him through it: yet if he were baptized with such a fiction, he would receive unformed faith.³² As St. Thomas is the author, 2-2, q. 6, art. 2, to the third argument: where he says that the gift of faith can be received from God without charity. For by the same reason that, when charity is extinguished, faith can survive, it can also happen that someone receives faith before charity. Whence in the chapter 'Veniente', On the Baptism of Presbyters, it is held generally that through the sacrament of faith (such as baptism) a man is made a member of CHRIST.³³ And afterwards, when the fiction departs, he receives grace: as Augustine teaches in the chapter 'Tunc valere', On Consecration, dist. 4. But what if that pagan, so disposed, were in a grove where there is no supply of water: would he then, as soon as he approved the whole law, receive faith through the desire for baptism?³⁴ For if you deny this, there follows the opinion which we reject: because then he believes naturally as firmly as after receiving baptism. It is answered that before baptism in reality it is not likely that the habit of faith is infused through baptism in desire, unless grace is infused: because he is not a Christian.³⁵ And such a habit is not infused except by reason of baptism, where a man is made a Christian: or by reason of grace, which brings the virtues with it. And therefore either he does not then believe as firmly as a Christian, or a special help is supplied to him from above for the act of believing. But if anyone still objects to us a man in pure nature, either before the coming of CHRIST among the nations, or now in that region where there is no knowledge of him: for he by natural knowledge alone, that God is and is a rewarder, could by special help touching the will be reconciled to God.³⁶ Which the Apostle seems to hint when he reproaches the natural philosophers that, when they had known God, they did not glorify him as God.³⁷ And a little after: The Gentiles who do not have the law do naturally the things that are of the law. These passages of Paul must be treated more closely immediately in chapter 11. In the meantime, however, it is answered that even if natural knowledge sufficed for salvation, with help moving the will, that was not explicit faith in CHRIST: which we now establish to be the gift of God.

The second proposition.³⁸ This faith without grace and charity suffices to constitute a man a Christian and a member of CHRIST: not only fictitiously, as the Lutherans preach, but properly, legitimately and truly, as we said in the preceding chapter, [and] as was determined by the Council of Trent³⁹ canon 28, as regards the truth of the substance of faith: although it lacks the perfection and life which accrue to faith extrinsically from charity. The first reason for this is derived from the superior sources.⁴⁰ For if faith without charity is properly, and as regards its internal substance, truly faith: and a Christian is the same as a believer, whoever is a Christian is [such] through it. But the same reason is formed more plainly.⁴¹ A Christian is one who is of CHRIST, namely who is his member, who has given his name to his militia, and has bound himself to his family, and bound himself by its laws: whence he has not apostatized: but whoever has been initiated by the sacrament of baptism is made his member through faith: according to that, In one Spirit we were all baptized into one body,⁴² nor does whatever sin he commits deny the faith: therefore through unformed faith a man is a Christian. But they say: No one is made a member of CHRIST except through grace. For whoever (says Paul) were baptized in CHRIST JESUS were baptized in his death.⁴³ For we were buried together through baptism into death, that as CHRIST rose from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we also may walk in newness of life. The similitude of the vine and branches is added, which are not members of the vine except while they live by its moisture:⁴⁴ as neither is the eye of a dead man an eye (says Aristotle). And finally to the Ephesians Paul says that CHRIST loved the Church and gave himself for it: that he might sanctify it: cleansing it with the washing of water in the word of life, that he might present to himself a glorious Church, not having spot or wrinkle.⁴⁵ But this argumentation, if we tried to satisfy it fully, would lead us beyond the bounds of the present undertaking to the article concerning the Church: which these men, on account of such testimonies, admit to be none that is true except the internal one.⁴⁶ Namely the assembly of those who are thoroughly strong in holiness of heart. But as far as our assertion is concerned, it will be abundant if we say this. Namely that we are inserted into CHRIST in two ways, as members.⁴⁷ In one way through faith, which we willingly render to him as subjects enrolled in his commonwealth, and by the sacrament we bind ourselves. As when Paul, in Romans 1, having fallen into a discourse concerning the obedience of faith among the Gentiles, adds: Among whom you also are called [to be] of JESUS CHRIST: that is, Christians, by the fact that you have offered the same obedience of faith: bringing the intellect into captivity (as he says elsewhere) to the obedience of CHRIST.⁴⁸ But in another way we are implanted in him, and planted together through charity. Whence: If anyone does not have the Spirit of CHRIST, he is not his.⁴⁹ And the first union is ordered to the second. For to this end we are conformed to CHRIST crucified in baptism, that we may mortify the works of the flesh. Whence: Those who are CHRIST's have crucified their flesh with its vices and concupiscences.⁵⁰ But it is inconsequent that he who wanders from the end and scope of faith should forthwith lose faith. For although by any sin we break faith to that extent that we do not entirely do as we promised, yet we do not altogether deny the faith, so as not to be always bound by the law: after the manner of a civil commonwealth. For he who commits one crime is not forthwith cut off from the commonwealth: but if he is a deserter, or wholly rebellious. Whence CHRIST says: If he will not hear the Church, let him be to you as a heathen and a publican:⁵¹ therefore as long as someone hears the Church, he is a faithful and catholic Christian. Wherefore just as dead faith, as we said above, is not fictitious but true according to substance, so also a Christian devoid of charity is nevertheless a Christian. Nor does he altogether bear the likeness of a dead man's eye.⁵² For the eye expresses the whole composite of body and soul, which therefore departing, it is not an eye. It is otherwise with faith, which lives by another virtue. Nor is the evangelical branch, as soon as it dries up in the absence of grace, cut off from the vine: but remains implanted through faith: which faith is the mother of charity, until the end of the world: when such barren branches will be cut off and thrown into the fire. Or until they are amputated by the authority of the Church. We are taught the same in the similitude of the threshing floor: where the chaff is mingled with the wheat, and of the net cast into the sea gathering fish of every kind, and other such things: which it is not for the present place to enumerate.⁵³ And Paul compares the Church to a great house, where there are not only vessels of gold and silver, but also of wood and clay: some for honour, some for dishonour.⁵⁴ But that [passage] where he represents the Church without spot and without wrinkle, he understands will be brought to pass by CHRIST at the last judgment: when he will deliver the kingdom to the Father. In the meantime, however, the nature of the Christian commonwealth, of the militia of faith, consists in this,⁵⁵ that the sacraments, laws, magistrates, ceremonies, and all the exercises finally instituted are for this, that men may cultivate piety, pursue virtue, and cleanse the heart by charity (which is the end of perfection), so that purified they may be blessed by that eternal vision. Wherefore those who hold this faith, even if they have sometimes swerved from the right, are reckoned Christians: unless, failing from the faith, they have departed from the Church or been cast out. The same is the opinion of the other Fathers, and also of Augustine in On Faith to Peter, and On True Religion: and often against the Donatists: and in the book On Baptism: whose words are reported in On Consecration, dist. 4, chapter 'Est unitas'.⁵⁶ The unity of the Church is that which lies wide open, namely in the society and communion of the sacraments, which is completed with the chaff along with the grain: when it suffers them to be so mingled bodily that neither do the just avoid them, nor are the just avoided by them. So there are in the Church evil men, as in the human body evil humours, which sometimes leave the body.

But the chief argument of all, by which this truth is established, is:⁵⁷ that unless unformed faith made men Christians who are truly members of CHRIST, it would come about that as soon as prelates and priests were in mortal sin, they would be deprived of the priesthood: at least as regards the juridical government of the Church. For indeed since no one can be the head (for example), which is the most worthy of the members, unless he is truly a member: where there is not the true nature of a member, neither can there truly be the nature of a head. Wherefore neither would the Pope in sin be truly Pope, nor would the other bishops truly retain their rank. Moreover that most famous heresiarch John Hus⁵⁸ judged very well that it is a most consequent [conclusion], that if the Church is only that one unknown to us which shines inwardly with charity, no one in sin is truly possessed of an ecclesiastical office. And for that reason, having asserted the first, he immediately added the second. But our more recent Hussites⁵⁹ (for they also glory in this name, Martin) most willingly preach the antecedent, out of hatred of the so-called papal Church: but they palliate the consequent. For after in article 7 of the Augsburg Confession they confessed that the Church is the congregation of the members of CHRIST: that is, of the saints who truly believe and obey CHRIST, they subscribed in article 8 that evil men and hypocrites who have the society of external signs can administer the sacraments, and that it is lawful for us to receive the same from them. Since, as Melanchthon adds in the Apology, the ministers act in the place of CHRIST. But indeed, however negligent of dialectic they may be, they cannot fail to see the force of the consequence.⁶⁰ For if faith without charity, as they everywhere inculcate, is not true faith but fictitious: and therefore (to use Melanchthon's words) those in whom CHRIST does nothing (namely charity) are not members of CHRIST, it is most evidently gathered that prelates outside grace are not true but fictitious [members]. And for this reason there is no reason why God should more certainly confer the effects of the sacraments through them than through others who do not bear the form of ministers. But what need is there of more? Does not Luther⁶¹ well know the consequence? Also in article 25 of his assertions, where he says that the Pope is not Pope if he does not love CHRIST. And do not the Lutherans ironically and mockingly call those ministers whom they call hypocrites outside grace? Let the words of Philip be weighed.⁶² We can rightly, he says, use the sacraments which are administered by evil men. For Paul also predicted that it would come about that Antichrist would sit in the temple of God: that is, would rule in the Church and hold office. But on this in the article concerning the Church.