Catholic Encyclopedia: Faith

I. THE MEANING OF THE WORD

In the Old Testament, the Hebrew word means essentially <steadfastness>, cf. Exod.,
xvii, 12, where it is used to describe the strengthening of Moses' hands; hence it comes
to mean <faithfulness>, whether of God towards man (Deut., xxxii, 4) or of man
towards God (Ps. cxviii, 30). As signifying man's attitude towards God it means
trustfulness or <fiducia>. It would, however, be illogical to conclude that the word
cannot, and does not, mean <belief> or <faith> in the Old Testament for it is clear that
we cannot put trust in a person's promises without previously assenting to or believing
in that person's claim to such confidence. Hence even if it could be proved that the
Hebrew word does not in itself contain the notion of belief, it must necessarily
presuppose it. But that the word does itself contain the notion of belief is clear from the
use of the radical, which in the causative conjugation, or <Hiph'il>, means "to believe",
e.g. Gen., xv, 6, and Deut., i, 32, in which latter passage the two meanings -- viz. of
believing and of trusting -- are combined. That the noun itself often means <faith> or
<belief>, is clear from Hab., ii, 4, where the context demands it. The witness of the
Septuagint is decisive; they render the verb by <pisteuo>, and the noun by <pistis>;
and here again the two factors, faith and trust, are connoted by the same term. But that
even in classical Greek <pisteuo> was used to signify <believe>, is clear from Euripides
(Helene, 710),  <logois d'emoisi pisteuson tade>, and that <pistis> could mean "belief"
is shown by the same dramatist's <theon d'ouketi pistis arage> (Medea, 414; cf. Hipp.,
1007).  In the New Testament the meanings "to believe" and "belief", for <pisteon> and
<pistis>, come  to the fore; in Christ's speech, <pistis> frequently means "trust", but also
"belief" (cf. Matt., viii, 10). In Acts it is used objectively of the  tenets of the Christians,
but is often to be rendered "belief" (cf. xvii, 31; xx, 21; xxvi, 8). In Romans, xiv, 23, it has
the meaning of "conscience" --  "all that is not of faith is sin" -- but the Apostle
repeatedly uses it  in the sense of "belief" (cf . Rom., iv, and Gal., iii). How necessary it
is to point this out will be evident to all who are familiar with modern theological
literature; thus, when a writer in the "Hibbert Journal",  Oct., 1907, says, "From one end
of the Scripture to the other, faith is trust and only trust", it is hard to see how he would
explain 1 Cor. xiii, 13, and Heb., xi, 1. The truth is that many theological writers of the
present day are given to very loose thinking, and in nothing is this so evident as in their
treatment of faith. In the article just referred to we read:  "Trust in God is faith, faith is
belief, belief may mean creed, but creed is not equivalent to trust in God." A similar
vagueness was especially noticeable in the "Do we believe?" controversy- one
correspondent says- "We unbelievers, if we have lost faith, cling more closely to hope
and -- the greatest of these -- charity" ("Do we believe?", p. 180,  ed. W. L. Courtney,
1905). Non-Catholic writers have repudiated all idea of faith as an intellectual assent,
and consequently they fail to realize that faith must necessarily result in a body of
dogmatic beliefs. "How and by what influence", asks Harnack, "was the living faith
transformed into the creed to be believed, the surrender to Christ into a philosophical
Christology?" (quoted in Hibbert Journal, loc. cit.).

II. FAITH MAY BE CONSIDERED BOTH OBJECTIVELY AND SUBJECTIVELY

Objectively, it stands for the sum of truths revealed by God in Scripture and tradition
and which the Church (see FAITH, RULE OF) presents to us in a brief form in her
creeds, subjectively, <faith> stands for the habit or virtue by which we assent to those
truths. It is with this subjective aspect of faith that we are here primarily concerned.
Before we proceed to analyze the term faith, certain preliminary notions must be made
clear.

(a) The twofold order of knowledge. -- "The Catholic Church", says the First Vatican
Council, III, iv, "has always held that there is a twofold order of knowledge, and that
these two orders are distinguished from one another not only in their principle but in
their object; in one we know by natural reason, in the other by Divine faith; the object of
the one is truth attainable by natural reason, the object of the other is mysteries hidden
in God, but which we have to believe and which can only be known to us by Divine
revelation."

(b) Now intellectual knowledge may be defined in a general way as the union between
the intellect and an intelligible object. But a truth is intelligible to us only in so far as it
is evident to us, and evidence is of different kinds; hence, according to the varying
character of the evidence, we shall have varying kinds of knowledge. Thus a truth may
be self-evident -- e.g. the whole is greater than its part -- in which case we are said to
have intuitive knowledge of it; or the truth may not be self-evident, but deducible from
premises in which it is contained -- such knowledge is termed reasoned knowledge; or
again a truth may be neither self-evident nor deducible from premises in which it is
contained, yet the intellect may be obliged to assent to it because It would else have to
reject some other universally accepted truth; lastly, the intellect may be induced to
assent to a truth for none of the foregoing reasons, but solely because, though not
evident in itself, this truth rests on grave authority -- for example, we accept the
statement that the sun is 90,000,000 miles distant from the earth because competent,
veracious authorities vouch for the fact. This last kind of knowledge is termed faith,
and is clearly necessary in daily life. If the authority upon which we base our assent is
human and therefore fallible, we have human and fallible faith; if the authority is
Divine, we have Divine and infallible faith. If to this be added the medium by which
the Divine authority for certain statements is put before us, viz. the Catholic Church,
we have Divine-Catholic Faith (see FAITH, RULE OF).

(c) Again, evidence, whatever its source, may be of various degrees and so cause
greater or less firmness of adhesion on the part of the mind which assents to a truth.
Thus arguments or authorities for and against a truth may be either wanting or evenly
balanced, in this case the intellect does not give in its adherence to the truth, but
remains in a state of doubt or absolute suspension of judgment; or the arguments on
one side may predominate; though not to the exclusion of those on the other side; in
this case we have not complete adhesion of the intellect to the truth in question but only
opinion. Lastly, the arguments or authorities brought forward may be so convincing
that the mind gives its unqualified assent to the statement proposed and has no fear
whatever lest it should not be true; this state of mind is termed certitude, and is the
perfection of knowledge. Divine faith, then, is that form of knowledge which is derived
from Divine authority, and which consequently begets absolute certitude in the mind of
the recipient.

(d) That such Divine faith is necessary, follows from the fact of Divine revelation. For
revelation means that the Supreme Truth has spoken to man and revealed to him truths
which are not in themselves evident to the human mind. We must, then, either reject
revelation altogether, or accept it by faith; that is, we must submit our intellect to truths
which we cannot understand, but which come to us on Divine authority.

(e) We shall arrive at a better understanding of the habit or virtue of faith if we have
previously analysed an act of faith; and this analysis will be facilitated by examining an
act of ocular vision and an act of reasoned knowledge. In ocular vision we distinguish
three things: the eye, or visual faculty the coloured object, and the light which serves as
the medium between the eye and the object. It is usual to term colour the formal object
(<objectum formale quod>) of vision, since it is that which precisely and alone makes a
thing the object of vision, the individual object seen may be termed the material object,
e.g. this apple, that man, etc. Similarly, the light which serves as the medium between
the eye and the object is termed the formal reason (<objectum formale quo>) of our
actual vision. In the same way, when we analyze an act of intellectual assent to any
given truth, we must distinguish the intellectual faculty which elicits the act the
intelligible object towards which the intellect is directed, and the evidence whether
intrinsic to that object or extrinsic to it, which moves us to assent to it. None of these
factors can be omitted, each cooperates in bringing about the act, whether of ocular
vision or of intellectual assent.

(f) Hence, for an act of faith we shall need a faculty capable of eliciting the act, an
object commensurate with that faculty, and evidence -- not intrinsic but extrinsic to that
object -- which shall serve as the link between faculty and object. We will commence
our analysis with the object:-

III. ANALYSIS OF THE OBJECT OR TERM IN AN ACT OF DIVINE FAITH

(a) For a truth to be the object of an act of Divine faith, it must be itself Divine, and this
not merely as coming from God, but as being itself concerned with God. Just as in
ocular vision the formal object must necessarily be something coloured, so in Divine
faith the formal object must be something Divine -- in theological language, the
<objectum formale quod> of Divine faith is the First Truth in Being, <Prima Veritas in
essendo> -- we could not make an act of Divine faith in the existence of India.

(b) Again, the evidence upon which we assent to this Divine truth must also be itself
Divine, and there must be as close a relation between that truth and the evidence upon
which it comes to us as there is between the coloured object and the light; the former is
a necessary condition for the exercise of our visual faculty, the latter is the cause of our
actual vision. But no one but God can reveal God; in other words, God is His own
evidence. Hence, just as the formal object of Divine faith is the First Truth Itself, so the
evidence of that First Truth is the First Truth declaring Itself. To use scholastic language
once more, the <objectum formale quod>, or the motive, or the evidence, of Divine faith
is the <Prima Veritas in dicendo>.

(c) There is a controversy whether the same truth can be an object both of faith and of
knowledge. In other words, can we believe a thing both because we are told it on good
authority and because we ourselves perceive it to be true? St. Thomas, Scotus, and
others hold that once a thing is seen to be true, the adhesion of the mind is in no wise
strengthened by the authority of one who states that it is so, but the majority of
theologians maintain, with De Lugo, that there may be a knowledge which does not
entirely satisfy the mind, and that authority may then find a place, to complete its
satisfaction. -- We may note here the absurd expression <Credo quia impossibile>,
which has provoked many sneers. It is not an axiom of the Scholastics, as was stated in
the "Revue de Metaphysique et de Morale" (March, 1896, p. 169), and as was suggested
more than once in the "Do we believe?" correspondence. The expression is due to
Tertullian, whose exact words are: "Natus est Dei Filius; non pudet, quia pudendum
est: et mortuus est Dei Filius; prorsus credibile est, quia ineptum est; et sepultus,
resurrexit; certum est, quia impossibile" (De Carne Christi, cap. v). This treatise dates
from Tertullian's Montanist days, when he was carried away by his love of paradox. At
the same time it is clear that the writer only aims at bringing out the wisdom of God
manifested in the humiliation of the Cross; he is perhaps paraphrasing St. Paul's words
in 1 Cor., i, 25.

(d) Let us now take some concrete act of faith, e.g. "I believe in the Most Holy Trinity."
This mystery is the material or individual object upon which we are now exercising our
faith, the formal object is its character as being a Divine truth, and this truth is clearly
inevident as far as we are concerned; it in no way appeals to our intellect, on the
contrary it rather repels it. And yet we assent to it by faith, consequently upon evidence
which is extrinsic and not intrinsic to the truth we are accepting. But there can be no
evidence commensurate with such a mystery save the Divine testimony itself, and this
constitutes the motive for our assent to the mystery, and is, in scholastic language, the
<objectum formale quo> of our assent. If then, we are asked why we believe with
Divine faith any Divine truth, the only adequate answer must be because God has
revealed it.

(e) We may point out in this connexion the falsity of the prevalent notion that faith is
blind. "We believe", says the First Vatican Council (III, iii), "that revelation is true, not
indeed because the intrinsic truth of the mysteries is clearly seen by the natural light of
reason, but because of the authority of God Who reveals them, for He can neither
deceive nor be deceived." Thus, to return to the act of faith which we make in the Holy
Trinity, we may formulate it in syllogistic fashion thus: Whatever God reveals is true
but God has revealed the mystery of the Holy Trinity therefore this mystery is true. The
major premise is indubitable and intrinsically evident to reason; the minor premise is
also true because it is declared to us by the infallible Church (cf. FAITH, RULE OF),
and also because, as the First Vatican Council says, "in addition to the internal
assistance of His Holy Spirit, it has pleased God to give us certain external proofs of
His revelation, viz. certain Divine facts, especially miracles and prophecies, for since
these latter clearly manifest God's omnipotence and infinite knowledge, they afford
most certain proofs of His revelation and are suited to the capacity of all." Hence St.
Thomas says: "A man would not believe unless he saw the things he had to believe,
either by the evidence of miracles or of something similar" (II- II, Q. i, a. 4, ad 1). The
saint is here speaking of the motives of credibility.

IV. MOTIVES OF CREDIBILITY

(a) When we say that a certain statement is incredible we often mean merely that it is
extraordinary, but it should be borne in mind that this is a misuse of language, for the
credibility or incredibility of a statement has nothing to do with its intrinsic probability
or improbability; it depends solely upon the credentials of the authority who makes the
statement. Thus the credibility of the statement that a secret alliance has been entered
into between England and America depends solely upon the authoritative position and
the veracity of our informant. If he be a clerk in a government office it is possible that
he may have picked up some genuine information, but if our informant be the Prime
Minister of England, his statement has the highest degree of credibility because his
credentials are of the highest. When we speak of the motives of credibility of revealed
truth we mean the evidence that the things asserted are revealed truths. In other words,
the credibility of the statements made is correlative with and proportionate to the
credentials of the authority who makes them. Now the credentials of God are
indubitable, for the very idea of God involves that of omniscience and of the Supreme
Truth. Hence, what God says is supremely credible, though not necessarily supremely
intelligible for us. Here, however, the real question is not as to the credentials of God or
the credibility of what He says, but as to the credibility of the statement that God has
spoken. In other words who or what is the authority for this statement, and what
credentials does this authority show? What are the motives of credibility of the
statement that God has revealed this or that?

(b) These motives of credibility may be briefly stated as follows: in the Old Testament
considered not as an inspired book, but merely as a book having historical value, we
find detailed the marvellous dealings of God with a particular nation to whom He
repeatedly reveals Himself; we read of miracles wrought in their favour and as proofs
of the truth of the revelation He makes; we find the most sublime teaching and the
repeated announcement of God's desire to save the world from sin and its
consequences. And more than all we find throughout the pages of this book a series of
hints, now obscure, now clear, of some wondrous person who is to come as the world's
saviour; we find it asserted at one time that he is man, at others that he is God Himself.
When we turn to the New Testament we find that it records the birth, life, and death of
One Who, while clearly man, also claimed to be God, and Who proved the truth of His
claim by His whole life, miracles, teachings, and death, and finally by His triumphant
resurrection. We find, moreover, that He founded a Church which should, so He said,
continue to the end of time, which should serve as the repository of His teaching, and
should be the means of applying to all men the fruits of the redemption He had
wrought. When we come to the subsequent history of this Church we find it speedily
spreading everywhere, and this in spite of its humble origin, its unworldly teaching,
and the cruel persecution which it meets at the hands of the rulers of this world. And as
the centuries pass we find this Church battling against heresies schisms, and the sins of
her own people-nay, of her own rulers -- and yet continuing ever the same,
promulgating ever the same doctrine, and putting before men the same mysteries of the
life, death and resurrection of the world's Saviour, Who had, so she taught, gone before
to prepare a home for those who while on earth should have believed in Him and
fought the good fight. But if the history of the Church since New-Testament times thus
wonderfully confirms the New Testament itself, and if the New Testament so
marvellously completes the Old Testament, these books must really contain what they
claim to contain, viz. Divine revelation. And more than all, that Person Whose life and
death were so minutely foretold in the Old Testament, and Whose story, as told in the
New Testament, so perfectly corresponds with its prophetic delineation in the Old
Testament, must be what He claimed to be, viz. the Son of God. His work, therefore,
must be Divine. The Church which He founded must also be Divine and the repository
and guardian of His teaching. Indeed, we can truly say that for every truth of
Christianity which we believe Christ Himself is our testimony, and we believe in Him
because the Divinity He claimed rests upon the concurrent testimony of His miracles,
His prophecies His personal character, the nature of His doctrine, the marvellous
propagation of His teaching in spite of its running counter to flesh and blood, the
united testimony of thousands of martyrs, the stories of countless saints who for His
sake have led heroic lives, the history of the Church herself since the Crucifixion, and,
perhaps more remarkable than any, the history of the papacy from St. Peter to Pius X.

(c) These testimonies are unanimous; they all point in one direction, they are of every
age, they are clear and simple, and are within the grasp of the humblest intelligence.
And, as the First Vatican Council has said, "the Church herself, is, by her marvellous
propagation, her wondrous sanctity, her inexhaustible fruitfulness in good works, her
Catholic unity, and her enduring stability, a great and perpetual motive of credibility
and an irrefragable witness to her Divine commission" (Const. <Dei Filius>) . "The
Apostles", says St. Augustine, "saw the Head and believed in the Body; we see the
Body let us believe in the Head" [Sermo ccxliii, 8 (al. cxliii), de temp., P.L., V 1143].
Every believer will echo the words of Richard of St. Victor, "Lord, if we are in error, by
Thine own self we have been deceived- for these things have been confirmed by such
signs and wonders in our midst as could only have been done by Thee!" (de Trinitate,
1, cap. ii).

(d) But much misunderstanding exists regarding the meaning and office of the motives
of credibility. In the first place, they afford us definite and certain knowledge of Divine
revelation; but this knowledge precedes faith; it is not the final motive for our assent to
the truths of faith- as St. Thomas says, "Faith has the character of a virtue, not because
of the things it believes, for faith is of things that appear not, but because it adheres to
the testimony of one in whom truth is infallibly found" (De Veritate, xiv, 8); this
knowledge of revealed truth which precedes faith can only beget human faith it is not
even the cause of Divine faith (cf. Suarez, be Fide disp. iii, 12), but is rather to be
considered a remote disposition to it. We must insist upon this because in the minds of
many faith is regarded as a more or less necessary consequence of a careful study of the
motives of credibility, a view which the First Vatican Council condemns expressly: "If
anyone says that the assent of Christian faith is not free, but that it necessarily follows
from the arguments which human reason can furnish in its favour; or if anyone says
that God's grace is only necessary for that living faith which worketh through charity,
let him be anathema" (Sess. IV). Nor can the motives of credibility make the mysteries
of faith clear in themselves, for, as St. Thomas says, "the arguments which induce us to
believe, e.g. miracles, do not prove the faith itself, but only the truthfulness of him who
declares it to us, and consequently they do not beget knowledge of faith's mysteries,
but only faith" (in Sent., III, xxiv, Q. i, art. 2, sol. 2, ad 4). On the other hand, we must
not minimize the real probative force of the motives of credibility within their true
sphere- "Reason declares that from the very outset the Gospel teaching was rendered
conspicuous by signs and wonders which gave, as it were, definite proof of a definite
truth" (Leo XIII, <AEterni Patris>).

(e) The Church has twice condemned the view that faith ultimately rests on an
accumulation of probabilities. Thus the proposition, "The assent of supernatural faith . .
is consistent with merely probable knowledge of revelation" was condemned by
Innocent XI in 1679 (cf. Denzinger, Enchiridion, 10th ed., no. 1171); and the Syllabus
<Lamentabili sane> (July, 1907) condemns the proposition (XXV) that "the assent of
faith rests ultimately on an accumulation of probabilities." But since the great name of
Newman has been dragged into the controversy regarding this last proposition, we
may point out that, in the <Grammar of Assent> (chap. x, sect. 2), Newman refers
solely to the proof of faith afforded by the motives of credibility, and he rightly
concludes that, since these are not demonstrative, this line of proof may be termed "an
accumulation of probabilities". But it would be absurd to say that Newman therefore
based the final assent of faith on this accumulation- as a matter of fact he is not here
making an analysis of an act of faith, but only of the grounds for faith; the question of
authority does not come into his argument (cf. McNabb, <Oxford Conferences on
Faith>, pp. 121-122).

V. ANALYSIS OF THE ACT OF FAITH FROM THE SUBJECTIVE STANDPOINT

(a) The light of faith. -- An angel understands truths which are beyond man's
comprehension; if then a man were called upon to assent to a truth beyond the ken of
the human intellect, but within the grasp of the angelic intellect, he would require for
the time being something more than his natural light of reason, he would require what
we may call "the angelic light". If, now, the same man were called upon to assent to a
truth beyond the grasp of both men and angels, he would clearly need a still higher
light, and this light we term "the light of faith" -- a light, because it enables him to
assent to those supernatural truths, and the light of faith because it does not so illumine
those truths as to make them no longer obscure, for faith must ever be "the substance of
things to be hoped for, the evidence of things that appear not" (Heb., xi, 1). Hence St.
Thomas (<De Veritate>, xiv, 9, ad 2) says: "Although the Divinely infused light of faith
is more powerful than the natural light of reason, nevertheless in our present state we
only imperfectly participate in it; and hence it comes to pass that it does not beget in us
real vision of those things which it is meant to teach us; such vision belongs to our
eternal home, where we shall perfectly participate in that light, where, in fine, in God's
light we shall see light' (Ps. xxxv, 10)."

(b) The necessity of such light is evident from what has been said, for faith is
essentially an act of assent, and just as assent to a series of deductive or inductive
reasonings, or to intuition of first principles, would be impossible without the light of
reason, so, too assent to a supernatural truth would be inconceivable without a
supernatural strengthening of the natural light "Quid est enim fides nisi credere quod
non vides?" (i.e. what is faith but belief in that which thou seest not?) asks St.
Augustine; but he also says: "Faith has its eyes by which it in some sort sees that to be
true which it does not yet see- and by which, too, it most surely sees that it does not see
what it believes" [Ep. ad Consent., ep. cxx 8 (al. ccxxii), P.L., II, 456].

(c) Again, it is evident that this "light of faith" is a supernatural gift and is not the
necessary outcome of assent to the motives of credibility. No amount of study will win
it, no intellectual conviction as to the credibility of revealed religion nor even of the
claims of the Church to be our infallible guide in matters of faith, will produce this light
in a man's mind. It is the free gift of God. Hence the First Vatican Council (III,

iii;) teaches that "faith is a supernatural virtue by which we with the inspiration and
assistance of God's grace, believe those things to be true which He has revealed". The
same decree goes on to say that "although the assent of faith is in no sense blind, yet no
one can assent to the Gospel teaching in the way necessary for salvation without the
illumination of the Holy Spirit, Who bestows on all a sweetness in believing and
consenting to the truth". Thus, neither as regards the truth believed nor as regards the
motives for believing, nor as regards the subjective principle by which we believe --
viz. the infused light -- can faith be considered blind.

(d) The place of the will in an act of faith. -- So far we have seen that faith is an act of
the intellect assenting to a truth which is beyond its grasp, e.g. the mystery of the Holy
Trinity. But to many it will seem almost as futile to ask the intellect to assent to a
proposition which is not intrinsically evident as it would be to ask the eye to see a
sound. It is clear, however, that the intellect can be moved by the will either to study or
not to study a certain truth, though if the truth be a self-evident one -- e.g., that the
whole is greater than its part -- the will cannot affect the intellect's adhesion to it, it can,
however, move it to think of something else, and thus distract it from the
contemplation of that particular truth. If, now, the will moves the intellect to consider
some debatable point-e.g. the Copernican and Ptolemaic theories of the relationship
between the sun and the earth -- it is clear that the intellect can only assent to one of
these views in proportion as it is convinced that the particular view is true. But neither
view has, as far as we can know, more than probable truth, hence of itself the intellect
can only give in its partial adherence to one of these views, it must always be precluded
from absolute assent by the possibility that the other view may be right. The fact that
men hold much more tenaciously to one of these than the arguments warrant can only
be due to some extrinsic consideration, e.g. that it is absurd not to hold what the vast
majority of men hold. And here it should be noted that, as St. Thomas says repeatedly,
the intellect only assents to a statement for one of two reasons: either because that
statement is immediately or mediately evident in itself -- e.g. a first principle or a
conclusion from premises -- or because the will moves it to do so. Extrinsic evidence of
course comes into play when intrinsic evidence is wanting, but though it would be
absurd, without weighty evidence in its support, to assent to a truth which we do not
grasp, yet no amount of such evidence can make us assent, it could only show that the
statement in question was credible, our ultimate actual assent could only be due to the
intrinsic evidence which the statement itself offered, or, failing that, due to the will.
Hence it is that St. Thomas repeatedly defines the act of faith as the assent of the
intellect determined by the will (De Veritate, xiv, 1; II-II, Q. ii, a. 1, ad 3; 2, c.; ibid., iv,
1, c., and ad 2). The reason, then, why men cling to certain beliefs more tenaciously
than the arguments in their favour would warrant, is to be sought in the will rather
than in the intellect. Authorities are to be found on both sides, the intrinsic evidence is
not convincing, but something is to be gained by assenting to one view rather than the
other, and this appeals to the will, which therefore determines the intellect to assent to
the view which promises the most. Similarly, in Divine faith the credentials of the
authority which tells us that God has made certain revelations are strong, but they are
always extrinsic to the proposition, "God has revealed this or that", and consequently
they cannot compel our assent; they merely show us that this statement is credible.
When, then, we ask whether we are to give in our free assent to any particular
statement or not, we feel that in the first place we cannot do so unless there be strong
extrinsic evidence in its favour, for to believe a thing merely because we wished to do
so would be absurd. Secondly, the proposition itself does not compel our assent, since it
is not intrinsically evident, but there remains the fact that only on condition of our
assent to it shall we have what the human soul naturally yearns for, viz., the possession
of God, Who is, as both reason and authority declare, our ultimate end; "He that
believeth and is baptized, shall be saved", and "Without faith it is impossible to please
God." St. Thomas expresses this by saying: "The disposition of a believer is that of one
who accepts another's word for some statement, because it seems fitting or useful to do
so. In the same way we believe Divine revelation because the reward of eternal life is
promised us for so doing. It is the will which is moved by the prospect of this reward to
assent to what is said, even though the intellect is not moved by something which it
understands. Hence St. Augustine says (Tract. xxvi in Joannem, 2): <Cetera potest homo
nolens, credere nonnisi volens'> [i.e. other things a man can do against his will but to
believe he must will]" (De Ver., xiv, 1).

(e) But just as the intellect needed a new and special light in order to assent to the
supernatural truths of faith, so also the will needs a special grace from God in order
that it may tend to that supernatural good which is eternal life. The light of faith, then,
illumines the understanding, though the truth still remains obscure, since it is beyond
the intellect's grasp; but supernatural grace moves the will, which, having now a
supernatural good put before it, moves the intellect to assent to what it does not
understand. Hence it is that faith is described as "bringing into captivity every
understanding unto the obedience of Christ" (II Cor., x, 5).

VI. DEFINITION OF FAITH The foregoing analyses will enable us to define an act of
Divine supernatural faith as "the act of the intellect assenting to a Divine truth owing to
the movement of the will, which is itself moved by the grace of God" (St. Thomas, II-II,
Q. iv, a. 2). And just as the light of faith is a gift supernaturally bestowed upon the
understanding, so also this Divine grace moving the will is, as its name implies, an
equally supernatural and an absolutely gratuitous gift. Neither gift is due to previous
study neither of them can be acquired by human efforts, but "Ask and ye shall receive."

From all that has been said two most important corollaries follow:  <ul> That
temptations against faith are natural and inevitable and are in no sense contrary to
faith, "since", says St. Thomas, "the assent of the intellect in faith is due to the will, and
since the object to which the intellect thus assents is not its own proper object -- for that
is actual vision of an intelligible object -- it follows that the intellect's attitude towards
that object is not one of tranquillity, on the contrary it thinks and inquires about those
things it believes, all the while that it assents to them unhesitatingly; for as far as it
itself is concerned the intellect is not satisfied" (De Ver., xiv, 1).  (b) It also follows from
the above that an act of supernatural faith is meritorious, since it proceeds from the will
moved by Divine grace or charity, and thus has all the essential constituents of a
meritorious act (cf. II-II, Q. ii, a. 9). This enables us to understand St. James's words
when he says, "The devils also believe and tremble" (ii, 19) . "It is not willingly that they
assent", says St. Thomas, "but they are compelled thereto by the evidence of those signs
which prove that what believers assent to is true, though even those proofs do not make
the truths of faith so evident as to afford what is termed vision of them" (De Ver., xiv 9,
ad 4); nor is their faith Divine, but merely philosophical and natural. Some may fancy
the foregoing analyses superfluous, and may think that they savour too much of
Scholasticism. But if anyone will be at the pains to compare the teaching of the Fathers,
of the Scholastics, and of the divines of the Anglican Church in the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries, with that of the non-Catholic theologians of to-day, he will find
that the Scholastics merely put into shape what the Fathers taught, and that the great
English divines owe their solidity and genuine worth to their vast patristic knowledge
and their strictly logical training.

Let anyone who doubts this statement compare Bishop Butler's <Analogy of Religion>,
chaps. v, vi, with the paper on "Faith" contributed to <Lux Mundi>. The writer of this
latter paper tells us that "faith is an elemental energy of the soul", "a tentative
probation", that "its primary note will be trust", and finally that "in response to the
demand for definition, it can only reiterate: "Faith is faith. Believing is just believing'".
Nowhere is there any analysis of terms, nowhere any distinction between the relative
parts played by the intellect and the will; and we feel that those who read the paper
must have risen from its perusal with the feeling that they had been wandering
through -- we use the writer's own expression -- "a juggling maze of words."

VII. THE: HABIT OF FAITH AND THE LIFE OF FAITH

(a) We have defined the act of faith as the assent of the intellect to a truth which is
beyond its comprehension, but which it accepts under the influence of the will moved
by grace and from the analysis we are now in a position to define the virtue of faith as a
supernatural habit by which we firmly believe those things to be true which God has
revealed. Now every virtue is the perfection of some faculty, but faith results from the
combined action of two faculties, viz., the intellect which elicits the act, and the will
which moves the intellect to do so; consequently, the perfection of faith will depend
upon the perfection with which each of these faculties performs its allotted task; the
intellect must assent unhesitatingly, the will must promptly and readily move it to do
so.

(b) The unhesitating assent of the intellect cannot be due to intellectual conviction of
the reasonableness of faith, whether we regard the grounds on which it rests or the
actual truths we believe, for "faith is the evidence of things that appear not"; it must,
then, be referred to the fact that these truths come to us on Divine infallible testimony.
And though faith is so essentially of "the unseen" it may be that the peculiar function of
the light of faith, which we have seen to be so necessary, is in some sort to afford us,
not indeed vision, but an instinctive appreciation of the truths which are declared to be
revealed. St. Thomas seems to hint at this when he says: "As by other virtuous habits a
man sees what accords with those habits, so by the habit of faith a man's mind is
inclined to assent to those things which belong to the true faith and not to other things"
(II-II, Q. iv, 4, ad 3). In every act of faith this unhesitating assent of the intellect is due to
the motion of the will as its efficient cause, and the same must be said of the theological
virtue of faith when we consider it as a habit or as a moral virtue, for, as St. Thomas
insists (I-II, Q. lvi, ), there is no virtue, properly so called, in the intellect except in so far
as it is subject to the will. Thus the habitual promptitude of the will in moving the
intellect to assent to the truths of faith is not only the efficient cause of the intellect's
assent, but is precisely what gives to this assent its virtuous, and consequently
meritorious, character. Lastly, this promptitude of the will can only come from its
unswerving tendency to the Supreme Good. And at the risk of repetition we must again
draw attention to the distinction between faith as a purely intellectual habit, which as
such is dry and barren, and faith resident, indeed, in the intellect, but motived by
charity or love of God, Who is our beginning, our ultimate end, and our supernatural
reward. "Every true motion of the will", says St. Augustine, "proceeds from true love"
(de Civ. Dei, XIV, ix), and, as he elsewhere beautifully expresses it, "<Quid est ergo
credere in Eum? Credendo amare, credendo diligere, credendo in Eum ire, et Ejus
membris incorporari. Ipsa est ergo fides quam de nobis Deus exigit- et non invenit
quod exigat, nisi donaverit quod invenerit.>" (Tract. xxix in Joannem, 6. -- "What, then,
is <to believe in God>? -- It is to love Him by believing, to go to Him by believing, and
to be incorporated in His members. This, then, is the faith which God demands of us;
and He finds not what He may demand except where He has given what He may
find.") This then is what is meant by "living" faith, or as theologians term it, <fides
formata>, viz., "informed" by charity, or love of God. If we regard faith precisely as an
assent elicited by the intellect, then this bare faith is the same habit numerically as
when the informing principle of charity is added to it, but it has not the true character
of a moral virtue and is not a source of merit. If, then, charity be dead -- if, in other
words, a man be in mortal sin and so without the habitual sanctifying grace of God
which alone gives to his will that due tendency to God as his supernatural end which is
requisite for supernatural and meritorious acts -- it is evident that there is no longer in
the will that power by which it can, from supernatural motives, move the intellect to
assent to supernatural truths. The intellectual and Divinely infused habit of faith
remains, however, and when charity returns this habit acquires anew the character of
"living" and meritorious faith.

(c) Again, faith being a virtue, it follows that a man's promptitude in believing will
make him love the truths he believes, and he will therefore study them, not indeed in
the spirit of doubting inquiry, but in order the better to grasp them as far as human
reason will allow. Such inquiry will be meritorious and will render his faith more
robust, because, at the same time that he is brought face to face with the intellectual
difficulties which are involved, he will necessarily exercise his faith and repeatedly
"bring his intellect into submission". Thus St. Augustine says, "What can be the reward
of faith, what can its very name mean if you wish to see now what you believe? You
ought not to see in order to believe, you ought to believe in order to see; you ought to
believe so long as you do not see, lest when you do see you may be put to the blush"
(Sermo, xxxviii, 2, P.L., V, 236). And it is in this sense we must understand his oft-
repeated words: "Crede ut intelligas" (Believe that you may understand). Thus,
commenting on the Septuagint version of Isaias vii 9 which reads: "nisi credideritis non
intelligetis", he says: "<Proficit ergo noster intellectus ad intelligenda quae credat, et
fides proficit ad credenda quae intelligat; et eadem ipsa ut magis magisque
intelligantur, in ipso intellectu proficit mens. Sed hoc non fit propriis tanquam
naturalibus viribus sed Deo donante atque adjuvante>" (Enarr. in Ps. cxviii, Sermo
xviii, 3, "Our intellect therefore is of use to understand whatever things it believes, and
faith is of use to believe whatever it understands; and in order that these same things
may be more and more understood, the thinking faculty [mens] is of use in the intellect.
But this is not brought about as by our own natural powers but by the gift and the aid
of God." Cf. Sermo xliii, 3, in Is., vii, 9; P.L., V, 255).

(d) Further, the habit of faith may be stronger in one person than in another, "whether
because of the greater certitude and firmness in the faith which one has more than
another, or because of his greater promptitude in assenting, or because of his greater
devotion to the truths of faith, or because of his greater confidence" (II-II, Q. v, a. 4).

(e) We are sometimes asked whether we are really certain of the things we believe, and
we rightly answer in the affirmative; but strictly speaking, certitude can be looked at
from two standpoints: if we look at its cause, we have in faith the highest form of
certitude, for its cause is the Essential Truth; but if we look at the certitude which arises
from the extent to which the intellect grasps a truth, then in faith we have not such
perfect certitude as we have of demonstrable truths, since the truths believed are
beyond the intellect's comprehension (II-II, Q. iv,  8; de Ver., xiv, and i, ad 7).

VIII. THE GENESIS OF FAITH IN THE INDIVIDUAL SOUL

(a) Many receive their faith in their infancy, to others it comes later in life, and its
genesis is often misunderstood. Without encroaching upon the article REVELATION,
we may describe the genesis of faith in the adult mind somewhat as follows: Man being
endowed with reason, reasonable investigation must precede faith; now we can prove
by reason the existence of God, the immortality of the soul, and the origin and destiny
of man; but from these facts there follows the necessity of religion, and true religion
must be the true worship of the true God not according to our ideas, but according to
what He Himself has revealed. But can God reveal Himself to us? And, granting that
He can, where is this revelation to be found? The Bible is said to contain it; does
investigation confirm the Bible's claim? We will take but one point: the Old Testament
looks forward, as we have already seen, to One Who is to come and Who is God; the
New Testament shows us One Who claimed to be the fulfilment of the prophecies and
to be God; this claim He confirmed by His life, death, and resurrection by His teaching,
miracles, and prophecies. He further claimed to have founded a Church which should
enshrine His revelation and should be the infallible guide for all who wished to carry
out His will and save their souls. Which of the numerous existing Churches is His? It
must have certain definite characteristics or <notes>. It must be One Holy, Catholic,
and Apostolic, it must claim infallible teaching power. None but the Holy, Roman,
Catholic, and Apostolic Church can claim these characteristics, and her history is an
irrefragable proof of her Divine mission. If, then, she be the true Church, her teaching
must be infallible and must be accepted.

(b) Now what is the state of the inquirer who has come thus far? He has proceeded by
pure reason, and, if on the grounds stated he makes his submission to the authority of
the Catholic Church and believes her doctrines, he has only human, reasonable, fallible,
faith. Later on he may see reason to question the various steps in his line of argument,
he may hesitate at some truth taught by the Church, and he may withdraw the assent
he has given to her teaching authority. In other words, he has not Divine faith at all. For
Divine faith is supernatural both in the principle which elicits the acts and in the objects
or truths upon which it falls. The principle which elicits assent to a truth which is
beyond the grasp of the human mind must be that same mind illumined by a light
superior to the light of reason, viz. the light of faith, and since, even with this light of
faith, the intellect remains human, and the truth to be believed remains still obscure,
the final assent of the intellect must come from the will assisted by Divine grace, as
seen above. But both this Divine light and this Divine grace are pure gifts of God, and
are consequently only bestowed at His good pleasure. It is here that the heroism of faith
comes in; our reason will lead us to the door of faith but there it leaves us; and God
asks of us that earnest wish to believe for the sake of the reward -- "I am thy reward
exceeding great" -- which will allow us to repress the misgivings of the intellect and
say, "I believe, Lord, help Thou my unbelief." As St. Augustine expresses it, "<Ubi
defecit ratio, ibi est fidei aedificatio>" (Sermo ccxlvii, P.L., V, 1157 -- "Where reason
fails there faith builds up").

(c) When this act of submission has been made, the light of faith floods the soul and is
even reflected back upon those very motives which had to be so laboriously studied in
our search after the truth; and even those preliminary truths which precede all
investigation e.g. the very existence of God, become now the object of our faith.

IX. FAITH IN RELATION TO WORKS

(a) <Faith and no works> may be described as the Lutheran view. "Esto peccator, pecca
fortiter sed fortius fide" was the heresiarch's axiom, and the Diet of Worms, In 1527,
condemned the doctrine that good works are necessary for salvation.

(b) <Works and no faith> may be described as the modern view, for the modern world
strives to make the worship of humanity take the place of the worship of the Deity
(<Do we believe?> as issued by the Rationalist Press, 1904, ch. x: "Creed and Conduct"
and ch. xv: "Rationalism and Morality". Cf. also <Christianity and Rationalism on
Trial>, published by the same press, 1904).

(c) Faith shown by works has ever been the doctrine of the Catholic Church and is
explicitly taught by St. James, ii, 17: "Faith, if it have not works, is dead." The Council of
Trent (Sess. VI, canons xix, xx, xxiv, and xxvi) condemned the various aspects of the
Lutheran doctrine, and from what has been said above on the necessity of charity for
"living" faith, it will be evident that faith does not exclude, but demands, good works,
for charity or love of God is not real unless it induces us to keep the Commandments;
"He that keepeth his word, in him in very deed the charity of God is perfected" (1 John,
ii, 5). St. Augustine sums up the whole question by saying "<Laudo fructum boni
operis, sed in fide agnosco radicem>" -- i. e. "I praise the fruit of good works, but their
root I discern in faith" (Enarr. in Ps. xxxi, P.L., IV, 259).

X. LOSS OF FAITH

From what has been said touching the absolutely supernatural character of the gift of
faith, it is easy to understand what is meant by the loss of faith. God's gift is simply
withdrawn. And this withdrawal must needs be punitive, "<Non enim deseret opus
suum, si ab opere suo non deseratur>" (St. Augustine, Enarr. in Ps. cxlv -- "He will not
desert His own work, if He be not deserted by His own work"). And when the light of
faith is withdrawn, there inevitably follows a darkening of the mind regarding even the
very motives of credibility which before seemed so convincing. This may perhaps
explain why those who have had the misfortune to apostatize from the faith are often
the most virulent in their attacks upon the grounds of faith; "<Vae homini illi>", says St.
Augustine, "<nisi et ipsius fidem Dominus protegat>", i. e. "Woe be to a man unless the
Lord safeguard his faith" (Enarr. in Ps. cxx, 2, P.L., IV, 1614).

XI. FAITH IS REASONABLE

(a) If we are to believe present-day Rationalists and Agnostics, faith, as we define it, is
unreasonable. An Agnostic declines to accept it because he considers that the things
proposed for his acceptance are preposterous, and because he regards the motives
assigned for our belief as wholly inadequate. "Present me with a reasonable faith based
on reliable evidence, and I will joyfully embrace it. Until that time I have no choice but
to remain an Agnostic" (<Medicus> in the <Do we Believe?> Controversy, p. 214).
Similarly, Francis Newman says: "Paul was satisfied with a kind of evidence for the
resurrection of Jesus which fell exceedingly short of the demands of modern logic, it is
absurd in us to believe, barely because they believed" (<Phases of Faith>, p. 186). Yet
the supernatural truths of faith, however they may transcend our reason, cannot be
opposed to it, for truth cannot be opposed to truth, and the same Deity Who bestowed
on us the light of reason by which we assent to first principles is Himself the cause of
those principles, which are but a reflection of His own Divine truth. When He chooses
to manifest to us further truths concerning Himself, the fact that these latter are beyond
the grasp of the natural light which He has bestowed upon us will not prove them to be
contrary to our reason. Even so pronounced a rationalist as Sir Oliver Lodge says: "I
maintain that it is hopelessly unscientific to imagine it possible that man is the highest
intelligent existence" (Hibbert Journal, July, 1906, p. 727).

Agnostics, again, take refuge in the unknowableness of truths beyond reason, but their
argument is fallacious, for surely knowledge has its degrees. I may not fully
comprehend a truth in all its bearings, but I can know a great deal about it; I may not
have demonstrative knowledge of it, but that is no reason why I should reject that
knowledge which comes from faith. To listen to many Agnostics one would imagine
that appeal to authority as a criterion was unscientific, though perhaps nowhere is
authority appealed to so unscientifically as by modern scientists and modern critics.
But, as St. Augustine says, "If God's providence govern human affairs we must not
despair or doubt but that He hath ordained some certain authority, upon which staying
ourselves as upon a certain ground or step, we may be lifted up to God" (De utilitate
credendi); and it is in the same spirit that he says: "<Ego vero Evangelio non crederem,
nisi me Catholicae Ecclesiae commoveret auctoritas>" (Contra Ep. Fund., V, 6 -- "I
would not believe the Gospel if the authority of the Catholic Church did not oblige me
to believe").

(b) Naturalism, which is only another name for Materialism, rejects faith because there
is no place for it in the naturalistic scheme; yet the condemnation of this false
philosophy by St. Paul and by the author of the Book of Wisdom is emphatic (cf. Rom.,
i, 18-23; Wis., xiii, 1-19). Materialists fail to see in nature what the greatest minds have
always discovered in it, viz., "<ratio cujusdam artis; scilicet divinae, indita rebus, qua
ipsae res moventur ad finem determinatum>" -- "the manifestation of a Divine plan
whereby all things are directed towards their appointed end" (St. Thomas, Lect. xiv, in
II Phys.). Similarly, the vagaries of Humanism blind men to the fact of man's essentially
finite character and hence preclude all idea of faith in the infinite and the supernatural
(cf. "Naturalism and Humanism" in <Hibbert Journal>, Oct., 1907).

XII. FAITH IS NECESSARY

"He that believeth and is baptized", said Christ, "shall be saved, but he that believeth
not shall be condemned" (Mark, xvi, 16); and St. Paul sums up this solemn declaration
by saying: "Without faith it is impossible to please God" (Heb., xi, 6). The absolute
necessity of faith is evident from the following considerations: God is our beginning
and our end and has supreme dominion over us, we owe Him, consequently, due
service which we express by the term <religion>. Now true religion is the true worship
of the true God. But it is not for man to fashion a worship according to his own ideals;
none but God can declare to us in what true worship consists, and this declaration
constitutes the body of revealed truths, whether natural or supernatural. To these, if we
would attain the end for which we came into the world, we are bound to give the
assent of faith. It is clear, moreover, that no one can profess indifference in a matter of
such vital importance. During the Reformation period no such indifference was
professed by those who quitted the fold; for them it was not a question of faith or
unfaith, so much as of the medium by which the true faith was to be known and put
into practice. The attitude of many outside the Church is now one of absolute
indifference, faith is regarded as an emotion, as a peculiarly subjective disposition
which is regulated by no known psychological laws. Thus Taine speaks of faith as
"<une source vive qui s'est formee au plus profond de l'ame, sous la poussee et la
chaleur des instincts immanents>" -- "a living fountain which has come into existence in
the lowest depths of the soul under the impulse and the warmth of the immanent
instincts". Indifferentism in all its phases was condemned by Pius IX in the Syllabus
<Quanta cura>: in Prop. XV, "Any man is free to embrace and profess whatever form of
religion his reason approves of"; XVI, "Men can find the way of salvation and can attain
to eternal salvation in any form of religious worship"; XVII "We can at least have good
hopes of the eternal salvation of all those who have never been in the true Church of
Christ"; XVIII, "Protestantism is only another form of the same true Christian religion,
and men can be as pleasing to God in it as in the Catholic Church."

XIII. THE OBJECTIVE UNITY AND IMMUTABILITY OF FAITH

Christ's prayer for the unity of His Church the highest form of unity conceivable, "that
they all may be one as thou, Father, in me, and I in Thee" (John, xvii, 21), has been
brought into effect by the unifying force of a bond of a faith such as that which we have
analysed. All Christians have been taught to be "careful to keep the unity of the spirit in
the bond of peace, one body and one spirit, as you are called in one hope of your
calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all" (Eph., iv, 3-6). The
objective unity of the Catholic Church becomes readily intelligible when we reflect
upon the nature of the bond of union which faith offers us. For our faith comes to us
from the one unchanging Church, "the pillar and ground of truth", and our assent to it
comes as a light in our minds and a motive power in our wills from the one
unchanging God Who can neither deceive nor be deceived. Hence, for all who possess
it, this faith constitutes an absolute and unchanging bond of union. The teachings of
this faith develop, of course, with the needs of the ages, but the faith itself remains
unchanged. Modern views are entirely destructive of such unity of belief because their
root principle is the supremacy of the individual judgment. Certain writers do indeed
endeavour to overcome the resulting conflict of views by upholding the supremacy of
universal human reason as a criterion of truth; thus Mr. Campbell writes: "One cannot
really begin to appreciate the value of united Christian testimony until one is able to
stand apart from it, so to speak, and ask whether it rings true to the reason and moral
sense" (<The New Theology>, p. 178; cf. Cardinal Newman, "Palmer on Faith and
Unity" in <Essays Critical and Historical>, vol. 1, also, Thomas Harper, S.J., <Peace
Through the Truth>, London, 1866, 1st Series.)

I. Patristic. -- The Fathers in general have never attempted any analysis of faith, and
most patristic treatises <De fide> consist of expositions of the true doctrine to be held.
But the reader will have already noticed the precise teaching of ST. AUGUSTINE on
the nature of faith. Besides the gems of thought which are scattered throughout his
works, we may refer to his two treatises <De Utilitate Credendi> and <De Fide Rerum
quae non videntur>, in <P.L.>, VI, VII.

II. Scholastics. -- The minute analysis of faith was worked out by the theologians of the
thirteenth century and onwards they followed mainly the lines laid down by St.
Augustine. ST. THOMAS, <Summa>, II-II, QQ. i-vii; <Quaest. Disp.>, Q. xiv;
HOLCOT, <De actibus fidei et intellectus et de libertate Voluntatis> (Paris, 1512);
SUAREZ <De fide, spe, et charitate, in Opera>, ed. VIVES (Paris, 1878), XII; DE LUGO,
<De virtute fidei divinae> (Venice, 1718); JOANNES A S. THOMA, <Comment. on the
Summa especially on the De Fide>, in <Opera>, ed. VIVES (Paris, 1886), VII;
CAJETAN, <De Fide et Operibus> (1532), especially his Commentary on the Summa,
II-II, QQ i-vii.

III. Modern Writers. -- The decrees of the First Vatican Council, a handy edition by
McNabb (London, 1907); cf. also <Coll. Lacencis>, VIII; PIUS X, <Syllabus Lamentabili
Sane> (1907); id., <Encyclical, Pascendi Gregis> (1907); ZIGLIARA, <Propaedeutica ad
Sacram Theologiam> (5th ed., Rome, 1906), 1, xvi, xvii; NEWMAN, <Grammar of
Assent, Essay on Development<, and especially <The Ventures of Faith> in Vol. IV of
his <Sermons>, and <Peace in Believing> and <Faith without Demonstration>, VI;
WEISS, <Apologie du Christianisme>, Fr. tr., V, conf. iv, <La Foi>, and VI, conf. xxi,
<La Vie de la Foi>; BAINVEL, <La Foi et l'acte de Foi> (Paris, 1898); ULLATHORNE,
<The Groundwork of the Christian Virtues>, ch. xiv, <The Humility of Faith>;
HEDLEY, <The Light of Life> (1889),ii; BOWDEN, <The Assent of Faith>, taken mainly
from KLEUTGEN, <Theologie der Vorzeit>, IV, and serving as an introductory chapter
to the tr. of HETTINGER, <Revealed Religion> (1895); MCNABB, <Oxford Conferences
on Faith> (London, 1905); <Implicit Faith>, in <The Month for April>, 1869; <Reality of
the Sin of Unbelief>, <ibid.>, October, 1881; <The Conceivable Dangers of Unbelief> in
<Dublin Review> Jan., 1902; HARENT in VACANT AND MANGENOT, <Dictionnaire
de th&eaccute;ologie catholique>, s. v. <Croyance>.

IV. Against Rationalist, Positivist, and Humanist Views. -- NEWMAN, <The
Introduction of Rationalistic Principles into Revealed Religion>, in <Tracts for the
Times> (1835), republished in <Essays Historical and Critical> as Essay ii; <St. Paul on
Rationalism> in <The Month> for Oct., 1877; WARD, <The Clothes of Religion, a Reply
to Popular Positivism> (1886); <The Agnosticism of Faith> in <Dublin Review>, July,
1903.

V. The motives of faith and its relation to reason and science. -- MANNING, <The
Grounds of Faith> (1852, and often since); <Faith and Reason> in <Dublin Review>,
July, 1889; AVELING, <Faith and Science in Westminster Lectures> (London, 1906);
GARDEIL, <La cr&eaccute;dibilit&eaccute; et l'apolog&eaccute;tique> (PARIS, 1908);
IDEM in VACANT AND MANGENOT, <Dictionnaire de th&eaccute;ologie
catholique>, s. v. <Cr&eaccute;dibilite>.

VI. Non-Catholic writers. -- <Lux Mundi>, i, <Faith> (1Oth ed. 1890); BALFOUR
<Foundations of Belief> (2nd ed., 1890); COLERIDGE, <Essay on Faith> (1838), in
<Aids to Reflection>; MALLOCK, <Religion as a Credible Doctrine> (1903), xii.

VII. Rationalistic Works. -- The <Do We Believe> correspondence, held in the <Daily
Telegraph>, has been published in the form of selections (1905) under the title, <A
Record of a Great Correspondence in the Daily Telegraph>, with <Introduction> by
COURTNEY. Similar selections by the <Rationalist Press> (1904); SANTAYANA, <The
Life of Reason> (3 vols., London, 1905-6); <Faith and Belief> in <Hibbert Journal>, Oct.
1907. Cf. also LODGE, <ibid.>, for Jan., 1908, and July, 1906. </font><font size=4>
HUGH POPE

Transcribed by Gerard Haffner

Taken from the New Advent Web Page (www.knight.org/advent).

This article is part of the Catholic Encyclopedia Project, an effort aimed at placing the
entire Catholic Encyclopedia on the World Wide Web. The coordinator is Kevin Knight,
editor of the New Advent Catholic Website. If you would like to contribute to this
worthwhile project, you can contact him by e-mail at ([email protected]). For
more information please download the file cathen.txt/.zip.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Provided courtesy of:
Eternal Word Television Network
5817 Old Leeds Road
Irondale, AL 35210
www.ewtn.com

You are viewing proxied material from gopher.ratthing.com. The copyright of proxied material belongs to its original authors. Any comments or complaints in relation to proxied material should be directed to the original authors of the content concerned. Please see the disclaimer for more details.