D. 23 - The virtues and faith

Division of the text

After the Master has examined those things pertaining to Christ by which we have been restored efficiently, here he begins to study things that restore us formally, which are the habits informing the soul by grace.

Now, this part is divided into two parts.

In the first, he considers the habits themselves brought by grace;

in the second, the precepts by which these very habits are directed to their acts, at but we must now consider the division of the Decalogue, which is fulfilled in the two mandates. (Peter Lombard, Sentences, bk. 3, d. 37, ch. 1 (138), para. 1 (Sent. III, 37.1[138].1).)

The first part is divided into two parts.

In the first, he examines these habits individually in themselves;

in the second, he considers their relationship with each other, at it is also usual to ask whether the virtues are so conjoined that they cannot be possessed separately by anyone. (Sent. III, 36.1(135).1.)

The first part is in two:

in the first, he examines the habits of virtue;

in the second, the gifts, at now we must treat the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit. (Sent. III, 34.1(123).1.)

The first is divided into two parts:

in the first, he considers the theological virtues;

in the second, the cardinal virtues, at after the above matters, we must treat the four virtues which are called principal or cardinal. (Sent. III, 33.1(120).1.)

The first of these is divided into three parts:

in the first, he examines faith;

in the second, hope, at hope is the virtue by which spiritual and eternal goods are hoped for; (Sent. III, 26.1(91).1.)

in the third, charity, at although Christ did not have faith and hope, yet as a man he had such love than which there can be no greater. (Sent. III, 27.1(96).1.)

The first is in three parts:

in the first, he considers faith in itself;

in the second, faith in relation to what is believed, at here it is asked: if faith is only of things not seen, how did truth say to the apostles: I tell you now, before it comes to pass, so that when it comes to pass, you may believe. (Sent. III, 24.1(83).1.)

In the third, he considers faith in relation to those who believe, at in addition to the foregoing, we must address the sufficiency of faith for the salvation (Distinction 25). (Sent. III, 24.1(83).1; 25.)

Concerning the first, he does two things:

first, he connects himself with what was said before;

second, he pursues the question, at faith is the virtue by which unseen things are believed. (Sent. III, 23.2(75).1.)

And this latter part is divided into two parts, according to the two definitions of faith that he sets forth;

the second begins at it is also to be noted that faith properly concerns only things which are not seen. (Sent. III, 23.7(80).1.)

Concerning the first, he does three things.

First, he defines faith.

Second, he explains the definition in regard to things that are not seen, at and yet this is not to be taken of all things that are unseen; (Sent. III, 23.2(75).1.) and as to virtue, at the term faith is taken in three ways; (Sent. III, 23.3(76).1.) and as to this part, by which things are believed, at 'for it is one thing to believe in God.' (Sent. III, 23.4(77).1.)

Third, two things are made manifest that might be in doubt based on what has been said;

the first, at but if it should be asked; (Sent. III, 23.5(78).1.)

the second at although faith is spoken of in different ways, yet it is to be professed that there is one faith. (Sent. III, 23.6(79).1.)

It is also to be noted. Here he includes the other definition of faith.

And concerning this he does three things:

first, he searches for the definition;

second, he defines it, at for the Apostle says; (Sent. III, 23.8(81).1.)

third, he raises a certain question about the definition given, at but if it is asked. (Sent. III, 23.8(81).2.)

Here there are three questions.

First, about the virtues in general; (Q. 1.)

second, about faith commonly; (Q. 2.)

third, about the formation and informing of faith. (Q. 3.)

Question 1

The virtues in general

Concerning this there are five things to ask:

first, about the necessity of habits;

second, how we recognize the habits that are in us;

third, whether virtues are habits;

fourth, the division of the virtues into intellectual, moral, and theological;

fifth, the number of the theological virtues.

Article 1

Whether we need habits in human operating

To the first we proceed thus. (Parallel texts: ST I-II.49.4; De veritate, q. 20, a. 2; De virtutibus, a. 1.) It seems that we do not need habits in human activity.

Obj. 1: For the rational powers that belong to humans as humans, are nobler than natural powers. But natural powers do not need habits in order to produce their acts. Therefore, neither do the rational human powers.

Obj. 2: Furthermore, powers are ordered toward their proper acts essentially, and not accidentally. But habits are accidents. Therefore, they are not ordered to their own acts by means of habits.

Obj. 3: Furthermore, nothing is as easy as what has its existence in the will alone. But at least moral acts have their existence in the will alone. Therefore, since habits include an ease in doing something, it seems that we do not need habits at least for these acts.

Obj. 4: Furthermore, difficulty contributes to merit. But habit takes away difficulty. Therefore, for those acts by which we merit, habits should not be given to us.

Obj. 5: Furthermore, knowledge, which is a habit, seems to be nothing other than generating intelligible species. But there are no species in the affective part, but only in the intellective part. Therefore, at least in the affective part, we do not need habits.

On the contrary, Augustine says his book On the Good of Marriage: habit is what someone acts by when the time has come; (Augustine, De bono coniugali, ch. 21, para. 25 (Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum [CSEL] 41:219; Patrologia Latina [PL] 40:390).) and the Commentator says about On the Soul 3 (Averroes, Commentary on On the Soul, bk. 3, text. 18.) that habit is that by which a person acts when he wants to: and this amounts to the same thing. But this is extremely necessary for a human being. Therefore, we need habits.

Furthermore, for us to perform a good work, we must delight in the work itself, for no one is just who does not enjoy just action, as the Philosopher says in the Ethics 1. (Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 1.7, 1099a18.) But it is habit that causes delight in a work, for enjoyment in doing a work must be taken as a sign of a habit, as it says in the Ethics 2. (Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 2.3, 1104b4.) Therefore, we need habits.

Furthermore, the goodness of a human being consists in good activity, and this is what he is praised for. But it is impossible to always act, as it says in the book On Sleep and Sleeplessness. (Aristotle, On Sleep and Sleeplessness 1, 454b8.) Yet an action that is always in potentiality is not enough to deserve praise, for what is good in potentiality is not good simply speaking, but only in one respect. Therefore, we do need habits.

Furthermore, it is sometimes necessary to act well in an unpremeditated way. But this only happens in someone who has a habit, as the Philosopher says in the Ethics 3. (Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 3.8, 1117a16–20.) Therefore, we need habits.

I answer that, for everything that has a rule and measure, goodness and rightness consist in conformity to that rule or measure, while badness comes from being at odds with it. Now, the first measure and rule of all things is divine wisdom; this is why the goodness and rightness or virtue of each thing consists in attaining what divine wisdom ordains, as Anselm says. (Anselm, De veritate, ch. 10 (PL 158:478).) And it is the same way with other secondary rules, because their goodness and rightness consist in their conformity to the rules that regulate them.

However, there are certain powers limited to specific actions or passions; and according as they fulfill them, they conform to their own rules because they are ordered this way by divine wisdom. And because the inclination of nature is always toward one thing, for this reason such powers can have rightness and goodness sufficiently from the nature of the power itself, while badness occurs in them from a defect of the power. But higher and more universal powers, like the rational powers, are not limited to one thing either as object or in their mode of operating, because they can have rectitude according to diverse things and in different ways. And therefore they could not be determined to the right and good by the nature of the power, but rather they must be rectified, receiving rectitude from their own rule.

Now, this happens in two ways. In one way, such that it is received in the manner of a passion, as in the very fact that the regulated power is moved by what regulates it. However, the definition of violence is when something is acted upon and contributes nothing to the act, as is clear from the Ethics 3, (Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 3.1, 1110b16.) and violence conveys both difficulty and sadness, as it says in the Metaphysics 5; (Aristotle, Metaphysics 5.5, 1015a26–30; Aquinas, In Metaph., bk. 5, lect. 6, nn. 829–30.) for this reason, receiving rectitude does not suffice for the perfect rectifying of a regulated power. Therefore, it must be received in some other way, namely, by the mode of inherent quality, so that the rectitude of the rule may be brought about by a form of the regulated power. For then what is right will be done easily and delightfully, as something befitting its own form. And this quality or form is called a disposition while it is still incomplete; but when it is already consummated, and turned into something like a nature, it is named a habit, which is the thing by which we are related to something well or badly, as is taken from the Ethics 2 and the Metaphysics 5. (Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 2.5, 1105b25; Metaphysics 5.19, 1022b10; Aquinas, In Metaph., bk. 5, lect. 20, n. 1064.) And that is why in predications (Aristotle, Categories 8, 9a8–10.) what is easily moved is called a disposition and what is difficult to move, a habit, for what is natural is not quickly changed. And so it is also that a habit inclines to one thing, just as nature does, as it says in the Ethics 5. (Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 5.1, 1129a14.) And consequently, the sign of a habit having been established is the enjoyment in the action done, as it says in the Ethics 2, (Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 2.3, 1104b4.) because what is fitting to nature is delightful and easy. And because of this “habit” is defined by the Commentator in his commentary on On the Soul 3, (Averroes, Commentary on On the Soul, bk. 3, text. 18.) as how someone acts when he wills it, as though having a readiness for what is to be done. Thus, in the Ethics 1, (Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 1.9, 1098b31–1099a5.) habit is compared to possession, in that something that is possessed is had at will; but activity is compared to use.

Therefore, it is evident that natural powers that are of themselves determined to one thing do not need habits. In the same way, neither do apprehensive sensitive powers, because they have a determined mode of working, from which they do not fail unless the power itself fails. In the same way, neither does the human will, in the sense that it is naturally determined to its last end, and to good, as it is its object. In the same way, neither does the agent intellect, which has as its determinate action making things actually intelligible, as light makes things actually visible. Likewise, too, neither is there any habit in God himself, since he is the first rule, not regulated by any other. And thus he is good essentially, and not by participation of the rectitude of something else; nor can evil occur in him. But the potential intellect which is indeterminate in itself, like prime matter, needs a habit by which it partakes of the rectitude of its rule. And this habit must be either natural, for the things that are immediately determined by the natural light of the agent intellect, which is the potential intellect’s rule; or acquired, for the things that can be deduced from those principles. But in order to participate in the rectitude of the first rule in those matters that surpass the agent intellect, it must be infused. It is also like this in the will, with regard to those things that it is not determined to by nature, both in the irascible appetite and the concupiscible appetite, we need habits, by which these appetites participate in the rectitude of reason, which is their rule, or the rectitude of the first measure in matters that surpass human nature, in the case of infused habits. And also in the living body the habit of health exists to the extent that it participates in the disposition of the soul, by which it is able to complete its own working right: for an eye is said to be healthy when the eye’s work can be rightly completed, as it says in the History of Animals 10. (Aristotle, History of Animals 10.1, 633b20.) Therefore, it is clear that qualities like this, which we call habits, are found in living things and particularly in those having choice, as it says in the Metaphysics 5. (Aristotle, Metaphysics 5.14, 1020b23–25; Aquinas, In Metaph., bk. 5, lect. 16, n. 1000.)

Reply Obj. 1: Natural powers are determined in themselves to one thing, and therefore they do not need any determining habits. But this is not a cause of their having greater dignity, but rather lesser dignity, inasmuch as they extend to very few things.

Reply Obj. 2: A thing can be ordered by itself to its own proper act by means of some accident, but not by an external one, only by one that follows from the principles of the thing. For among accidents, some are closer to substance than others; for example, quality is closer to substance than action. And this is why fire heats by means of heat. And it will be the same way in the present issue, because virtues have a resemblance to natural principles.

Reply Obj. 3: Although producing such an action is in the power of the will, nevertheless, it is not in the will alone, but also in the lower powers, from which difficulty and resistance can arise. And that is why we need habits by which all difficulty is taken away.

Reply Obj. 4: As it says in the Metaphysics 2, (Aristotle, Metaphysics 2.1, 993b7; Aquinas, In Metaph., bk. 2, lect. 1, n. 279.) difficulty can be from ourselves or from things, and it is the same way with ease. Therefore, the ease that comes from the character of acts that are not of great weight does diminish the character of merit in itself; but the ease that is from the promptness of the doer does not diminish merit in regard to the essential reward, but increases it, because the greater the charity one acts with, the more easily one bears it, and the more he merits. And likewise, the more enjoyably he works because of the habit of virtue, the more enjoyable his action is and the more meritorious.

Reply Obj. 5: Perfections are proportioned to the things they perfect, for the more proper act is in the proper power, as it says in On the Soul 2. (Aristotle, On the Soul 2.2, 414a25; Aquinas, Sent. De anima, bk. 2, lect. 4, n. 277.) And therefore it is not necessary that cognitive habits and habits of the affective part should be the same way, just as neither are the powers that are perfected by them.

Article 2

Whether a habit existing in us can be known

To the second we proceed thus. (Parallels: ST I.87.2; De veritate, q. 10, a. 9; Quodl. VIII, a. 4.) It seems that a habit existing in us cannot be known.

Obj. 1: For among the other habits, charity is pre-eminent. But someone who has charity does not know that he has it, for no one knows whether he is worthy of love or of hatred, as it says in Ecclesiastes 9:1. Therefore, no one can know his other habits either.

Obj. 2: Furthermore, the habits of virtues are more spiritual even than the angels, because the angels become spiritual by habits of virtue. But while we are on the earthly journey, we cannot know angels in their essence. Therefore, neither can we know the habits of virtue.

Obj. 3: One might say that habits are known when they are present in the soul, but angels are not.

On the contrary, habits of virtue are not present by their essence in the intellect, but in the affections. But affections are not able to come to know anything. Therefore, habits like this cannot be known by their presence.

Obj. 4: Furthermore, there are many people who have virtues and know nothing about them, for they do not even know what a virtue is. And some people who do not have virtue know many things about them. Therefore, they are not known by their presence.

Obj. 5: One might say that they are known by having a likeness of themselves in the intellect.

On the contrary, the likeness that is in the intellect is founded on a likeness that is in the imagination or the senses, because the soul cannot understand anything at all without phantasms, as it says in On the Soul 3. (Aristotle, On the Soul 3.8, 432a8; Aquinas, Sent. De anima, bk. 3, lect. 13, n. 791.) But habits of this kind do not have likenesses in the imagination or the senses. Therefore they cannot be known by their own likeness.

Obj. 6: Furthermore, likenesses of things are more spiritual than the things they were abstracted from. But those things that exist in the intellect are not more spiritual than those that are in the affections. Therefore the intellect does not abstract likenesses from habits existing in the affections, so that it may know them; and so, it has no way to know habits.

On the contrary, Augustine says in the text (Sent. III, 23.7(80).2; Augustine, On the Trinity, bk. 13, ch. 1 (Corpus Christianorum Series Latina [CCSL] 50A; PL 42:1014).) that a person may see the faith in his own heart, if he believes. Therefore, by the same reasoning, a person can also see the other habits.

Furthermore, the Philosopher says in the Posterior Analytics 2, (Aristotle, Posterior Analytics 2.19, 99b26–28.) that it is unfitting for us to have habits of principles and yet for them to be hidden from us. Thus, the same reasoning applies to the other habits.

Furthermore, anything that there can be a sign of, can be known. But the sign of a habit is the enjoyment occurring in its work, as it says in the Ethics 2. (Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 2.3, 1104b4.) Therefore, habits can be known.

I answer that there are two ways that something can be known: one way, according to what it is; the other way, in the things that result from it. Now, knowledge of a thing according to what it is can be had in two ways, namely, knowing what it is, and knowing whether it is. But what a thing is is known when its “whatness” is comprehended; and it is true that the senses cannot comprehend this—only sensible accidents; nor can the imagination—only images of physical things. But this “whatness” is the proper object of the intellect, as it says in On the Soul 3. (Aristotle, On the Soul 3.4, 429b10–13; Aquinas, Sent. De anima, bk. 3, lect. 8, nn. 717–18.) And this is why Augustine says that the intellect knows a thing by its essence, because the object of the intellect is the very essence of a thing.

Now, our intellect comprehends the essence of a thing in three ways. In one way it comprehends essences of things that fall within the scope of the senses, by abstracting from everything that individuates it, the things that fell within the scope of the senses and the imagination; and thus the pure essence of the thing will remain, such as the essence of man, which consists in those things that belong to man as man. In another way, we know the essences of things we do not see by their causes or effects proportioned to them that do fall under the senses. But if the effects were not proportioned to the cause, they would not make us know what it is, but only that it is, as is the case with God. In the third way, one knows the essences of man-made things that have never been seen, by investigating, from the relation to the end, those things required to make that thing.

Similarly, one knows whether a thing is in three ways. In one way, because it falls under the senses. In the other way, from the thing’s causes and effects falling under the senses; for example, we deduce fire from smoke. In the third way, one knows that something exists in himself from the inclination that he has to certain acts; and one knows the inclination by the fact that he reflects on his acts when he knows that he is the one working. However, when we are speaking of the knowledge of habits by which we know what they are, this knowledge is a combination of the two last ways, for we know the habits themselves by their acts, as a cause through its effect. And because we are the cause of the actions, we know the actions by the act of reason investigating what is necessary in that act from the relation of the object to the good and the end, as we were saying about man-made things.

Similarly, the knowledge by which we know whether a habit exists comes from the two last ways, for knowing what it is, is a principle to knowing that it is. Therefore someone knowing in this way what a certain habit is, will know that the habit is in a certain person by seeing the kind of act result that the habit requires, even if he himself does not have the habit. But someone who does have the habit knows that he has it, not only in this way but in the third way, since he perceives his own inclination to the action which orders him particularly to that act. And a person does know this by the way of reflection, since he does know that he is working when he works. And therefore Augustine says that habits like this are known in this way by their potentiality. But what follows from habits, like properties and accidents, are known partly by the knowledge of natural habits, as the knowledge of what it is is the principle of knowing that it is, and partly from their acts, as the conditions of causes are represented in their effects.

Reply Obj. 1: What charity is can be known well by a person who knows what is required for an act of charity through his reason instructed by authority and faith. But whether charity exists cannot be known for certain, either by the person having it or by someone else. For since something is required for an act of charity that would make a person meritorious of eternal life, whether this is actually there cannot be known for certain. But from various signs a person can guess either that he has charity or that someone else does.

Reply Obj. 2: We do not understand the essence of the angels now because we know them by the act of our intellects, which are not proportioned to the act of their intellects, since they know in a much higher way. Our acts, on the other hand, are proportioned to the habits from which they are drawn.

Reply Obj. 3: There are two ways that the soul can reflect either on itself or on those things that belong to it by knowledge.

In one way, when the cognitive power knows its own nature or the nature of the things that are in it; and it is only the intellect that can know “whatnesses” of things. Now the intellect, as it says in On the Soul 3, (Aristotle, On the Soul 3.4, 429b26; Aquinas, Sent. De anima, bk. 3, lect. 9, n. 724.) knows itself just as it knows other things, that is, not by the species of itself but of its object, which is its form. By this it knows the nature of its act, and by the nature of its act it knows the nature of the power knowing, and by the nature of the power, the nature of its essence, and consequently, the nature of other powers; not that it has different likenesses of all these things, but because in its object it knows not only the account of the true, since that is its object, but every account that is in it, and therefore also the account of good. And thus as a result it knows by that same species the act of the will and the nature of the will, and likewise also the other powers of the soul and their acts.

The other way that the soul reflects upon its own acts is by knowing that those acts exist. However, this cannot exist such that some power using a physical organ is reflected on its proper act, because it is necessary that the instrument by which it knows that it knows itself would be an intermediary between that very power and the instrument by which it first knew it. But one power using a physical organ can know the act of another power, inasmuch as the impression of the lower power overflows into the higher, as we know that our sight sees by the common sense. Now, since the intellect is a power not using a physical organ, it can know its own act, as it receives in some way from the object and is informed by the species of the object. But the act of the will perceives the motion of the will by overflow into the intellect by the fact that they are bound together in the one essence of the soul, and according to this, the will moves the intellect in some way when I understand, because I will. And the intellect moves the will when I will something, because I understand that it is good. And thus, by the fact that the intellect knows the act of the will, it can know a habit existing in the will.

Reply Obj. 4: People who do not have virtue do have certain principles from which they can know the nature of virtue in the way described, as well as the fact that virtue does not exist in them but in others, when they see others doing acts such as belong to the virtues, and the way that virtuous people should act.

Reply Obj. 5: As has been said, all the knowledge by which the intellect knows things that are in the soul is founded on its knowing its own object, which has phantasms corresponding to it. For it is not necessary that knowledge is only about phantasms, but that its knowledge arise from phantasms, and that it leave an imagination about certain things.

Reply Obj. 6: It does not know the will and those things that pertain to it by any likeness abstracted from them, but only by the likeness of its own object, as was said.

Article 3

Whether the virtues are habits or powers

Quaestiuncula 1

To the third we proceed thus. (Parallels: In II Sent., d. 27, a. 1; ST I-II.55.1–3; De virtutibus, a. 1; Sent. Ethic. II, lect. 5.) It seems that virtues are not habits, but powers.

Obj. 1: For no thing has being by a habit, but by a natural power. But all things have the virtue of being either forever, or for a determinate time, as it says in On the Heavens 1. (Aristotle, On the Heavens 1.12, 283a7; Aquinas, De Caelo, bk. 1, lect. 29, n. 3.) Therefore, virtue is not a habit.

Obj. 2: Furthermore, the relation of the soul’s powers to their acts is the same as that of the natural powers to their acts. For in both instances the power is the principle of the act. But the natural powers themselves are called virtues. Therefore, virtues are these very powers.

Obj. 3: Furthermore, the word “virtue” is taken from vis, force or power. But the powers of the soul are called vires, powers. Therefore virtues are powers.

On the contrary, we are praised for our virtues, but not for our powers. For a person is not praised because he has the power to abstain from anger, but because he does abstain by moderation. Therefore, virtues are not powers.

Furthermore, powers are from nature, and common to all, but that is not the case with virtues. Therefore, etc.

Quaestiuncula 2

Obj. 1: Moreover, it seems that virtues are passions or emotions. For the mean and the extremes are of one genus. But some virtues are a mean within the emotions, as it says in the Ethics 2. (Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 2.7, 1108a30–b2.) Therefore, at least those virtues are emotions.

Obj. 2: Furthermore, it is a property of virtue to be praiseworthy. But some emotions are praiseworthy, like modesty, repentance, and the like. Therefore, at least certain emotions are virtues.

Obj. 3: Furthermore, contraries are in the same genus. But certain emotions, like the first movements, are sins. Therefore, some emotions are also virtues.

On the contrary, it is required for any virtue that it be a voluntary thing, whose principle is in us, as it says in the Ethics 3. (Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 3.1, 1111a21.) But the principle of passions is not within us. Therefore, virtues are not emotions. But we are said to be good according to our virtues, not our emotions, for someone who gets angry is not praised, but rather someone who gets angry in the right way. Therefore, etc.

Quaestiuncula 3

Obj. 1: Moreover, it seems that virtues are not habits, but acts. For we merit by our virtues alone. But we do not merit except by our acts, for it is not the best and the strongest who are crowned, but the competitors who win, as it says in the Ethics 1. (Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 1.8, 1099a3–6.) Therefore, virtues are acts.

Obj. 2: Furthermore, a virtue is the furthest extent of a power, as it says in On the Heavens 1. (Aristotle, On the Heavens 1.11, 281a7; Aquinas, De Caelo, bk. 1, lect. 25, n. 4.) But the last perfection of a power is an act. Therefore, a virtue is an act.

Obj. 3: Furthermore, just as we are not praised for being able to become angry, or for not becoming angry, likewise we are not praised only for the fact that we are apt for this or for that. But the Philosopher proves by this reasoning, in the Ethics 2, (Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 2.6, 1106b11.) that powers are not virtues. Therefore, by the same reasoning, neither can virtues be called habits, and so it remains that they must be acts.

On the contrary, the Philosopher says in the Ethics 2, (Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 2.6, 1106b36.) that virtue is a voluntary habit.

Furthermore, Augustine says (Augustine, Contra Iulianum, bk. 4, ch. 8, n. 48 (PL 44:762).) that God alone works virtues in us. But we are also the cause of our acts. Therefore, virtues are not acts.

Response to Quaestiuncula 1

To the first question, I answer that the word virtus, according to its first imposition, seems to imply a certain violence, which is why in On the Heavens 3, (Aristotle, On the Heavens 3.2, 301b18; Aquinas, De Caelo, bk. 3, lect. 7, n. 5.) it says that incidental movement, that is, violent movement, is what comes from virtus, (Or "strength," or "power.") that is, by violence, not with the help of nature. But something cannot impose violence on something else unless it has a perfect power, so that it acts and is not acted upon; and for this reason, the name virtus has been expanded into meaning every perfect power by which something can either subsist in itself, or by which it can work. Accordingly, it says in On the Heavens 1, (Aristotle, On the Heavens 1.11, 281a7.) that a virtus is the furthest extent of a power: because the perfection of a power is measured by the last and greatest that it can do. Now, badness in an act happens from a defect in the power that is acting, and therefore, the perfection of a power requires that it work well in its genus. And this is why it says in the Ethics 2 (Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 2.6, 1106a15–16.) that virtus or virtue is what makes the one who has it good and renders his work good, and in the Physics 6 (Aristotle, Physics 7.3, 246b23; Aquinas, In Physic., bk. 7, lect. 5, n. 6.) it says that virtue is the disposition of some complete thing to its best, in those things that a power extends to. And since we are speaking of human virtues, human virtue will be what perfects or completes a human power for a good act and for its best. However, since a human being is human by having reason and understanding, the human powers are the ones that are rational in some way, either by their essence, like the ones in the intellective part, or by participation, like the ones that are in the sensitive part obeying reason. Now, as was said before, these powers cannot be determined to good acts by the nature of the power, and in fact, they cannot be perfectly determined except by a habit. Therefore, human virtues, which is what we are speaking about, are not powers but habits.

Reply Obj. 1: The natural power by which someone is able to exist is determined to one thing: being. Therefore, the perfection of this kind of power is able to exist by the very nature of the power, and thus the power itself is called virtus. And other natural powers are called the same way. However, it is different with rational powers, which extend to several things.

Reply Obj. 2: And the reply to the second objection is evident from this.

Reply Obj. 3: Vis, force, is taken for anything that is the principle of a perfect activity, which the word virtus implies. For this reason, the powers of the soul should be called vires rather than virtutes, particularly those powers that have an ordering to acts that are carried out by physical means.

Response to Quaestiuncula 2

To the second question, it should be said that the notion of an emotion is contrary to the notion of virtue because virtue implies the perfection of a power, as was said. Now, every emotion happens from the fact that what is acted upon is overcome by what is acting, and it is drawn toward the extremes of what is acting. This is why an emotion cannot be called a virtue. But the perfection of a power consists in the fact that it does not allow itself to be drawn into something else, except what is appropriate for it. Thus, it belongs to virtue to restrain a power from being immoderately distracted by emotions. And therefore virtue is not an emotion, but what orders emotions.

Reply Obj. 1: Virtue is called a mean in emotions actively, inasmuch as it draws emotions back to the mean. Therefore it is not necessary that it be in the genus of emotions.

Reply Obj. 2: The praiseworthy is not only what has the full account of virtue, but also whatever participates in something of virtue, just as acts that precede virtue are praised if they are ordered to it. And in this way modesty, mercy, and emotions such as these are praised, inasmuch as they result from good will, which shuns baseness and considers the evils of others as one’s own. Now, good will is one of the things that are required for virtue.

Reply Obj. 3: Sin implies a defect in the power of the one acting. This is why emotion is more capable of being sin than virtue, although it does not have the full account of sin, in that it does not proceed from choice. For this reason, the first movements of emotions that are directly opposed to virtues are not mortal sins, but rather venial sins.

Response to Quaestiuncula 3

To the third question, it should be said that virtue, properly speaking, includes a relationship to whatever action it is the principle of, for example, running or eating. But an action, because of the kind of thing it is, is the last thing, so it is not ordered to anything as its effect. For this reason, a virtue cannot be called an act, except in a manner of speaking, in which habits are named by their acts as causes are named by their effects. And this was discussed more fully in Book II. (In II Sent., d. 27, q. 1, a. 1.)

Reply Obj. 1: We merit both by habits and by acts, but by acts as the instruments of meriting, because merits are essentially acts; while we merit by habits as the principles of merit. And that is how we are said to merit by virtues.

Reply Obj. 2: Virtue is called the ultimate of a power in the same genus because it is the genus of principle in relation to whatever it is called the power or virtue of. But an act is the ultimate outside that genus. And therefore it is not necessary that an act be a virtue.

Reply Obj. 3: Habits are determined to praiseworthy acts. But powers are not, but are open to contraries, as it says in the Ethics 5. (Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 5.1, 1129a13.) And therefore powers and habits do not have the same character.

Article 4

Whether intellectual habits can be called virtues

Quaestiuncula 1

To the fourth we proceed thus. (Parallels: ST I-II.57.1; De virtutibus, a. 7.) It seems that intellectual habits cannot be called virtues.

Obj. 1: For, as it says in the Ethics 2, (Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 2.6, 1106b36; 2.3, 1104b27–29.) virtue is a voluntary habit, and works toward the best in matters of pleasure and sadness. But this does not apply to intellectual habits. Therefore, they are not virtues.

Obj. 2: Furthermore, the Philosopher (Aristotle, Topics 4.2, 121b37.) divides knowledge against virtue as different genera not ranked under each other. But in that case, one genus cannot be predicated of the other. Therefore, knowledge is not virtue, and by the same reasoning, neither are the other cognitive habits.

Obj. 3: Furthermore, virtue is named by its ordering to the good, because virtue is what makes the one who has it good and renders his work good, as was touched on earlier. (Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 2.6, 1106a15–16.) But cognitive habits, particularly speculative ones, are not ordered to the good, but to the true, as it says in the Ethics 2. (Rather, Aristotle, Metaphysics 2.1, 993b21; Aquinas, In Metaph., bk. 2, lect. 2, n. 290.) Therefore, these habits are not virtues.

Obj. 4: Furthermore, virtues are ordered toward activity, because they are what makes a work good, as was said. But the intellectual habits are not ordered toward activity, but toward knowing. Therefore, they are not virtues.

On the contrary, the contemplative life is nobler than the active life. Therefore, if moral habits that perfect one in the active life are called virtues, much more should intellectual habits be, which perfect one in the contemplative life.

Furthermore, what makes something to be a certain way, is that way even more. (Aristotle, Posterior Analytics 1.2, 72a29; Aquinas, Post. Anal., bk. 1, lect. 6, n. 3.) But according to the Philosopher in the Ethics 6, (Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 6.13, 1144b12.) temperance, fortitude, and the rest cannot properly be called virtues unless they are received in the intellect. Therefore, intellectual habits should be called virtues.

Quaestiuncula 2

Obj. 1: Moreover, it seems that moral virtues are not distinguished from intellectual ones. (Parallels: ST I-II.58.1–2; De virtutibus, a. 12; Sent. Ethic. I, lect. 20; II, lect. 1.) For moral virtues are named from “mores,” which seem to be the same thing as custom, or hardly different, as it says in the Ethics 2. (Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 2.1, 1103a17.) But custom brings an ease, as Victorinus says, (Marius Victorinus, Explanationes in Ciceronis rhetoricam, bk.1, ch. 2.) and the ease of custom is just as evident in things to be done as in things to be considered. Therefore, moral virtues should not be distinguished from intellectual ones.

Obj. 2: Furthermore, nothing pertains to moral knowledge but what is moral. But intellectual virtues do pertain to it, which the Philosopher determines in the Ethics 6. (Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 6.5, 1140a24–b30.) Therefore, intellectual virtues are moral.

Obj. 3: Furthermore, prudence is included among intellectual virtues and it is also counted among moral virtues, since it is one of the four cardinal virtues. (Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 6.5, 1140b4) Therefore, the same conclusion as before.

Obj. 4: Furthermore, every moral virtue consists in the mean. But the mean is determined according to right reason, as it says in the Ethics 2. (Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 2.6, 1107a1.) Therefore, since it is made right by intellectual virtues, it seems that intellectual virtues themselves are moral.

On the contrary, the Philosopher divides moral virtues against intellectual ones. (Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 2.1, 1103a14–18; Aquinas, Commentary on Aristotle's Ethics, bk. 2, lect. 1.)

Furthermore, there are different perfections for different perfectable things. But intellectual virtues perfect what is rational by essence, while moral virtues perfect what is rational by participation. Therefore, these two kinds of virtues are distinguished from each other.

Quaestiuncula 3

Obj. 1: Moreover, it seems that the theological virtues ought not to be distinguished from one another. (Parallels: ST I-II.62.1–2; De veritate, q. 14, a. 3, ad 9; De virtutibus, aa. 10, 12.) For a power does not need a habit added over and above its nature for those things that it is naturally determined to. But the knowledge of God is naturally implanted in all, as Damascene says, (John Damascene, On the Orthodox Faith, bk. 1, ch. 1 (Patrologia Graeca [PG] 94:790).) and similarly the desire of the highest good, as Boethius says in the Consolation of Philosophy. (Boethius, Consolation of Philosophy, bk. 4, prose 2, para. 23 (CCSL 94; PL 63:792).) Therefore we do not need any virtues with God as their object, which is said to pertain to the theological virtues.

Obj. 2: Furthermore, while we consider the enjoyment of God to be the last end of all human acts, the philosophers considered it to be happiness. But they did not posit any virtues that would have happiness as their object. Therefore neither do we need any virtues with God as their object.

Obj. 3: Furthermore, it pertains to the same habit to know principles and the things known from principles. But the end is the principle of things to be done, as the Philosopher says in the Ethics 7 and the Physics 2. (Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 7.8, 1151a16; Physics 2.2, 200a22; Aquinas, In Physic., bk. 2, lect. 15, n. 5.) Therefore, the theological virtues that have the last end as their object should not be distinguished from the cardinal virtues, which direct us in regard to things that are toward the end.

Obj. 4: Furthermore, perfections are proportionate to things perfected by them. But in us there is no power capable of being perfected by a human virtue except the power that is rational by its essence, which is perfected by intellectual virtue, and the part that is rational by participation, which is perfected by moral virtue. Therefore there cannot be another kind of virtue besides the two already mentioned.

On the contrary, in 1 Corinthians 13:13 the Apostle lists the virtues of faith, hope, and charity, which are neither intellectual nor moral, as is evident by going one by one through the individual virtues enumerated by saints and philosophers. Therefore there has to be a third kind of virtue, which is called theological.

Furthermore, God is more distant from creatures than any two creatures from each other. But there are differences between some creatures that necessitate a difference of habits. Therefore the virtues that have God as their object are different from the other virtues.

Response to Quaestiuncula 1

To the first question, I answer that, as is clear from what has been said, (Above, a. 3, resp. 1.) virtue is a habit that perfects a human power for a good act. However, there are two ways that a certain act may be called good: either formally and per se; or materially and per accidens. For since an act receives its form from its proper object, that act is called good formally whose object is good according to the notion of good. And since good is the object of the will, an act cannot be called good in this way unless it is an act of the will, or of the appetitive part. Now, an act is called good materially if it is appropriate to the power acting, although its object may not be good under the notion of good, for example, when someone understands well or the eye sees clearly. And thus it is that the will commands the acts of the other powers, inasmuch as their acts are materially related to the notion of the good, which is the object of the will. And according to this, some of the formal goodness of the will reaches the other acts that are commanded by the will, according to which they are meritorious and praiseworthy, as when someone considers or walks from a right intention. Nevertheless, this goodness is outside the proper account of the act according to its own species. For it can happen that the act of a certain non-appetitive power is good by the goodness of the will, but not by the goodness of its own genus, just as, for example, when someone walks limping for the sake of God, or considers with a good intention the things that he is stupid at.

Thus, there are two ways something can be called a virtue. In one way, it is the habit perfecting a human power toward a good act, whether it is good materially or formally. And this is how the intellectual and speculative habits can be called virtues, for they determine the intellect and reason toward the truth, and the consideration of the truth is these two powers’ good act; and this is how the Philosopher is speaking about virtue in the Ethics. The other way that virtue can be said more strictly, and as it is in the usual way of speaking, it is a habit that perfects toward an act that is good not only materially, but also formally. And in this way, only the habits that have to do with the appetitive part can be called virtues; but the intellectual virtues, especially the speculative ones, cannot.

Reply Obj. 1: Those words should be understood as referring to moral virtue, which the Philosopher is dealing with there, in the second way that something is called virtue. And this is also how he takes the term virtue in the Topics 4. (Aristotle, Topics 4.2, 121b25–30.)

Reply Obj. 2: From this, the reply to the second objection is clear.

Reply Obj. 3: Virtue itself is materially the good of the intellect, since it is its end; for an end has the nature of good, as it says in the Metaphysics 3. (Aristotle, Metaphysics 3.2, 996a24; Aquinas, In Metaph., bk. 3, lect. 4, n. 374.)

Reply Obj. 4: The consideration of the true is one activity of the intellect that virtue is ordered toward, but the habits that are said to be active are ordered further, to an external activity that is called “making” according as it passes into external matter to transform it, as we see in the mechanical activities. And it is called “action,” according as it is rooted in the person acting, as his activities and emotions are modified, which happens in the works of the moral virtues. And for this reason, prudence, which directs among the moral virtues, is called right reason about things to be done, in the Ethics 6; (Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 6.4, 1140a1–4.) while mechanical skill is called right reason about things to be made.

Response to Quaestiuncula 2

To the second question, it should be said that the word mos can be used in two ways. In one way, it is the same as custom. Now, custom conveys a kind of frequency in things that we have the power to do or not do. For natural things or things that always happen are not said to be customary, but only something that is in our power to do or not do, that happens by will. Thus the word “mores” has been extended to mean voluntary acts, or acts of the appetitive part, according to the inclination of the appetite to these acts; and it is true that these inclinations are sometimes from nature, sometimes from custom, sometimes infused. This is also why what arises in animals from the passions of their appetitive part—like being concerned about their young, and reacting against something, and the like, are also called mores, meaning habits, as is clear from the History of Animals 9. (Aristotle, History of Animals 9.1, 608a10–15.) However, when mores means habits among animals it is used more by a resemblance than in the proper sense, because they do not act as though having dominion over their own acts, but rather as driven by nature, as Damascene says. (John Damascene, On the Orthodox Faith, bk. 2, ch. 22 (PG 94:946).) And similarly, among the Greeks the word ethos is also taken in two ways: when it is used in the expression for a chronic fever, it conveys a certain long-lastingness, but when it is used for the study of ethics, which we call morals, it conveys “mores” taken in the second way, as voluntary acts.

Therefore, when speaking this way about the custom or habit of an act, its relationship toward what is moral depends on its relationship to the will and appetite. For there are some acts elicited by the appetitive part—like willing, choosing, desiring, and the like—and such acts are moral essentially. But there are other acts not elicited by the appetitive part, but commanded—like walking, considering, and the like; and these are not moral in their species, but only depending on their use, how they are commanded by the will. And thus virtues that perfect the appetitive part are properly called moral virtues. On the other hand, virtues that perfect the intellective part work toward acts that are perfect in the genus of knowing, not regarding its order to the will’s command. For having knowledge does not mean that a person considers with the right intention, but that he sees the true in particulars. And therefore moral virtues are distinguished from intellectual virtues.

The answer to the first is clear based on the equivocation of the word mos, moris.

Reply Obj. 2: Intellectual virtues do not pertain to the study of ethics as though they were moral virtues by essence, but to the extent that they are used morally, because it is commanded by the will.

Reply Obj. 3: Just as the Commentator comments on the Ethics 6, (Averroes, Commentary on Nicomachean Ethics, bk. 6; see Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 6.6. 1140b31–1141a4.) prudence is a middle between moral virtues and intellectual virtues, because it is essentially intellectual, since it is a cognitive habit, and perfects reason; but it is moral as to its matter, since it is directive of the moral virtues, since it is the right reason about things to be done, as was said.

Reply Obj. 4: The mean is determined by prudence as an intellectual virtue and by moral virtue according to prudence, but in different ways, because prudence determines the mean by the mode of something directing and presenting, but moral virtue by the mode of something executing and inclining toward the mean. This is why Cicero says (Cicero, Rhetorici libri duo qui uocantur De inuentione, bk. 2, ch. 53, para. 159.) that it works in the manner of nature, and in this Socrates fails in not distinguishing moral virtues from intellectual ones, because he considered all virtues to be a kind of knowledge, as it says in the Ethics 6. (Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 6.13, 1144b28–30.)

Response to Quaestiuncula 3

To the third question, it should be said that in all things that act for the sake of an end, there must be an inclination toward the end, and, as it were, a certain pre-presence of the end; otherwise they would never act for the sake of that end. But the end to which the divine munificence ordered or predestined man, namely the enjoyment of God himself, is elevated altogether beyond the power of created nature, for eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor has it arisen in the heart of man, what God has prepared for those who love him, as it says in 1 Corinthians 2:9. Hence by natural endowments alone man does not have a sufficient inclination to that end. And therefore something must be superadded to a human being through which he may have an inclination to that end, just as by his natural endowments he has an inclination to the end connatural to him. And those things superadded are called theological virtues on three accounts. First, as regards the object, for since the end we are ordered to is God himself, the inclination that is prerequisite consists in an activity that has God himself as object. Second, as regards the cause, for just as that end is ordained to be ours by God and not by our nature, so God alone can bring about an inclination to that end in us. And this is why they are called “theological” virtues, as being caused in us by God alone. Third, as regards knowledge, for since the divine end is above natural knowledge, the inclination to the end cannot be known by natural reason, but only by divine revelation. And therefore they are called “theological” because they are made known to us by the divine words. And this is why the philosophers knew nothing about them.

Reply Obj. 1: It is true that man is naturally ordered to God both by knowledge and by affection, insofar as he naturally participates in him. Nevertheless, because there is a certain participation in him above nature, a certain knowledge and affection above nature are required; and the theological virtues are needed for this.

Reply Obj. 2: The happiness that the philosophers discussed is a happiness that humans can attain by their natural powers, and so we have, in ourselves, a natural inclination to that end. For this reason, no virtues inclining to that end are prerequisite; we need only the virtues that direct the works that are for that end. But this is not the case with the theological virtues.

Reply Obj. 3: Speculative principles are known by a different natural habit than conclusions—for principles are known by understanding, whereas conclusions are known are known by knowledge. But in the affections, a natural habit does not come first, but rather there is an inclination to the last end from the power’s very nature and proportionate to the nature, as was said. But for an end that is elevated above nature, which natural inclinations cannot reach, a divinely-given habit must precede the other habits, both in the intellect—that is, faith—and in the affections—that is, charity and hope.

Reply Obj. 4: Habits are distinguished not only by their subjects but also by their objects. Moral and intellectual virtues are therefore distinguished from one another on the part of their subject, as was said before, but theological virtues are distinguished from both moral and intellectual virtues on the part of the object, which is above the natural ability of either part. Therefore, one of the theological virtues, faith, has to do with knowledge and has certain things in common with intellectual virtues, while another, charity, has to do with the affections and has certain things in common with the moral virtues.

Article 5

Whether there are more than three theological virtues

To the fifth we proceed thus. (Parallels: below, d. 26, q. 2, a. 3, resp. 1; ST I-II.62.3; II-II.17.6; De virtutibus, aa. 10, 12; Super 1 Cor. 13, lect. 2, 4.) It seems that there are more than three theological virtues.

Obj. 1: For a theological virtue has God as its object, as was said. But fear of God has God as its object. Therefore it is a theological virtue.

Obj. 2: Furthermore, wisdom is about divine things, whereas science is about created things. Therefore wisdom, too, is a theological virtue.

Obj. 3: Furthermore, adoration gives honor to God. But the giving of honor to God has God as its object. Therefore adoration is a theological virtue.

Obj. 4: Furthermore, faith has God as its object insofar as he is the first truth, hope insofar as he is the highest bountifulness or majesty, and charity insofar as he is the highest goodness. Therefore since many other perfections are attributed to God, it seems that there are also more theological virtues than the three mentioned.

On the contrary (5), it seems that there are only two, since working toward an end presupposes only knowledge of the end, which faith provides, and desire for the end, which charity provides. Therefore it seems that there are only two theological virtues.

Furthermore (6), it seems that there is only one, since charity alone attains to God. But every virtue attains to its object. Therefore charity alone has God as its object, and so it alone ought to be called a theological virtue.

Furthermore (7), it seems that there are three, because of what it says in 1 Corinthians 13:13, Now faith, hope, and charity remain, these three.

Furthermore (8), by theological virtues we are conformed to the Trinity. Therefore, there ought to be three.

I answer that theological virtues bring about in us an inclination to the last end, namely God, as was said. Now, in everything that acts voluntarily for the sake of an end, two things are prerequisite to have in regard to the end before it can work for the end—namely, knowledge of the end and the intention of arriving at the end. But in order to intend the end, two things are required: the possibility of reaching the end, since nothing moves toward what is impossible to reach, and the end’s goodness, since intention is only for what is good. And therefore faith is required, which makes the end known; and hope, which gives someone confidence of attaining the last end as something possible for him to attain; and charity, through which the end is considered a good for the person intending it, insofar as it gives someone affection for the end; otherwise he would never tend to it.

Reply Obj. 1: Fear does not name a motion toward God, but rather a fleeing from him, insofar as a person, in considering God’s majesty, out of reverence shrinks back to his own smallness. And therefore it does not name something needed for motion toward the end.

Reply Obj. 2: In the wayfaring state, wisdom is “about divine things” in the sense that we come to know the Creator by reasoning about his creatures. And so it is not about God as he is in himself, that is, as an end elevated above the ability of nature, like the virtue of faith.

Reply Obj. 3: Adoration does not have God as its object, but an offering made to God as due to him; but it does have God as its proximate end. Hence it is not a theological virtue but part of a cardinal virtue.

Reply Obj. 4: Theological virtues are not distinguished according to divine attributes, but according to what is required in someone who acts for the sake of an end before he can act for that end.

Reply Sed Contra 5: Knowledge of and affection for the end are not enough for someone to begin to act for the sake of the end, if he does not have confidence of obtaining the end, since otherwise he would never begin to act at all, especially when the end is elevated above the nature of the one acting.

Reply Sed Contra 6: To the sixth, it should be said that charity joins us really, in a sense, to God, and so really attains him, which faith and hope do not do. Activity in regard to God does not require this real union, but only that the one who acts be united to him as to the object of activity, as sight is united to what is seen, even at a distance. (There is no reply to the last sed contra, since it is in fact the true position.)

Question 2

Faith

Next we will inquire specifically about faith; and concerning this there are five things to be asked:

first, what is faith;

second, the act of faith;

third, its subject;

fourth, whether it is a virtue;

fifth, its order to the other virtues.

Article 1

Whether the definition of faith that the Apostle gives is appropriate in all its parts

To the first we proceed thus. (Parallels: ST II-II.4.1; De veritate, q. 14, a. 2; Super Heb. 11, lect. 1; RSV renders this as "the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.") The Apostle says that faith is the substance of things hoped for, the argument of things that appear not (Heb 11:1). It seems that this inadequately defines faith.

Obj. 1: For no habit is a substance. Faith is a habit. Therefore it is not a substance.

Obj. 2: Furthermore, a definition should be given from what is prior, and from prior things that exist through themselves. But the object of faith in itself is not something hoped, but something believed, and hope comes after faith. Therefore, he should have said, “of things believed,” not things hoped for.

Obj. 3: Furthermore, just as hope follows faith, so too does charity. For charity is closer to the end than hope. Therefore, he should have said that it is the “substance of things loved” rather than hoped for.

Obj. 4: Furthermore, faith is about things that are above reason. But conviction is an act of reason. Therefore, faith is not evidence.

Obj. 5: Furthermore, the same thing cannot be grouped in different genera. But conviction is a different genus from substance. Therefore it is wrongly defined as being both.

Obj. 6: Furthermore, things that are true and appear not, are doubtful. But things not appearing can be true and unknown. Therefore, since faith is a kind of knowledge, it seems that he should have said “of doubtful things” rather than of things not known.

Obj. 7: Furthermore, understanding comes before affections. But when he says, the argument of things that appear not, it pertains to the understanding, while saying, the substance of things hoped for, pertains to the affections. Therefore, he has put the parts of the definition in the wrong order.

Obj. 8: Furthermore, one thing has one definition as it is one being. But many other definitions are given for faith. Therefore this one does not seem to be sufficient.

I answer that the designation given by the Apostle is the right and proper definition of faith as to what is required for a definition, although not as to the mode of definition, which authors and even philosophers have neglected, just as they omit the form of a syllogism when setting forth the things from which the syllogism can be formed. Now, any habit is known by its act, and an act is specified by its object and has its goodness from its end. This is why the Apostle defines faith by two things: by its relation to its object, which is the thing that appears not, that is, according to natural understanding; and by its relation to its end, when he says, the substance of things hoped for. For although the same thing is the object of faith and the end of faith, yet not according to the same account. For God is the object of faith according as he is the first truth raised above the natural ability of our intellect, and in this way he is said to appear not. But he is the end of faith according as he is in a certain way a good exceeding human faculties in his loftiness, yet he makes himself communicable by his liberality, and this is expressed by things to be hoped for.

Reply Obj. 1: Faith is called a substance not because it is in the genus of substance, but because it has a certain property of substance. For just as substance is the foundation and basis of all other beings, faith is the foundation of all spiritual edifices. And by this mode it is also said that light is the hypostasis of color, because all colors are founded on the nature of light.

Reply Obj. 2: In saying, things to be hoped for, he does not mean to establish the object of faith, but its end. Now although the final end of faith is truth itself, of which the vision is given as a reward for faith, nevertheless, the true does not have the character of an end. But since hope indicates a certain movement tending toward the end, things to be hoped for conveys the terminus of this motion, and thus it conveys the character of end. Now, in all the habits that pertain to the will, the end is first according to intention, although it comes after in attainment.

Reply Obj. 3: Love is common to both a thing already attained and a thing to be attained, but hope is only a thing to be attained, for: who hopes for what he sees? (Rom 8:24). Therefore, since faith is about things not seen, things to be hoped for conveys the relation to its own end according to the state in which faith exists, while “things to be loved” would not. This is why he says things to be hoped for, rather than “things to be loved,” for a definition should be given from what is proper to something.

Reply Obj. 4: Argument is properly said of reason’s progress from what is known to manifesting what is unknown, as Boethius says, (Boethius, De topicis differentiis, bk. 1, ch. 2, para. 5 (PL 64:1174).) that the explanation of a a doubtful thing causes faith. And because the whole force of an argument consists in the middle term, from which it proceeds to the proof of unknown things, he therefore calls the middle the argument itself, whether it be a sign or a cause or an effect. And since in the middle term, or in the principle from which the argument proceeds, is contained the force of the whole process of argumentation, the word “argument” was expanded so that any short summary of a future explanation may be called an argument: for example, in individual letters of St. Paul arguments are sent ahead of time. And since a principle or a middle term is called an argument inasmuch as it has the virtue of manifesting the conclusion, and this virtue is in it by the light of the agent intellect, whose instrument it is, because all things that are argued are manifested by the light, as it says in Ephesians 5:13, this is why the very light by which principles are made manifest, as conclusions are made manifest by principles, can be called the argument of those very principles. And it is in these three last ways that faith can be called an argument. The first, as faith itself is what manifests something else, whether as one article makes manifest another, for example, the Resurrection of Christ making manifest the future resurrection; or as from the articles themselves certain other things in theology can be syllogized; or as the faith of one man strengthens the faith of another. The second way it can be called an argument is as a foretaste of the future vision in which the fullness of truth is known. The third way is as the infused light that is the habit of faith manifests the articles of faith, just as the light of the agent intellect makes manifest naturally known principles. But being an argument according to the first way is incidental to faith, which is why argument is included in the definition of faith according to the other two ways.

Reply Obj. 5: Argument and substance are not included in the definition of faith as its genus, but something closer to its act, as it is usual for habits to be defined by their acts, because that is how they are known. And one of those acts conveys the relation of faith to its object, while the other gives its relation to its ultimate end, as was said.

Reply Obj. 6: Doubt takes away the strength of adhering; however, what appears not does not take this away, but only removes the vision of the thing believed. Therefore it could not be said about doubtful things because faith has strong adherence, but it does say, of things not seen, because it does not have full vision.

Reply Obj. 7: Faith’s knowledge proceeds from the will, for no one believes unless he wishes to. And for this reason it is no wonder if in the definition of faith things that pertain to the affections are placed before those that pertain to knowledge.

Reply Obj. 8: If a definition were given of a certain thing that completely comprehended all the principles of the thing, there would only be one definition for one thing. But because in some definitions, certain principles are included without others, it happens that definitions of one and the same thing may be varied. Now the definition given by the Apostle for faith comprehends all the principles of faith by which habits are usually defined: namely, end, object, and act. From these too may be understood genus and subject, for from its act we know which power is the subject of faith. And again, from its act we know the habit, which is the remote genus of faith; and from its end we know the virtue that is its proximate genus. And this is also found in what Damascene says, faith is the hypostasis of things that are hoped, the refutation of things that are not seen; (John Damascene, On the Orthodox Faith, bk 4, ch. 10 (PG 94:1127).) and he adds a certain quality of faith, that is, certitude, by including, unjudgable species, both certain, and which cannot be comprehended, of those things that have been announced to us by God, and the fruition of our petitions, that is, their fulfillment. For faith causes a certainty of both the things to be believed, as it is an argument, and the things to be attained, as it is the substance of things to be hoped for. However, Dionysius defines faith in On the Divine Names by saying, faith is the assembly remaining of believers, which assembles the just in virtue, (Pseudo-Dionysius, On the Divine Names, ch. 7, n. 4 (PG 3:872).) and this is the same as the Apostle says: substance of things hoped for. Meanwhile, Augustine says that faith is the virtue by which things that are not seen are believed; (Augustine, Quaestiones euangeliorum, bk. 2, q. 39 (CCSL 44B; PL 35:1352).) and this is the same as the Apostle saying, the argument of things that appear not; and at the same time he renders what Damascene says, (John Damascene, On the Orthodox Faith, bk. 4, ch. 11 (PG 94:1128).) that faith is assent without inquiry, because by saying without inquiry, he shows that matters of faith are not penetrable to inquiring reason. Now, Hugh of Saint Victor defines faith by something accidental to it, namely, certainty, when he says that faith is a kind of certainty of soul about absent things established above opinion and below knowledge. (Hugh of Saint Victor, De sacramentis christianae fidei, bk. 1, pt. 10, ch. 2 (PL 176:330).) And this incidental aspect of faith can also be found in the Apostle’s definition in that faith is the argument of things that appear not, for argument implies certainty, which is why he places knowledge over opinion, while of things that appear not implies the absence of the knowable, by which faith is placed below knowledge. Therefore it is clear that the Apostle’s definition includes all the other definitions given for faith.

Article 2

Whether to believe is to think with assent

Quaestiuncula 1

To the second we proceed thus. (Parallels: ST II-II.2.1; De veritate, q. 14, a. 1; Super Heb. 11, lect. 1.) It seems that believing is not “thinking with assent,” as Augustine says. (Augustine, De praedestinatione sanctorum, ch. 2, n. 5 (PL 44:963).)

Obj. 1: For assenting seems to belong to the will, just as consenting does. But believing pertains to the understanding. Therefore, believing is not assenting.

Obj. 2: Furthermore, thinking implies inquiry, since cogitare means to “gather things together.” But faith, as Damascene says, (John Damascene, On the Orthodox Faith, bk. 4, ch. 10 (PG 94:1127)) is an assent without inquiry. Therefore, belief, which is the act of faith, is assent without thinking, rather than with thinking.

Obj. 3: Furthermore, to think is the act of the cogitative power, which is included in the sensitive part by the philosophers, since it has a specific organ. But those things that belong to the faith are perceived by the intellect alone. Therefore believing does not have thinking attached to it.

Obj. 4: Furthermore, if believing is thinking with assent, it is the kind of thing that knowing is. Therefore, knowing is the same as believing, which is false.

Quaestiuncula 2

Obj. 1: Moreover, it seems that it is unfitting for belief to be multiplied, according as it is the act of faith. (Parallels: ST II-II.2.2; De veritate, q. 14, a. 7, ad 7; Super Ioan. 6, lect. 3; Super Rom. 4, lect. 1.) For one habit has one act, and habits are distinguished by their acts. But faith is one habit. Therefore, only one act should be assigned to it.

Obj. 2: Furthermore, about what is demonstrated, there is not faith, but knowledge; for what is demonstrated, is not something that appears not. But God’s existence is proved even by philosophers. Therefore, it is not an act of faith to believe in God’s existence.

Obj. 3: Furthermore, in the act of faith a believer is distinguished from an unbeliever. But no one is such an unbeliever as to believe that God speaks anything but truth. Therefore, it is no act of faith to believe as true the things that God says, but rather to believe as true the things that God’s messenger says. And in this way believing a man is more an act of faith than believing God.

Obj. 4: Furthermore, faith and charity are distinct virtues. But loving God is an act of charity. Therefore, loving by believing is not an act of faith.

Obj. 5: Furthermore, by the fact that a person loves God, he tends toward him and clings to him, and is incorporated as one of his members. Therefore it seems that this repetitious reiteration of words is superfluous.

Quaestiuncula 3

Obj. 1: Moreover, it seems that the act of faith has less certainty than the act of knowledge. (Parallels: ST II-II.4.8; De veritate, q. 10, a. 12, ad 15; q. 14, a. 1, ad 7; Super De Trinitate, q. 3, a. 1, ad 4; Super Ioan. 4, lect. 5.) For, as Hugh of Saint Victor says, (Hugh of Saint Victor, De sacramentis christianae fidei, bk. 1, pt. 10, ch. 2 (PL 176:330).) faith is the certainty of absent things, below knowledge and above opinion. Therefore, faith is more certain than opinion, but less certain than science.

Obj. 2: Furthermore, what is more certain is less mixed with doubt, just as what is more white is less mixed with black. But things that are known can have no doubt at all, while those that are believed can have some movement of doubt, even despite faith. Therefore, faith does not have as much certainty as knowledge.

Obj. 3: Furthermore, every certainty of our knowledge proceeds from either the senses’ vision or from the intellect’s vision. But faith is among the things that are not seen by the senses, nor by the intellect. Therefore, faith does not have any certainty, as it seems.

On the contrary, Augustine says (Augustine, On the Trinity, bk. 13, ch. 1 (CCSL 50A; PL 42:1014).) that nothing is more certain to man than his faith.

Furthermore, the firmer the reason that causes faith, the more certain the faith. But the human reason that causes knowledge falls infinitely short of divine reason, which causes faith. Therefore, faith is much more certain than knowledge.

Response to Quaestiuncula 1

To the first question, I answer that, as the Philosopher says in On the Soul 3, (Aristotle, On the Soul 3.6, 430a25–30; Aquinas, Sent. De anima, bk. 3, lect. 11, n. 746.) there are two activities of the intellect. There is one activity that comprehends the simple “whatness” of things, and this activity is called formation or simple understanding by the philosophers. And to this understanding corresponds the non-complex vocal sound signifying this understanding. And so, just as in a non-complex vocal sound there is not found truth or falsehood, so neither is there in this activity of the intellect; and just as, since a non-complex vocal sound does not contain truth or falsehood, it is not granted or denied, in this activity the intellect does not assent or dissent. This is why faith, to which assenting belongs, cannot be found in this activity. But it is found in the other activity, by which the intellect composes and divides, where true and false are already found, just as in an enunciation. And because of this the intellect assents or dissents in this activity of its own, just as also an enunciation is granted or denied. And therefore, it is in this activity, that faith, which contains assent, is found.

Now, since “sentence” is named from assenting, because, as Isaac says, (J. T. Muckle, "Isaac Israeli Liber de definicionibus," Archives d'histoire doctrinale et littéraire du Moyen Age 11 (1937‒38): 299–340.) it is a determinate acceptance of one side of a contradiction, it is necessary that whoever assents determines his intellect to one side or the other of a contradiction. Now, this happens in three ways according to the three ways of considering our intellect. For our intellect can be considered in one way according to itself, and in this way it is determined by the presence of the intelligible, just as matter is determined by the presence of a form; and this is what happens among those things that become instantly intelligible by the light of the agent intellect, like the first principles, of which there is understanding. And similarly the judgment of the sensitive part is determined by something sensible coming under the senses, the chief and most certain of which is vision; and thus this knowledge of the intellect is called vision.

In another way our intellect can be considered according to its ordering to reason, which reaches its terminus in understanding when it brings about certainty of the conclusions by resolving them into principles known through themselves: and this is the assent of knowledge.

In the third way, the intellect is considered in its order to the will, which moves all the soul’s powers to their acts, and this will determines the intellect to something that is neither seen through itself, nor is able to be resolved into things that are seen through themselves. This is because it considers it worthy to be adhered to on account of some reason that it seems good to adhere to that thing. Although that reason is not sufficient for reaching understanding because of the frailty of the intellect, which does not see for itself what reason judges should be assented to; nor is it strong enough to resolve it into its principles per se. And this assent is what is properly called believing.

This is also why faith is said to “captivate the intellect,” (See 2 Corinthians 10:5: we destroy arguments and every proud obstacle to the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ.) in that the intellect is not determined to anything according to its own movement, but according to the will’s command. And thus, in someone who believes, reason does not terminate in understanding on its own, but by means of the will. But when the reason that is moving us toward one side of a question either does not suffice for the intellect to reach its terminus, because it does not resolve conclusions into principles known through themselves, or it is not sufficient for the will to reach its terminus, such that it seems good to adhere to that side, then a man holds what he adheres to as an opinion, and the intellect does not terminate in one thing, because there always remains a movement to the contrary, for it accepts one side, but with reservations about the other. And therefore, someone holding an opinion does not assent.

But when a person does not have more reasons for one side than the other—either because he has reason for neither, which is the case with someone who does not know; or because he has reasons for both, but equally, which is someone in doubt—then he does not assent, since his judgment is not determined, but equally related to different propositions.

Therefore it is evident from what has been said that thinking with assent is what separates believing from all the others. For since thinking implies a discursive process of reasoning, the person who understands has assent without thinking, because understanding is about principles that a person ascertains as soon as he has heard them, according to Boethius in the Hebdomads. (Boethius, De hebdomadibus (PL 64:1311).) However, a person who knows has both assent and thinking—not thinking with assent, but thinking before assent, for the reason arrives at understanding by resolving principles, as was said. On the other hand, the person who believes has assent and thinking together, for his understanding does not arrive at principles known per se. For this reason, in itself, belief still contains movements toward different things, but it is determined to one of them by something extrinsic: the will. However, a person who holds an opinion has thinking without perfect assent, but he does have some kind of assent, inasmuch as he adheres to one side more than the other. However, a person in doubt has nothing of assent, but he does have thinking. And the person who does not know has neither assent nor thinking.

Reply Obj. 1: Because the senses are not related to multiple things but receive one thing determinately which they do not compare, this is the reason the determination of a power, even a higher one, is named from the senses, but in different ways. For the determination of thinking toward something is called as-sent because that something does not precede it. However, the determination of the will to one thing, which is called con-sent, because it presupposes thinking, with which it “senses together” when it tends toward whatever reason judges to be good. And thus consenting is said to belong to the will but assenting to the intellect.

Reply Obj. 2: By saying that faith is assent free from inquiry, Damascene excludes the inquiry of reason that terminates in the intellect, not the inquiry that inclines the will. And by the fact that the intellect was not brought to its terminus, a movement of the intellect remains, inasmuch as it naturally tends to its own determination. For this reason, faith consists in a middle between two lines of thinking, one of which inclines the will to believing, and this precedes faith; while the other tends to the understanding of those things that are already believed, and this one exists at the same time as the assent of faith. This is why it says in Isaiah 7:9, if you do not believe, you will not understand.

Reply Obj. 3: That power that is called cogitative by the philosophers is on the border between the sensitive and intellective parts, where the sensitive part touches the intellective part. For it has something from the sensitive part, in that it considers particular forms; and it has something from the intellective, in that it compares. This is also why it exists only in humans. And since the sensitive part is better known than the intellective part, that is why, just as the intellective part’s determination is named from the senses, as was said, so too the intellect’s process of comparing is named from thinking.

Reply Obj. 4: It is already clear from what has been said that this description only applies to believing.

Response to Quaestiuncula 2

To the second question, it should be said that, as has been made clear, the act of a believer depends on three things: the intellect, which terminates in one thing; the will, which determines the intellect by its command; and reason, which inclines the will. And accordingly, three acts are assigned to faith. For by the fact that the intellect finds its terminus in one thing, the act of faith is to believe in God as an object, because the object of faith is God as considered in himself, whether something about him, or something from him. But by the fact that the intellect is determined by the will, the act of faith is to believe in God, that is, to tend toward him by loving him: for it belongs to the will to love. Now, according as the reason inclines the will to the act of faith, it is to believe God as someone, for the reason that the will is inclined to assenting to the things that it does not see is the fact that God says those things; just as a human being, in matters that he does not see, believes the testimony of a good man who does see those things that he does not see.

Reply Obj. 1: Only one complete act of faith is named by all the things mentioned. But it is named in different ways from the different things that are found in faith: for by that act in which someone believes in God, he does believe God, and believes about God.

Reply Obj. 2: Although God’s existence can be demonstrated simply, nevertheless, that God is three and one, and other things that faith in God believes, cannot be demonstrated, and according to these it is an act of faith to believe in God.

Reply Obj. 3: A believer believes a man not as he is a man, but as God speaks in him, which can be inferred by certain evidence. But an unbeliever does not believe God in the person speaking.

Reply Obj. 4: To love is simply the act of charity, but to believe by loving is an act of faith moved by charity to its own act.

Reply Obj. 5: Those four pertain to faith according to its order to the will, as was said. But the will is of the end. Therefore those four are distinguished according to the things that are required for the attainment of the end. For the first thing required is an affection for the end, and loving in believing pertains to this. However, it is by love and desire for the end that someone begins to move toward the end; and going to him by believing pertains to this. Now, movement toward the end leads to someone being united with the end; and to adhere to him by believing pertains to this. Meanwhile, by union with the end a person arrives at participation of the perfections of the end, and being incorporated into his members by believing pertains to this.

Response to Quaestiuncula 3

To the third question, it should be said that certainty is nothing but the intellect’s determination to one thing. Now, the stronger the thing that causes the determination, the greater the certainty. But there are three ways the intellect may be determined to one thing, as was said. For in the understanding of principles a determination is caused by the fact that something is able to be sufficiently examined by the light of the intellect by itself. On the other hand, in knowledge of conclusions a determination is caused by the conclusion being resolved by the act of reason into principles seen in themselves: but in faith, the determination is caused by the will commanding the intellect. But the will does not determine the intellect in such a way that it causes the things that are believed to be examined, as principles known through themselves or the things that are resolved into them are examined, but such that the intellect may adhere firmly. Thus, the certainty that is in knowledge and understanding comes from the evidence of the things that are said to be certain, while the certainty of faith is from a firm adhering to what is believed.

Therefore, in those things that we believe by faith, the reason inclining the will, as was said, is the first truth itself, or God, who is believed, which has a greater firmness than the light of the human intellect, in which principles are seen, or human reason, by which conclusions are resolved into principles. And therefore faith has a greater certainty as to the strength of adhering than the certainty of knowledge or understanding, although in knowledge and understanding there is greater evidence of the things that are assented to.

Reply Obj. 1: When the certainty of faith is called a middle between the certainty of knowledge and opinion, it is meant not intensively by the mode of continuous quantity, but extensively, by the mode of numbers. For the certainty of knowledge consists in two things, namely, in the evidence and the firmness of adhering. But the certainty of faith consists in only one—the firmness of adhering. Now, the certainty of opinion is in neither one. However, the certainty of faith, which is what we are speaking about, is much more vigorous in that one thing than the certainty of knowledge is in those two. Or it could be said that it speaks about the faith that is opinion confirmed by reasons, not about infused faith.

Reply Obj. 2: A movement of doubt can happen to a believer by the fact that his intellect has not attained the vision of its intelligible on its own, as is the case in knowledge and understanding, but only by the command of the will. And for this reason, a person with knowledge is in that respect not further away from doubt than a person who believes, but someone who believes is further from doubt in the firmness of adhering than someone with knowledge according to those two respects.

Reply Obj. 3: That argument is built on insufficient grounds, as has been said.

Article 3

Whether faith is in the will as its subject

Quaestiuncula 1

To the third we proceed thus. (Parallels: ST II-II.4.2; De veritate, q. 14, a. 4.) It seems that faith is in the will as its subject.

Obj. 1: For, according to Hugh of Saint Victor, (Hugh of Saint Victor, De sacramentis christianae fidei, bk. 1, part. 10, ch. 3 (PL 176:331).) faith has its matter in thinking, but its substance in the affections. But something is the subject of an accident when its own essence can be called “substance.” Therefore, faith is in the affections as in a subject.

Obj. 2: Furthermore, just as the certainty of knowledge exists from the intellect, the certainty of faith comes from the will: for a human being cannot believe unless he wishes to, as Augustine says. (Augustine, In Iohannis euangelium tractatus, tract. 26, para. 2 (CCSL 36; PL 35:1607).) But the subject of knowledge is the intellect. Therefore, by the same reasoning, the subject of faith is the will.

Obj. 3: Furthermore, merit consists in the will. But the act of faith is meritorious. Therefore, it is an act of the will.

Obj. 4: Furthermore, opposites are about the same thing. But unbelief is in the will, because to the extent it exists in the intellect, it has ignorance as its opposite, which is not a sin, but rather excuses sin. Therefore, faith is in the will.

On the contrary, the object of a habit agrees corresponds to the object of the power that is its subject. But the object of faith is the true, which is the object of the intellect, not the good, which is the object of the will. Therefore, the subject of faith is not the will but the intellect.

Furthermore, both faith and what replaces faith in glory pertain to the same power. But what replaces faith in glory, namely, vision, pertains to the intellect. Therefore, so does faith.

Quaestiuncula 2

Obj. 1: Moreover, it seems that faith pertains to the practical intellect. (Parallels: ST I-II.56.3; 58.3; II-II.4.2.ad 3; 9.3; De veritate, q. 14, a. 4; De virtutibus, q. 1, a. 7; Super Rom. 12, lect. 3.) For as the Philosopher says in On the Soul 3, (Aristotle, On the Soul 3.9, 432b27; Aquinas, Sent. De anima, bk. 3, lect. 14, n. 813.) the speculative intellect says nothing about what is to be loved or fled from. But by faith we are instructed in what we should avoid. Therefore, faith is in the practical intellect.

Obj. 2: Furthermore, the speculative intellect corresponds proportionally to the imagination as the practical intellect does to the estimation, which is in the sensitive part. But the imagination does not cause trust and terror, as it says in On the Soul 3, (Aristotle, On the Soul 3.2, 427b23.) but rather we are related by it to fearful things as if we were considering them in a picture. Therefore, it is the same with the speculative intellect. But faith is the principle of hope and causes trembling: for demons believe and tremble, as it says in James 2:19. Therefore, faith is not in the speculative intellect.

Obj. 3: Furthermore, the speculative intellect is not mixed up with the will; rather the practical intellect is. But faith subsists in the will and the intellect, as was said. Therefore, its subject is not the speculative intellect but the practical.

On the contrary, the practical intellect is about contingent things able to be done by us. But faith is about eternal things. Therefore faith is not in the practical intellect.

Furthermore, practical knowledge is the cause of the things known. But faith is not the cause of things that are believed. Therefore it is not in the practical intellect.

Quaestiuncula 3

Obj. 1: Moreover, it seems that it is an intellectual virtue. (Parallels: below, a. 4, resp. 1; De veritate, q. 14, a. 3, ad 9; Super Rom. 4, lect. 1.) For intellectual virtue is that which has the intellect for its subject. But the subject of faith is the intellect. Therefore, it is an intellectual virtue.

Obj. 2: Furthermore, the articles of the faith, in which we have faith, are like the principles in other sciences, and theology proceeds from them. But the understanding of principles is an intellectual virtue, as is clear from what the Philosopher says in the Ethics 6. (Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 6.5, 1141a7.) Therefore, the faith in the articles is also an intellectual virtue.

Obj. 3: Furthermore, as the Philosopher says in the Ethics 6, (Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 6.3, 1139b15.) intellectual virtue is that by which we say nothing but the true. But the false underlies the faith. Therefore, faith is an intellectual virtue.

On the contrary, the Philosopher says in the Ethics 6 (Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 6.3, 1139b17.) that suspecting is not an intellectual virtue, just as neither is opinion. And by the same reasoning, neither is faith, which is of the same genus as these.

Furthermore, virtue is the extreme limit of power in a thing, as it says in On the Heavens 1. (Aristotle, On the Heavens 1.11, 281a7.) But faith does not take the intellect to its limit, since through it the intellect does not terminate in any vision. Therefore, faith is not an intellectual virtue.

Response to Quaestiuncula 1

To the first question, I answer that the will commands the act of the intellect just as it does the act of the irascible and of the concupiscible. Now, for the act of the irascible and concupiscible faculties to be complete, not only must there be some habit in the will or in the reason commanding it, but also some habit in the irascible and concupiscible faculties executing it, so that it may be executed more easily. Therefore, some habit must be in the intellect for it to more easily obey the will in those things that are above reason; and this is the habit of faith. Therefore the subject of faith is the intellect.

Reply Obj. 1: “Substance” is not taken there for essence, but for form. Now, the form of faith is in a certain way charity, which is in the will, as will become clear below. (See q. 3, a. 1.)

Reply Obj. 2: Knowledge and understanding have certainty from what pertains to knowing, namely, the evidence of what we are assenting to. But faith has certainty from what is outside the genus of knowing, existing in the genus of affection. And thus knowledge and understanding exist in, as their subject, the very thing that gives them certainty, but faith is not.

Reply Obj. 3: Merit subsists in the will as in its cause, inasmuch as the will always commands the meritorious act. However it is not always in the will as its subject, for a meritorious act is sometimes elicited by the other powers.

Reply Obj. 4: Unbelief is also in the intellect as its subject, while it is in the will as commanding the act of unbelief, and that is how the act of unbelief is demeritorious.

Response to Quaestiuncula 2

To the second question, it should be said that the speculative intellect and the practical intellect differ in that the speculative intellect considers the true absolutely, while the practical considers the true in its order to work. Now, it can happen sometimes that a certain truth that was being considered in itself cannot be considered as the rule of action, as happens in mathematics, and in those things that are separated by motion/from motion. This is why the consideration of a truth like that is only in the speculative intellect. However, the truth that is considered in reality/the thing can be considered as a rule of acting, and then the speculative intellect becomes practical by its extension to a work.

Now, this happens in two ways. For sometimes the truth that can be considered in both ways does not have much usefulness, unless as it is ordered to a work, for since it is contingent, it does not have fixed truth. And the consideration of the works of the virtues is like this; and then such consideration, although it could belong to both speculative and practical intellect, nevertheless chiefly belongs to the practical intellect. But sometimes the consideration of that truth has in it a certain worth, even if it were never ordered to a work, as happens in the consideration of divine things, whose knowledge does direct one in working, and yet the vision of God is the last end of working; and then that consideration is principally in the speculative intellect, and secondarily in the practical intellect.

Therefore, since the proper object of faith is the first truth, which, as it is the end of work, is the rule in working, faith will principally be in the speculative intellect, and secondarily in the practical intellect, for the speculative intellect and the practical are not different powers, but different ends, inasmuch as the practical is ordered to working, while the speculative is ordered only to the examination of truth, as it says in the Metaphysics 2 and On the Soul 3. (Aristotle, Metaphysics 2.1, 993b21; On the Soul 3.10, 433a15; Aquinas, In Metaph., bk. 2, lect. 2, n. 290; Sent. De anima, bk. 3, lect. 15, n. 820.)

Reply Obj. 1: Faith inclines toward what is to be done and what is to be fled to the extent that the truth that can be considered in itself is taken as the rule of an activity.

Reply Obj. 2: As a truth that faith considers, it is taken as contrary or appropriate, according as faith induces either trembling or hope or the like.

Reply Obj. 3: The union of the intellect to the will does not cause the practical intellect, but its ordering to the work, for the will is common to both speculative and practical. For the will is of the end. But the end is found in the speculative and practical intellect.

Response to Quaestiuncula 3

To the third question, it should be said that although a virtue takes a power to its limit as to its act, it does not suffice for the account of virtue that a power is brought to its ultimate through its act with respect to its object, but it must be brought to its limit as to the mode of the one acting, so that the act may be good not only from the fact that it is good that it is done, but by the fact that it is well done, as is evident in moral virtues. Now, the good of the intellect is the true, which is its end and perfection. Therefore it does not suffice for the account of intellectual virtue that the true be known by it, but the act by which the true is considered must be perfect also by its mode, such that someone understands well. Now, for the intellect to work well does not happen from the fact that its activity proceeds from a good will, as was said; rather, we look at the intellect’s efficacy for looking at its proper object either directly or by resolving into what is seen directly. However, faith, by its own act, brings the intellect to its limit as to its object, inasmuch as it causes it to assent to the first truth. But it does not reach the limit as to the proper mode of the intellect itself, for our intellect is not so very effective by faith, that it could look at what it believes directly, or reduce to those things that it examines; and thus faith is not an intellectual virtue.

Reply Obj. 1: Not every habit that has the intellect as its subject can be called an intellectual virtue, unless it perfects the intellect both as to its object and as to the mode of its act.

Reply Obj. 2: For the principles of the other sciences to be seen the light of the agent intellect is enough; and that is why the habit of those principles is a virtue. But for the vision of the articles of the faith, neither the light of the agent intellect is enough, nor the light of faith, and for this reason it is not an intellectual virtue.

Reply Obj. 3: The fact that faith does not err, but always speaks the truth is not from having a perfect mode of understanding, but rather from something else that is outside the intellect, namely, from an infallible reason, which directs the will.

Article 4

Whether faith is a virtue, and whether it is a habit

Quaestiuncula 1

To the fourth we proceed thus. (Parallels: below, q. 3, a. 1, resp. 2; ST I-II.65.4; De veritate, q. 14, aa. 3 and 6; De virtutibus, a. 7; Super Rom. 1, lect. 6.) It seems that faith is not a virtue of any kind.

Obj. 1: For apart from intellectual virtues no virtue has truth for its object and is a cognitive habit rather than an operative one. But faith is a cognitive habit and has the truth for its object. Therefore, since it is not an intellectual virtue, it seems that in no way can it be called a virtue.

Obj. 2: Furthermore, it seems that when we say we believe other people, we are saying “believe” univocally. But faith in others is not a virtue. Therefore, neither is faith in the articles of the faith.

Obj. 3: Furthermore, everything that is against reason is blameable, for badness for a human being is to be against reason, as Dionysius says. (Pseudo-Dionysius, On the Divine Names, ch. 4, n. 32 (PG 3:731).) But when faith causes us to refuse reason, it seems to be against reason. Therefore, believing is blameworthy. Therefore, faith is not a virtue.

Obj. 4: Furthermore, just as we know by faith things that are above reason, we also know such things by prophecy. But prophecy is not called a virtue. Therefore, neither should faith be.

Obj. 5: Furthermore, the exemplars of the virtues are said to exist in God. But faith does not have an exemplar in God. Therefore, faith is not a virtue.

On the contrary, only a virtue would justify us. But faith justifies according to Romans 5:1: therefore, since we are justified by faith. Therefore, faith is a virtue.

Furthermore, the spiritual life is through virtue. Now, the spiritual life is through faith, as it says in Romans 1 and 2. Therefore, faith is a virtue.

Furthermore, by the virtues we are made sons of God. But this happens by faith: to those who believe in his name, he gave power to become sons of God (John 1:12). Therefore, faith is a virtue.

Quaestiuncula 2

Obj. 1: Moreover, it seems that faith is not one virtue. (Parallels: ST II-II.4.6; De veritate, q. 14, a. 12; Super Eph. 4, lect. 2.) For some of the articles of the faith are about eternal things, like those that pertain to the persons of the Trinity; while others are about temporal things, like the ones that pertain to the Incarnation of Christ. But knowledge and wisdom are gifts differentiated by whether they are about temporal or eternal things. Therefore, faith is not one virtue.

Obj. 2: Furthermore, hope and fear differ in that hope is about future goods, while fear is about future evils. But faith is about both, for it concerns rewards and punishments. Therefore, faith is not one virtue.

Obj. 3: Furthermore, many things pertain to faith that are in moral philosophy, like that fornication is a mortal sin; and some things that belong to natural philosophy, like that the world is not eternal; and some things that are in first philosophy, like that God is concerned with human acts. Therefore, it seems that faith is not one habit.

On the contrary, there is . . . one faith (Eph 4:5).

Furthermore, just as prudence directs one’s intention in political matters, faith does in matters of grace, as Augustine says. (Augustine, Enarrationes in Psalmos, Ps 31, para. 4 (CCSL 38; PL 36:259).) But prudence is one, although it directs one’s intentions in different matters.

Response to Quaestiuncula 1

To the first question, I answer that, as we have said, since it belongs to a virtue to make its work good, an activity can be called good either formally, as proceeding from a power that is moved toward the good according to its character of good; or materially, according as the act is appropriate and connatural to the power. And in either way, the act of faith is good: for it is both appropriate to the intellect inasmuch as it is about truths; and it also proceeds from the command of the will, which is moved toward the good as its object. Now, on the part of the intellect, although faith’s act does have goodness in the character of its object, nevertheless it does not have perfection, because its manner falls short, as was said, in that it does not have the sight of the truth that it clings to. But on the part of the will, it can have perfection, inasmuch as a will perfected in desire for the good causes firmness and certainty in faith. This is why Bernard says that faith is a kind of voluntary and certain foretaste of truth that has not yet been made manifest. (Bernard, De consideratione libri V, bk. 5, ch. 3, n. 6 (Bernardi opera, ed. J. Leclercq et H.M. Rochais, 1963, PL 182:791).) Therefore it is clear that faith is a virtue, not indeed an intellectual one, but in the way that we commonly speak of a virtue as something producing a good act that proceeds from goodness of the will. However, it is also not a moral virtue, because it does not order the sensible appetite as something that would stand fast amid delights and griefs and activities as its matter and object. But it is rather a theological virtue, which was a kind of virtue that the philosophers did not know.

Reply Obj. 1: The first proposition is true about the virtues known by the philosophers, who did not include any virtues apart from intellectual virtues, except for moral virtues.

Reply Obj. 2: The reason that inclines the will to believe the articles of the faith, is the first truth itself, which is infallible. But the reason that inclines the will to believe other things, is either some kind of fallible sign, or the statement of someone who knows, who can deceive or be deceived. And this is why the will does not give infallible truth to the intellect when it believes other things, as it does when it gives infallible truth in the belief of the articles of the faith. And therefore this faith is a virtue, and other kinds of faith are not.

Reply Obj. 3: Faith is not against reason, but above reason. And thus, it is said to negate reason, not as though destroying true reason, but as though enlisting it in service to Christ, as the Apostle says in 2 Corinthians 10.

Reply Obj. 4: Prophecy cannot be a virtue of any kind. It is not an intellectual virtue, since the intellect’s activity is not perfected by it in a manner connatural to the intellect, for the things that are revealed by prophecy cannot be resolved to naturally known principles. It is also not a theological virtue, since it does not have God as its object, but temporal things; nor again is the act of the intellect commanded through the prophet by his will.

Reply Obj. 5: Faith has its exemplar in God as to what there is of perfection in it, namely, knowledge and certainty. But it does not have an exemplar in God in what it possesses of imperfection, for it does not have the nature of a virtue from this.

Response to Quaestiuncula 2

To the second question, it should be said that a habit possesses multiplicity or singleness from its object. Now, the object of faith is the first truth, which is simple and unvarying. Therefore, two kinds of oneness are found in faith: for, what faith rests upon is one and simple, and so the habit of faith is not divided into several habits in its possessor. On the other hand, from the fact that it is truth, it has the potential of uniting different people who have faith in the sameness of one faith, which is found in believing the same thing. For, as Dionysius says, (Pseudo-Dionysius, On the Divine Names, ch. 7, n. 3 (PG 3:871).) truth has the power of bringing together and uniting, while error and ignorance are divisive.

Reply Obj. 1: Faith is not about something temporal as its object, but only to the extent that it pertains to eternal truth, which is the object of faith, does it fall under faith; for example, faith believes the Passion, inasmuch as God suffered.

Reply Obj. 2: Hope and fear pertain to the affections, whose proper object is good and evil, as such, and that is why they are diversified according to the difference of good and evil. But good and evil do not differ in the account of the true. And for this reason, faith, whose object is the true, is not differentiated by being in a certain way about goods and about evils.

Reply Obj. 3: Faith considers all those different things under one account, namely, according as they depend on the first truth. And this is why faith is not differentiated according to these things, although there are different sciences about them, which consider them under their proper accounts, which are different.

Article 5

Whether faith is prior to the other virtues

To the fifth we proceed thus. (Parallels: ST I-II.62.4; II-II.4.7; De veritate, q. 14, a. 2, ad 3.) It seems that faith is not prior to other virtues.

Obj. 1: For all virtues are infused at the same time. But when things are simultaneous, one is not after another. Therefore faith is not prior to the other virtues.

Obj. 2: Furthermore, the foundation is the first part of a building. But commenting on Luke 12:4: I tell you, my friends, do not fear, the Gloss says, fortitude is the foundation of faith; (Glossa Ordinaria (PL 114:294).) and Bernard says (Bernard, De consideratione libri V, bk. 5, ch. 14, n. 32 (PL 182:806).) that the other virtues are founded on humility. And similarly, fear seems to be the foundation, for it says in Psalm 111 (110):10, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Therefore, it seems that faith is not first.

Obj. 3: Furthermore, theological virtues, as was said before, are for giving a man a certain ordination to his end. But hope and charity are closer to the end than faith, for they have the end for their object under the character of end. Therefore they are prior to faith.

Obj. 4: Furthermore, commenting on Psalm 37:1, be not emulous of evildoers, the Gloss says that hope leads into faith. Therefore, hope is prior to faith.

Obj. 5: Furthermore, the order of habits is according to the order of powers. But faith is in the intellect as it is moved by the will, as is clear from what has been said. Therefore, since charity is in the will, it seems that charity is prior to faith, and so faith is not first.

Obj. 6: Furthermore, faith is chiefly in the speculative intellect. But the speculative life follows the active life, for no one arrives at contemplative leisure unless first the mind is purified by the training of the active life. Therefore, the moral virtues, which pertain to the active life, are prior to faith.

On the contrary, knowledge precedes affections, for nothing is loved unless it is known, as Augustine says. (Augustine, On the Trinity, bk. 8, ch. 4, n. 6 (CCSL 50; PL 42:951).) But faith is in the understanding, while the rest of the virtues abide in the affections.

Furthermore, a right intention is required for all the virtues. But faith directs the intention, as Augustine says. (Augustine, Enarrationes in Psalmos, Ps 31, para. 4 (CCSL 38; PL 36:259)) Therefore, faith is before the other virtues.

Furthermore, man grows closer to God through all the virtues. But to grow closer to God, one must believe, as it says in Hebrews 11:6. Therefore, faith is before the other virtues.

I answer that something can be said to be prior to something else either in time or in nature. It is true that in time all virtues are simultaneous, since they are divinely infused at the same time. But in their natures the order of virtues is to be weighed by their acts, as is also the case with the order of powers, which were created together in the soul. Now, the act of faith consists in the knowledge of the true, which is the precondition for an affection for the good, which is required in all the other virtues. And thus, faith, as to what belongs to faith, is prior in nature to all other virtues.

Reply Obj. 1: That objection proceeds from the order in time.

Reply Obj. 2: In spiritual things, “foundation” is said metaphorically by its resemblance to a material foundation. However, this similarity can be found in two things: in terms of order, since a foundation precedes the other parts; and also as to the virtue of a foundation, since a foundation holds up the whole structure. And both of these resemblances are found in faith, for it is naturally prior to all the others, and the others are strengthened by it, for without it, it is impossible to please God, as in Hebrews 11:6. Now, fortitude is called the foundation with respect to one of these, in that it makes the spiritual edifice strong against adversity, while humility strengthens it against prosperity, which is the occasion of sin, but fear strengthens it against sin itself, for the fear of the Lord drives out sin (Sir 1:27). For this reason, fear precedes the other things that pertain to the affections, since it introduces charity, as Augustine says. (Augustine, In Iohannis epistulam ad Parthos tractatus, tract. 9, n. 4 (CCSL 37; PL 35:2048).)

Reply Obj. 3: Hope and charity are closer to the end as to its attainment, for charity in a certain way attains the end. And this is why they cannot be prior to faith in their nature, but they follow upon faith, for it displays to them the end.

Reply Obj. 4: Just as the end is prior in intention and posterior in being, so the closer something is to the end, the more prior it is in intention, although it may be more posterior in being, either in time or by nature. Thus, hope, which draws closer to the attainment of the end than faith, comes before faith in intention, but not in being. And accordingly, hope is said to lead to faith, not a faith that already existed, but the future faith that is proposed: just as when eternal goods are proposed to someone, first he wants them, second, he wills to hold fast to them by love, and third, he wills to hope about them, and fourth he wills to believe in them, so that someone who believes may already hope and love and have: and this is how faith is prior in being.

Reply Obj. 5: Although faith does presupposes the will, it does not presuppose a will that already loves, but a will that strives to love, inasmuch as it is faith. For the affections cannot be strengthened by love in anything in which the intellect is not strengthened by assent, just as also one cannot tend toward anything by desire which the intellect has not apprehended first. Therefore, this is the natural order of acts: first, God is apprehended, which pertains to the understanding that precedes faith; then a person wills to attain him; then one wills to love and so on, as was said before.

Reply Obj. 6: Faith does not pertain only to the contemplative life. Rather it is the principle of the active and contemplative life, inasmuch as it displays to both their end.

Question 3

The formation of faith

Next we should ask about faith’s formation. Concerning this there are four things to be asked about:

first, whether faith is formed by charity;

second, whether unformed faith is a gift of God;

third, whether it exists in the demons;

fourth, whether it remains once charity has come.

Article 1

Whether faith is formed by charity

Quaestiuncula 1

To the first we proceed thus. (Parallels: ST II-II.4.3; 23.8; De veritate, q. 14, a. 5; De caritate, a. 3.) It seems that faith is not formed by charity.

Obj. 1: For a form comes first, since it is a thing’s principle. But charity is posterior to faith, as was said. Therefore faith is not formed by charity.

Obj. 2: Furthermore, every thing has its species from its proper form. But faith differs in species from charity. Therefore, charity is not the form of faith.

Obj. 3: Furthermore, one thing does not have diverse forms. But faith is formed by grace. Therefore, it is not formed by charity.

On the contrary, faith without charity cannot bring about a meritorious act, which it does bring about once charity is present. Therefore charity gives some force to faith, and thus it seems to form it in some way.

Furthermore, the form of a thing is its beauty. But through charity, faith comes to be beautiful, in such a way that it becomes acceptable to God. Therefore charity forms faith.

Quaestiuncula 2

Obj. 1: Moreover, it seems that unformed faith is a virtue. (Parallels: ST I-II.62.3.ad 2; 65.4; II-II.4.5; De veritate, q. 14, aa. 3, 6; De spe, a. 3, ad 8; Quodl. VI, a. 6.) For Augustine says in the book Of True Innocence (In fact, Prosper of Aquitane, Liber sententiarum, ch. 7 (CCSL 68A; PL 45:1859).) that virtues other than charity can be in good people and wicked people. Therefore faith, insofar as it is a virtue, can be in wicked people. But the faith that exists in wicked people is unformed faith. Therefore unformed faith is a virtue.

Obj. 2: Furthermore, virtue is about difficult things, and this is what it is praised for, as the Philosopher says. (Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 2.3, 1105a12.) But believing the articles of the faith is the most difficult thing. Accordingly, Augustine says, (Augustine, In Iohannis euangelium tractatus, tract. 79, para. 1 (CCSL 36; PL 35:1837).) as is mentioned in the following Distinction, that faith’s glory is believing what it does not see. Therefore it seems that an unformed faith that does believe all the articles of faith, is a virtue.

Obj. 3: Furthermore, nothing is opposed to a vice unless it is a virtue, or else some other vice. But the vice of infidelity is opposed to unformed faith. Since therefore unformed faith is not a vice, it seems that it is a virtue.

On the contrary, unformed faith is dead, as it says in James 2:26. But nothing dead has the character of virtue. Therefore unformed faith is not a virtue.

Furthermore, no one makes a bad use of virtue, as Augustine says. (Augustine, De libero arbitrio, bk. 2, ch. 19 (CCSL 29; PL 32:1268).) But some make a bad use of unformed faith. Therefore unformed faith is not a virtue.

Quaestiuncula 3

Obj. 1: Moreover, it seems that formed and unformed faith differ in species. (Parallels: ST II-II.4.4; De veritate, q. 14, a. 7; Super Rom. 1, lect. 6.) For, as the Philosopher says in the Metaphysics 5, (Aristotle, Metaphysics 10.8, 1058a25; Aquinas, In Metaph., bk. 10, lect. 10, nn. 1124–25.) things that differ in genus differ also in species. But formed and unformed faith differ in genus, since formed faith is a virtue, but unformed faith is not. Therefore formed and unformed faith differ in species.

Obj. 2: Furthermore, the species of a thing comes from its form. But charity is the form of faith. Therefore unformed faith does not belong to the same species as formed faith.

Obj. 3: Furthermore, an act that is the same in species belongs to what has the same form according to species. But the act of formed faith is believing God, whereas this is not the act of unformed faith. Therefore formed and unformed faith differ in species.

On the contrary, habits are diversified by their acts and objects. But formed and unformed faith do not differ in regard to the proper object of faith, which is the first truth. Therefore formed and unformed faith do not differ in species.

Furthermore, anything that is outside the essence of a thing does not change its species, for example, light coming into the air from a shining body does not change the air’s essence. But charity is a habit separate from faith, in terms of the essence of faith. Therefore faith formed by charity does not differ in species from unformed faith.

Response to Quaestiuncula 1

To the first question, I answer that in ordered agents the ends of the secondary agents are ordered to the end of the primary agent, as the whole universe is ordered to the first good that is God, in the way that an army is ordered to the leader’s good, as the Philosopher says in the Metaphysics 11. (Arsitotle, Metaphysics 12.10, 1075a12–15; Aquinas, In Metaph., bk. 12, lect. 12, nn. 2629–30.) And therefore, the action of the primary agent is both prior and posterior. It is prior in moving, because the actions of all the secondary agents are founded upon the action of the first agent, and since it is one action, binding all the others together, its effect is specified in this or that thing according to the requirements of each, just as by one command of the leader in charge of waging war, one soldier takes up a sword, another equips a horse, and so forth. It is posterior, however, in employing the others’ acts for his proper end; and thus, all the actions of the other agents are given their due mode through the primary agent’s action.

Therefore, since the will has the place of primary mover among the powers of the soul, its action is prior in a certain way to the acts of the other powers, insofar as it commands them according to an intention of the last end and uses them for the attainment of this end. And therefore the powers moved by the will receive two things from it. First, they receive something of its form, according as every mover and agent impresses its likeness upon the things moved by it and passive in relation to it. Now this form is either according to the form of the will itself, according to which all the powers moved by the will participate in its freedom, or according to the habit perfecting the will, which is charity; and thus, all habits that are in powers moved by a will that is itself perfected with charity participate in charity’s form. Nevertheless, this form, in which the powers moved by the will participate, is common to all of them. Hence, beyond this common form, the habits that are the perfections of those powers have their own specific forms, which perfect a power according to what is appropriate for it in relation to its own acts and objects. Second, the powers receive from the will consummation in the last end; and in this way charity is called the end of the other virtues, insofar as they are joined to the last end through it.

Thus, since faith is in the intellect insofar as the intellect is moved by the will, as was said above, consequently faith is formed by the form common to it and to the other virtues—that is, by charity, which is the perfection of the will. Yet beyond that common form it has also a specific form derived from the character of its proper object and the power that it is in. And in like manner, it receives consummation through charity.

Reply Obj. 1: Faith, taken simply, precedes charity, since the initial willing that is required for faith is able to exist without charity. Formed faith, however, follows after charity.

Reply Obj. 2: All virtues share in the last end. For this reason, their acts do not differ according to the mode they receive from their order to this end, which is the mode charity gives to them, but rather according to the mode they have from the nature of the power they are in, and their proper objects. And according to this form, faith is distinguished from charity, and again, according to this form, it is not formed by charity.

Reply Obj. 3: Faith is formed by grace by means of charity, since it is insofar as an act of faith comes from charity that it is accepted by God.

Response to Quaestiuncula 2

To the second question, it should be said that it belongs to virtue to make an act perfect. But an act of a power that is moved by another power cannot be perfect unless both the superior and inferior powers are perfected through habits—the superior, in order that it not fall short in directing or moving the act, and the inferior, in order that it not fall short in executing the act. This is evident in any act of the concupiscible power, for its act’s perfection requires that the concupiscible power be perfected through the habit of temperance, and, at the same time, that reason be perfected through the habit of prudence—because if prudence is lacking in the reason, then no matter how much of a disposition to the act of temperance there should be in the concupiscible power, that disposition will not have the notion of virtue, as the Philosopher says in the Ethics 6. (Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 6.12, 1143b15–25.) Since, then, to believe is an act of the intellect insofar as it is moved by the will, it is necessary for the perfection of this act that both the intellect and the will be perfected—the intellect through the light of faith and the will through the habit of charity. And therefore unformed faith does not have a perfect act, and so it cannot be a virtue.

Reply Obj. 1: Augustine uses the name “virtue” broadly for whatever disposition inclines to an act by which good is done.

Reply Obj. 2: To have a virtue, it is not only necessary that a man do the things that belonging to virtue—for example, that he do just things or brave things—but also necessary that he do them in the manner in which the virtuous man does them—even though in some way he can be praised from the very fact that he does what belongs to virtue. But as is clear from what has been said, this manner is lacking in the act of unformed faith; and therefore it is not a virtue.

Reply Obj. 3: Even a disposition to virtue is opposed to vice; hence it is not necessary that unformed faith, which is opposed to infidelity, be a virtue.

Response to Quaestiuncula 3

To the third question, it should be said that a difference in habits can be found from evaluating their acts. Now it happens that some acts may be considered in two ways: either according to natural species or according to moral species. And sometimes they share in species with respect to one description but differ according to another, for example, killing someone harmful and killing someone innocent do not differ according to natural species, yet they do differ according to moral species, since one is an act of vice, that is, murder, while the other is an act of virtue, that is, justice; whereas the acts of killing a thief and freeing an innocent man differ according to natural species, yet share in moral species, since they are both acts of justice. If therefore the acts of formed and unformed faith are considered according to natural species, then they are the same in species, since an act gets its natural species from its proper object; whereas if they are considered according to moral being, then they differ in terms of complete and incomplete in the same species, just like an act by which one does just things, but not precisely as just, differs from an act by which one does just things precisely as just. And similarly, formed and unformed faith are wholly the same in natural species, yet they differ in moral species—not as if existing in simply different species, but rather as perfect and imperfect in the same species, in the way that a disposition to virtue and the habit of virtue differ.

Reply Obj. 1: To the first, therefore, it should be said that virtue is the genus of faith according to moral being. However, unformed faith is not wholly outside of this genus, but exists in it as something imperfect.

Reply Obj. 2: To the second, it should be said that a virtue gets its natural species from the form it has owing to the nature of the power that it is in and the nature of its proper object; but it gets its moral species from the form it has from the moving and directing power. And therefore it does not follow that formed and unformed faith differ in species, except as was explained.

Reply Obj. 3: To the third, it should be said, as was said above, that by those three descriptions, an act numerically one is designated with respect to different things. Hence, there is something in the act of formed faith that is not in the act of unformed faith, but nevertheless it is not entirely different.

Article 2

Whether unformed faith is a gift from God or an acquired habit

To the second we proceed thus. (Parallel: ST II-II.6.2.) It seems that unformed faith is not a gift from God, but an acquired habit.

Obj. 1: For Augustine says (Augustine, On the Trinity, bk. 14, ch. 1 (CCSL 50A; PL 42:1037).) that faith is acquired, nourished, and defended by knowledge. But no habit acquired by any knowledge is a gift from God as if it were divinely infused. Therefore, unformed faith is not an infused habit.

Obj. 2: Furthermore, Romans 10:17 says that faith comes from hearing, and in John 20:29 it is said to Thomas: because you have seen me, you believe. And John 4:16 says: call your man, which the Gloss interprets as meaning, “call the intellect to believe.” And Augustine says (Augustine, In Iohannis euangelium tractatus, tract. 26, para. 2 (CCSL 36; PL 35:1607).) that no one believes unless he wills to. And from all of these examples we hold that faith is from something that is in us. But everything like that is an acquired habit. Therefore, faith is an acquired habit.

Obj. 3: Furthermore, the philosophers believed that God was omnipotent. But they did not have an infused habit of faith.

Obj. 4: Furthermore, a habit in itself is sufficient to move a power to its act. But a person with faith cannot make an act of faith unless he is instructed. Therefore, faith is an acquired habit.

Obj. 5: Furthermore, perfect works are from God (Deut 33:4). But unformed faith is something imperfect. Therefore, it is not from God.

Obj. 6: Furthermore, an act of sin is not said to be from God, because of the deformity that it has attached to it, which is not from God. But this is the very thing that makes faith unformed, that it has a certain deformity. Therefore, unformed faith is not from God.

On the contrary, commenting on if I had all faith (1 Cor 13:2), the Gloss says that the faith that is without charity is a gift from God, because even among the wicked there are many of God’s gifts. Therefore, unformed faith is from God.

Furthermore, no one can act in things that are above his nature except by something divinely given. But a person who has unformed faith does assent to things that are above nature. Therefore, this must happen by something divinely infused.

Furthermore, matters of faith are higher than matters of prophecy. But prophecy cannot be without infused light, whether in good people or in bad ones. Therefore, much less can faith.

I answer that, as was said above, habits are necessary so that powers that are not determined to their perfect act by nature may be determined by a habit. Now, it sometimes happens that a lower power is not determined to that perfect act, but a higher power is; for example, the concupiscible appetite is not determined to holding to the mean in matters of pleasure by its own nature, but reason is determined by its own nature to that, and thus the habit of temperance is acquired in the concupiscible faculty by the force of a higher power, reason. But no power is determined by its own nature to what is above our natural reason—which is what faith deals with. And so for this we need a habit, which is not an acquired habit, and it helps our intellect in two ways: making it easy to believe the things that must be believed, against hardship, and making it discerning in refuting the things not to be believed, against error.

Reply Obj. 1: An infused habit is similar to an inborn habit, because just as natural habits are given when we are created, infused habits are given when we are redeemed. However, a natural habit is like the understanding of first principles in that it requires the cognition to be determined through the senses, which acquired habits do not need, because when they are acquired they receive their determination through their act. And similarly, the habit of faith must receive its determination on our part, and it is in regard to this determination that faith is said to be acquired through the knowledge of theology, which distinguishes it into the articles of faith, just as the habit of recognizing first principles is said to be acquired through the senses in regard to distinct principles, but not as to the light by which we come to know the principles.

Reply Obj. 2: In faith, there are four things to consider: what is to be believed, the reason determining the will to believing, the will commanding the intellect, and the intellect accomplishing it. And according to this, faith as to its determination and as to the act of it that is in us, although it is an infused habit, is said to come from four things that are in us. For as to what is believed it is said to come from hearing, because the determination of things to believe happens in us by the interior speech by which God speaks to us, or by an external voice. As to the reason that induces the will to believe, it is said to come from the vision of something that shows God to be the one who speaks in anyone who announces the faith. But as to the command of the will, faith is said to come from the will. While as to the intellect’s accomplishing it, the act of faith is said to come from the intellect.

Reply Obj. 3: Properly speaking, the philosophers did not believe in an omnipotent God, but rather they knew this, because they had proved it by demonstration. But if some people believed that without demonstration, they did not believe it as something God had said, but rather they believed a certain sign from which they had inferred it.

Reply Obj. 4: An infused habit of faith cannot result in an act unless the faith is determined either by God through revelation, or by another person through teaching: and this is similar to the habit of knowing first principles.

Reply Obj. 5: The perfection of divine works is from him, but what there is of any imperfection in them happens on the part of the one receiving the work.

Reply Obj. 6: In an act of sin there is not only a lack of due circumstances, but something undue is included; and that is why it is not only imperfect but also wicked—and this is why sin is said to not be from God. But in an act of unformed faith there is a lack of something that should be there, but there is not the inclusion of something that should not be there, so that act is imperfect but not wicked. And for this reason, the act is from God, but not the defect.

Article 3

Whether there is unformed faith in the demons

Quaestiuncula 1

To the third we proceed thus. (Parallels: below, d. 26, q. 2, a. 5, resp. 4; ST II-II.5.2; 18.3.ad 2; De veritate, q. 14, a. 9, ad 4.) It seems that unformed faith is not found in the demons.

Obj. 1: For the vision of faith is in a mirror and in an enigma, as is said in 1 Corinthians 13:12. But there is an enigmatic and mirror-like knowledge in us because we naturally receive knowledge through the senses, which is not the case with the demons. Therefore unformed faith cannot be in them.

Obj. 2: Furthermore, unformed faith is a gratuitous gift, as was said. But after their sin, no gratuitous gift was infused in an angel, and before that, there was no faith in them, but rather vision. Therefore they do not have unformed faith.

Obj. 3: Furthermore, the act of faith comes from the will. But no act of the demons coming from their deliberate will is good, as was said in Book II. (In II Sent., d. 7, q. 1, a. 2.) Therefore, since an act of unformed faith is good, it appears that they do not have unformed faith.

On the contrary, James 2:19 says, even the demons believe—and shudder.

Furthermore, commenting on Romans 1:17, through faith for faith, the Gloss says, the faith of the demons is unformed. (source)

Quaestiuncula 2

Obj. 1: Moreover, it appears that unformed faith remains in heretics. (Parallels: ST II-II.5.3; De veritate, q. 14, a. 10, ad 10; De caritate, a. 13, ad 6; Quodl. VI, a. 4.) For they believe God to be three and one, and that God was made man. But these things are above nature. Therefore, since things that are above nature cannot be believed without the infused habit of faith, it appears that an infused faith remains in them.

Obj. 2: Furthermore, in the sciences one who forgets one of the things that are knowable in that science still has the habit as regards the other things knowable in it. But faith is the habitual cognition of the articles. Therefore, if a heretic disbelieves one article, faith still remains in him as regards another article.

Obj. 3: Furthermore, unformed faith is the principle of the servile fear present in the demons or the heretics. Therefore there is unformed faith in them.

On the contrary, every infused habit is expelled through an act contrary to it, as is clear by induction in other matters. But a heretic has an act opposed to faith. Therefore the habit of faith does not remain in him.

Furthermore, he would be simultaneously faithful and unfaithful, which is impossible.

Response to Quaestiuncula 1

I answer that it belongs to the notion of faith that the believer assent to certain things that he does not see in virtue of themselves, nor can he trace them back to things that he sees, but rather is inclined to believing them due to some reason that suffices to determine his assent to what is believed—although it is not sufficient to bring him to a vision of what is believed. Now, this reason bringing one to belief can be taken either from something created, as when we are led through some sign to believing something, whether about God or about other realities, or it is taken from the uncreated truth itself, as when we believe certain things that have been divinely said to us through its ministers. And speaking in the first way, faith compels the intellect to believe something through the fact that nothing appears contrary to it. But in the second way, the intellect is not compelled, but rather is inclined by the will. And in the first way there is faith in the demons, inasmuch as they are compelled to believe things that exceed their natural cognition by their natural cognition itself and the miracles that they see to be above nature much more subtly than do we. But they do not have faith in the second way.

Reply Obj. 1: Although in the intellect of a demon there is not the obscurity that is in ours, due to sensation, still there is another obscurity because they cannot, through a supernatural cognition, attain the vision of the truth that they are compelled to believe through certain signs.

Reply Obj. 2: The faith that is in them is not the infused habit, but rather proceeds from their natural cognition.

Reply Obj. 3: In them the intellect is compelled to assent; whence it does not wholly proceed from free will.

Response to Quaestiuncula 2

To the second question, it should be said that, as was said above, the infused habit of faith helps us in two ways: namely, so that we might believe the things that should be believed, and so that the things that should not be believed we in no way would assent to. Now, man is capable of the first from his judgment itself, without the infused habit, but the second—namely, that he be inclined precisely to these things but not to those—comes from only the infused habit. Indeed, this discernment is that in virtue of which we do not believe every spirit. And because this is not present in the heretic, it is certain that the habit of faith does not remain in him. And if he believes certain things that should be believed, this is due to human reason. For if he were inclined to believing these things by the habit of faith, he would refuse the things contrary to the faith, just as every habit resists things that are opposed to that habit.

Reply Obj. 1: Although they believe something that is above nature, still they do not believe it through the infused habit by which they are being directed, but through a [merely] human judgment.

Reply Obj. 2: The habit of a science inclines one to knowable things through the mode of reason, and therefore one who has the habit of the science can be ignorant of certain things that pertain to that habit. But the habit of faith, since it is not initiated by reason, inclines through the mode of nature, like even the habit of the moral virtues, and even the habit of first principles. And therefore as long as it remains, one believes nothing contrary to the faith.

Reply Obj. 3: Servile fear is caused in them also due to that human judgment, as is the case with the demons.

Article 4

Whether unformed faith is emptied out at the coming of charity

Quaestiuncula 1

To the fourth we proceed thus. (Parallels: ST II-II.4.4; De veritate, q. 14, a. 7; Super Rom. 1, lect. 6.) It seems that unformed faith is emptied out at the coming of charity.

Obj. 1: For 1 Corinthians 13:10 says, when what is perfect has come, what is partial will pass away, as faith will pass away with the coming of vision. But unformed faith is imperfect with respect to formed faith. Therefore unformed faith is taken away at the coming of formed faith.

Obj. 2: Furthermore, unformed faith is the principle of servile fear. But servile fear is taken away at the coming of charity; therefore unformed faith as well.

Obj. 3: Furthermore, grace, when it comes, does not have less efficacy in the faithful than in the unbeliever. But in the unbeliever it causes the habit of faith; therefore it does the same in the believer who has formed faith. But formed and unformed faith are of the same species, as is evident from what has been said. Therefore, since two forms of one species cannot exist simultaneously in the same subject, it is necessary that unformed faith be taken away at the coming of charity and grace.

On the contrary, infused gifts are more permanent than acquired habits. But the coming of grace does not take away acquired habits; therefore much less does it take away the infused habit of faith.

Furthermore, nothing is corrupted except by its contrary. But unformed faith is not contrary to grace, because habits of good are not contrary to each other, but only habits of evil, or a habit of good to a habit of evil. Therefore unformed faith, strictly as a habit, is not taken away at the coming of charity.

Quaestiuncula 2

Obj. 1: Moreover, it seems that even if unformed faith remains as a habit, it does not remain in regard to its act. For even if something good is done by an act of unformed faith, nevertheless it is not something done well. But something is done well by an act of formed faith. Therefore at the coming of charity, unformed faith does not remain with respect to its act.

Obj. 2: Furthermore, a lesser light does not continue to give illumination once a greater light is present. But unformed faith is a lesser light than charity. Therefore once charity is present, the act of unformed faith does not remain.

Obj. 3: Furthermore, each virtuous person works to the best of his ability, just as nature does. But the act of formed faith, which the virtuous person who has charity exercises, is better than the act of unformed faith. Therefore in this person the act of unformed faith is left idle, just as one who can know something through a demonstrative syllogism does not care to consider the same thing through a dialectical syllogism.

On the contrary, something that that belongs to moral matters is much less able to be in vain than matters of nature, and especially with respect to infused habits. But a habit without an act is vain, because an act is its end, just as an act is also the end of a power. Therefore there is no habit of faith without a corresponding act.

Furthermore, the act of unformed faith is to believe God or to believe in God. But with the coming of charity, this act remains. Therefore the act of unformed faith is not emptied out.

Quaestiuncula 3

Obj. 1: Moreover, it seems that unformed faith cannot become formed faith. For unformed faith is dead, as is said in James 2:26. But a dead work is not something that can be made alive. Therefore neither is unformed faith made alive through the form of charity.

Obj. 2: Furthermore, faith is an accident. But as Boethius says, “accidents cannot be changed.” (Boethius, In Categorias Aristotelis libri IV, bk. 1 (PL 64:199).) Therefore it seems that the very same faith that was unformed cannot become formed.

Obj. 3: Furthermore, something one does not come to be out of two accidents. But the arriving grace is one accident. Therefore it does not form the prior unformed faith, but causes a new habit of formed faith.

On the contrary, nature always works in the shortest way; therefore, it is similar in the workings of grace. But to form a habit hitherto unformed is a shorter way than to infuse a new habit. Therefore what gets informed is the same faith that was hitherto unformed.

Furthermore, infused habits have more in common with grace than with a natural power. But an imperfect and unformed natural power is formed at the coming of grace; therefore much more is the habit of unformed faith so formed.

Response to Quaestiuncula 1

I answer that when something that does not pertain to a thing’s species is removed, it need not be the case that a thing’s substance is also taken away, just as if darkness is taken away from the air, the air still remains. Now the unformedness of faith does not pertain to the species of faith, because faith owes its species to the mode it has from the nature of the power in which it exists as in a subject, by relation to its proper object. Now faith is called “formed” and “unformed” relative to something extrinsic, namely the will, as was said, just as air is formed by light in relation to a luminous body; and therefore it is evident that being unformed does not pertain to the species of faith. Since therefore charity, when it comes, takes away nothing from faith except its unformedness, it stands that the substance of the habit of faith still remains.

Reply Obj. 1: The imperfection faith has with respect to vision is according to the genus of knowledge, and therefore it pertains to the species of faith; and on account of this, faith passes away with the coming of vision. But it is not so in the case at hand, as was said.

Reply Obj. 2: Even servile fear is not taken away as to the habit of fear, but only as to its characteristic of servility.

Reply Obj. 3: In someone who has faith, grace does not cause another habit of faith—and this is not because the grace lacks efficacy, but because the subject of grace cannot receive something that it already has.

Response to Quaestiuncula 2

To the second question, it should be said that even as the habit of unformed faith remains but without its unformedness, so the act of the habit also remains but without its unformedness, since a habit is that by which someone acts when the time for acting has come, as Augustine says. (Augustine, De bono coniugali, ch. 21, para. 25 (CSEL 41:219; PL 40:390).)

Reply Obj. 1: The fact that someone does good through unformed faith pertains to the substance of the habit, and therefore this remains once charity has come; whereas the fact that he does something good but not well pertains to its unformedness, and therefore this does not remain.

Reply Obj. 2: The light of unformed faith and the light of charity are not of the same account; consequently, charity at its coming does not have the effect of darkening faith, but rather brings it to completion, since faith is as matter with respect to charity.

Reply Obj. 3: The act of unformed faith falls short of the act of formed faith because of its unformedness, and in this respect it does not remain.

Response to Quaestiuncula 3

To the third question, it should be said, as the Philosopher says in the Ethics 6, (Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 6.13, 1144b16.) that prior to the complete being of moral virtue in a man, there exists a certain natural inclination to that virtue, which is called “natural virtue”; and this inclination takes on the notion of virtue insofar as it receives perfection from a superior power, namely reason. And in like manner, unformed faith preexists in the intellect prior to the complete being of virtue, but it receives the notion of virtue from the perfection of a superior power, namely the will. Hence, one and the same faith that beforehand was unformed afterwards becomes formed; nor is the faith that arrives something other [than the faith that was already there], since formed and unformed faith do not differ in species, as is evident from what has been said. But it is not possible for two forms of one species to exist at the same time [in the same subject], because forms are diversified in number by reason of a diversity of matter or subject.

Reply Obj. 1: A dead work passes away, and cannot be taken up again the same in number, and therefore it cannot be made alive. But an unformed habit endures, and therefore it can be formed.

Reply Obj. 2: An accident does not change as though it were the subject of change, but because its subject stands in various ways with respect to it, and thus its subject is the subject of change, as is evident in the intensification and remission of heat.

Reply Obj. 3: One accident does not come to be out of grace and faith, but rather, the mode of charity comes to be participated in in such a way that it gives rise to the perfection of faith, just as the mode of prudence is participated in in such a way that it gives rise to the perfection of moral virtue. And therefore charity, when it comes, is said to form the preexistent faith.

Exposition of the text

The term faith is taken in three ways. (Sent. III. 23. 3 (76). 1.) Faith is properly said about someone assenting to things that he does not see. Now this happens in two ways. In one way, when a person is led by human reason; and this kind of faith is called a strong opinion. And by an even greater extension of the name, every certainty that occurs through human reason, even if it should lead to sight, is called faith, according to which argument is said to be the reasoning that causes faith in a doubtful thing. (Cf. Cicero, Topica, bk. 2, ch. 7.) Moreover, a person’s truthfulness is also called faith, inasmuch as it is the cause that someone believes even those things that he does not see; and this is how Cicero says (Cicero, De officiis, bk. 1, ch. 8.) that faith is the foundation of justice, where “faith” is taken for fidelity. And in addition, the very conscientiousness by which someone holds to this truthfulness is called faith, as it says in Romans 14:23, everything that is not of faith, and the Gloss comments, that is, conscientiousness. (source needed.) The other way is when a person is led by divine reason; and this is the way that faith is said for the very habit by which we believe, whether formed or unformed, as well as its act, its object, and its sacrament, inasmuch as it is the cause and sign of this kind of faith. And by extension, any certainty that is had about divine things is called faith, even if those things are seen.

'Not in the same way as we know those bodies.' (Sent. III. 23. 7 (80). 2, citing Augustine, On the Trinity, bk. 13, ch. 1, n. 3 (CCSL 50A; PL 42:1014).) It should be known that here Augustine is separating the experiential knowledge that someone has of his own faith from the four kinds of seeing: external sight, when he says, 'as we know bodies'; the vision of the imagination, which is left behind by external sight, when he says, 'through their images'; imaginative sight, which forms a thing never seen from different images of things that have been seen, when he says: 'nor even as those things which we have not seen'; and from intellectual vision of things outside us, by saying: 'nor as a man.'

'For what is faith, except to believe what you do not see?' (Sent. III. 23. 7 (80). 3, citing Augustine, In Iohannis euangelium tractatus, tract. 40, para. 9 (CCSL 36; PL 35:1690).) Here he is defining the habit of faith by its proper act.