Chapter 4. The Virtue of Faith

Faith is the first supernatural virtue or habit infused in baptism. It is a virtue or active power of a supernatural kind residing in the intellect, but acting also on the will, for it is made perfect by charity.1 The Council of Trent calls it 'the root of all our justification,' because ' with out faith it is impossible to please God.'

S. Paul describes faith as ' the substance of things to be hoped for, the evidence of things' not seen as yet, or ' that appear not.'2 And S. Thomas says that ' faith is to be lieve what we cannot see;' or, once more, 'faith is believing in the word of God/ It is therefore a supernatural power infused into our reason, and abiding in it as a habit of our new nature.

The nature of divine faith will be best understood if we consider, (1) what is its origin, or whence it comes; (2) what is its matter, or what it believes; and (3) what is its motive, or why it believes.

1. As to the origin of faith, it is not by nature in man or by man — that is, it is not

1 S. Thomae, Sum. Theol. 2. 2, q. 4. » Heb. xi. 1.

in ourselves. It is a grace not due to our nature. It is beyond its limits; but it is not an extension of our natural reason, as a lens extends our natural faculty of sight. It is a babit distinct from all these, and above them all. When reason has done its work, faith begins. The last act of rea son goes before the first act of faith; but faith is the perfection of reason. When we have examined the preambles or evidences which prove Christianity to be a divine revelation, faith then believes it. When we have examined the evidences which prove the divine unity and authority of the Church, faith then believes and submits itself. It ceases to be a critic that it may become a disciple of a Divine Teacher. Faith, then, is a grace of the Holy Ghost. It pervades the intellect in the form of light, by which it sees the truth; charity moves the heart in the form of piety, inclining it to love the truth, and the will, in the form of an impulse, to believe it. But the grace of faith, which works in adults by reasoning and preambles, was infused into us in our baptism when we were unconscious. As we were unconscious of the three facul ties of intellect, memory, and will, which were in us in our first birth, as the germs of all intellectual and moral perfection, so the three virtues of faith, hope, and charity were infused into us in our second birth in the form of permanent habits, awaiting the voice of the Church to call them into activity. They are elicited and made perfect by use, or by fidelity to the Holy Ghost who gave them. By exercise they become more constraining and mature. As the eye becomes keen by practice and the ear by daily use, so faith and hope and charity become more vivid and powerful in the measure in which they are cultivated by use and exercise.

The origin, then, of faith is in the pre venting grace of God, which, not only in those who are baptised in infancy, but also in adults, precedes and guides every act of the reason, and inclines every free movement of the will.

2. Next the matter of faith, or what we believe, is the word of God. * Faith, then, cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ.'3 The word of God is the whole revelation of the day of Pentecost, whether written or unwritten. S. Paul draws out the lineage of the faithful from Abel to his own day, and describes the life of the Patriarchs and Saints of the Old Law as a life of faith. They believed in God, their Creator and Friend, and in the heavenly country, where God would re ward their fidelity to Him for ever. * All these died according to faith, not having received the promises, but beholding them afar off, and saluting them, and confessing that they are pilgrims and strangers on the earth.'4

He describes the martyrs of the Old Law and the Saints, of whom the world was not worthy; and then he says that » Rom. x. 17. 4 Heb. xi. J3.

without us they were not made perfect — that is, without the knowledge of the In carnation of the Son and the coming of the Holy Ghost, they were imperfect still in faith. They all believed the word of God, so far as it was then revealed, even as we; but we have received the full and final revelation of the truth in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The Holy Ghost was their Teacher and their Sanctifier. But they did not know Him as we do. All Saints and penitents were His creation; they were the first-fruits, we are the harvest. All that the Spirit had ever taught before Christ came, and all that the Anointed One taught at His advent, was filled up and completed by the Holy Ghost at His coming. The whole revelation in Jesus Christ was preached by the Apostles in all the world. This is the word of Christ, by which comes the hearing of faith. There were no Scriptures of the New Testament when the Gospel of the king dom was preached to all nations. They

D heard the living voice of those to whom Jesus had said, ' He that heareth you heareth Me.' Without texts or writings or books they believed, and became disciples of the Holy Ghost. S. Irenaeus expressly says that there were nations who had no Scriptures. They believed the truth which was written on their hearts by the Holy Ghost.5

The whole light of the day of Pentecost is contained in the Name in which we were baptised; and that Name is expanded into our Baptismal Creed, and the Baptismal Creed expands again into the theology of the Church, as the radiance which flows from a point of light spreads itself in perfect unity. Such is the divine tradition of the Catholic Church, which first filled the world by its living voice, and of which afterwards a part was put in writing by Evangelists and Apostles; but these writings all recognise and point to the divine and perfect revelation which * rf. Iren. Adv. Hesreg. lib. iii. c. iv.

was intrusted to the custody of the Church before the Christian Scriptures were writ ten. The word of the Holy Ghost had been already heard and believed through out the world. And this whole revelation of the word of God is the matter of faith Xothing can be of divine faith but that which is revealed by God; and therefore no mere human teaching and no mere hu man wisdom, however pure or true, can be a doctrine of faith. The word of God alone, written and unwritten, is what we believe unto salvation.

3. And lastly, the motive why we be lieve the word of God is the veracity of God, who can neither deceive nor be deceived. God, Deus Verus et Verax, is the Author and motive of our faith. This, therefore, shuts out from faith all human opinion and all human teachers — that is, our own private judgment and the judgment of all other men. Faith can rest on nothing that is uncertain. Where doubt begins, faith ends. All human opinion, all human judgments, and all human teachers rest only on subjective convictions, and these are uncertain and changeful. No human teacher and no number of human teachers can give us a motive of faith, for none can give us divine certainty. No national religion, no decrees of churches or pro vinces of churches separated from the unity of the Universal Church, can give a divine and infallible certainty on which to rest our faith. ' Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ.' Nothing but the voice of the Church throughout the world in its passive infallibility, or congregated in council, or the voice of its Head speaking as Universal Teacher of faith and morals in its active infallibility, can assure us that we hear the word of Christ, and, hearing, have the divine certainty of faith. But this continuous voice is the Voice of the Holy Ghost, by whom the Church is illuminated, guided, and as sisted in all its definitions of the truth. The Church, in its nineteen (Ecumenical

Councils and by its line of Pontiffs, has ever said, and only the Church can say always: * Yisum est Spiritui Sancto et no-bis/ — ' It seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us.'6

This divine grace of faith, infused into the soul in baptism, abides in it as a habit. It gives what S. Augustine describes as pius credulitatis affectus — a pious love of truth, and an inclination to believe it. The earliest consciousness of a regenerate child is pervaded by this faith. There is an affinity between childlike minds and the mind of the Spirit which makes them intuitively and instinctively believe divine and supernatural things. They have an ear to hear the divine voice of the Church; and when it proposes the truth to them, they respond to its teaching with a prompt -will. To believe is a second nature to them; and that second nature is the new nature which they have from the Holy Ghost. It is of this our Lord spoke when • Acts xv. 28.

He said to men of mature mind, even to His Apostles, 'Unless you be converted, and become as little children, you shall in nowise enter into the kingdom of heaven.'7 It is not the will of God that faith should come by reading, but by hearing — that is, it does not come from books, but from a living Voice. Such is the rule of faith. Tertullian says, ' Prior sensus quam liber/ The sense was before the book; and the children of the Church are taught from their infancy as the nations were taught before the Scriptures were written, that is, by the living Voice of the Holy Ghost. Then He spake through the Apos tles whom He had inspired; now He speaks through the Church in which He perpetually dwells. He guides it by His perpetual assistance, guarding it from all error, and by it He teaches all who believe. Faith, then, being a grace of the Holy Ghost, may be lost like as humility, chastity, purity, or piety may be lost. These graces may bo ' 8. Matt, xviii. 3.

lost in two ways: by immorality, which deadens the conscience and stupefies the soul, or by speculative doubt, which per verts the reason and ends in infidelity.

The Vatican Council has in two defini tions taught us the nature of faith. It says that they who are under the divine teaching of the Church cannot without sin sus pend their belief in any Catholic doctrine till they have scientific or argumentative proof of it, for that is an implicit denial of the perpetual office of the Holy Ghost.8

It says also that God has a sovereign right to command us to believe, because the created intellect is wholly dependent upon His uncreated intelligence.9

And this dependence was formed in us when, by the theological virtue of faith infused by the Holy Ghost in our baptism, our created reason was united to the divine by a supernatural light. Therefore baptism is called our illumination, and that illumination is the habit of faith. • Const. Dogm., De Fide Cath. c. iii. • Ibid.

0 Thou Spirit of Truth, who on the day of Pentecost, by a special mission from the Father and the Son, didst come into this world to abide in the Church for ever, call back by Thy light all those who have fallen from the faith; above all, those who have been robbed of their inheritance of truth by the infidelity of their forefathers. Make them once more to know Thy Personality, Thy Presence, and Thy Office as the Divine and Perpetual Guide of the Church, that they may submit to its voice as disciples, in the obedience of faith. Make me also to count my faith more precious, than life itself.

Jesus, have mercy on me.

Holy Mary, pray for me.