Treatise on Faith

1,1:  St. Thomas first claims that even though there are many revealed truths pertaining to "the humanity of Christ, the sacraments of the Church, and the condition of creatures, etc.", nonetheless there is a sense in which God, who is the First Truth, is the object of faith.  To show this he draws a distinction between the material objects of faith, that is, the various revealed propositions, and the formal object that provides the 'formality' under which these material objects of faith are assented to, that is, that through which they are known.

For instance, in geometry the material objects of cognition are the various conclusions and the formal object of geometrical knowledge consists in the demonstrative arguments by which the conclusions are known.  That is, the conclusions are known in the strict sense only because they are seen to be derived from the demonstrations.  So, too, in the present case, the First Truth, or God, is the formal object, since by faith revealed truths are assented to only insofar as they are revealed by God and, as St. Thomas puts it later, publicly manifested in Sacred Scripture and the teachings of the Church.  So every revealed truth--whether or not directly about God--is cognized through faith only insofar as it is assented to because it is revealed as true by God and manifested in Sacred Scripture and the teachings of the Church.  Later on (see 5,3 below), St. Thomas explains this further by saying that in an act of supernatural faith one is assenting to God's revelation  "as an infallible rule."

1,2: The revealed truths assented to through faith are propositional (enuntiabilia) even though the act of faith is terminated not in the propositions but in the things themselves that are known through the propositions.  This is because our mode of cognizing is through composing and dividing terms.  In patria our mode of cognition will be simple instead of, as it is now, complex.  The reason is that we will see God face to face as he is in himself and see other things "in" him.

1,3: Strictly speaking, nothing false is assented to through the virtue of faith.  Any false beliefs that depend in some way on faith always involve some conjecture that is merely human and not revealed.  Suppose, for instance, I come to believe, on the basis of my acceptance of the Book of Revelation, that Christ will come again on a given date, and it turns out that I am wrong about this.  My acceptance of the Book of Revelation as revelatory of God and his plans is part of faith, but my belief about the specific date of Christ's second coming involves a mere human conjecture that is not contained in God's revelation.

1,4-5: Unlike intellectus (grasp of what is evident in itself), scientia (grasp of what is evident through its evident truth-preserving relationship to other evident things), and simple sensory perception, faith does not have the evident as its object.  That is, the object of faith does not automatically move the intellect to assent, in the way that evident objects of sensory or intellective cognition do.  For this reason, the object of faith is assented to only voluntarily, in the same way that acceptance of the object of opinio (broadly, opinion or 'belief' in one ordinary sense) involves an act of willing to accept the object.  However, unlike opinio, the assent of faith does not involve any fear or suspicion of falsity; that is, faith confers absolute confidence in what is accepted, whereas opinio does not.  (The idea seems to be that with opinio there is an epistemic possibility of falsity, where epistemic possibility in this acceptation is a function of the degree of confidence that I repose in what I accept.)

Now a given proposition might be such that one person has scientia or some other type of evident cognition with respect to it, whereas another assents to it through faith.  For instance, neophyte physicists accept on faith certain  physical truths imparted to them by teachers and experts.  Similarly, the blessed in heaven 'see' the various mysteries of the faith, whereas in this life such mysteries  must be assented to by faith.  Likewise, it is possible in principle for a philosopher to have scientia with respect to the proposition A perfect being exists, whereas almost all Christians who assent to this proposition do so by faith.

1,6-9:  The next few articles deal with the division of revealed propositions into articles of the faith.  First of all, the material object of faith is divided into various "articles [or 'articulations'] of the faith," which fit together into a comprehensive and coherent whole.  St. Thomas suggests a rough ordering principle:  propositions that do not evidently involve one another and present substantially different difficulties to the mind should be counted as distinct doctrines.  Another rule of thumb has to do with the relative centrality of various revealed propositions to God's nature and salvific plan.  Some propositions pertain directly to the faith, whereas others pertain to the faith only because of their relation to the central ones.  (These are admittedly rough rules, but someone versed in the faith will have little problem applying them.)

1:7:  As far as the development of doctrine is concerned, St. Thomas has this to say in art. 7:  "Progress in knowledge occurs in two ways. First, on the part of the teacher, be he one or many, who makes progress in knowledge as time goes on: and this is the kind of progress that takes place in the sciences devised by man.  Secondly, on the part of the learner; thus the master, who has perfect knowledge of the art, does not deliver it all at once to his disciple from the very outset, for he would not be able to take it all in; rather, he condescends to the disciple's capacity and instructs him little by little.  It is in this way that men made progress in the knowledge of faith as time went on. Hence the Apostle (Gal. 3:24) compares the state of the Old Testament to childhood."  St. Thomas does not explicitly address here the question of the development of doctrine in New Testament times, but the last article discusses the creeds and so will give us some idea of his view.  The following quotation from ad 2 is important for certain things we will discuss later:  "Among men, the knowledge of faith had to proceed from imperfection to perfection; and, although some men have been, as it were, active causes, by being doctors of faith, nevertheless the manifestation of the Spirit is given to such men for the common good, according to 1 Cor. 12:7; so that the knowledge of faith was imparted to the Fathers who were instructors in the faith, so far as was necessary at the time, for the instruction of the people, either openly or in figures."

1:8  Here St. Thomas gives his own account of the ordering of doctrines from the most central downward.  The two chief doctrines are the Trinity (since participation in the life of the Trinity constitutes "eternal life" for us) and the Incarnation (since it is through Christ's human nature that we are empowered to participate in eternal life).  By starting with them, we can include the others, both those pertaining to the order of nature (e.g., creation) and those pertaining to the order of grace (e.g., the Church and the sacraments).

1,9: Note St. Thomas's reply to the objection that the formulation of creeds is inappropriate:  "The truth of the faith is contained in Sacred Scripture in various places and in various modes, and sometimes obscurely.  So in order to elicit the truth of the faith from Sacred Scripture, one needs long study and practice, which are not attainable by everyone who needs to know the truth of the faith.  For most of them are busy with other affairs and cannot spend their time studying.  So it was necessary to gather together a clear summary from the sayings of Sacred Scripture that would be proposed for everyone to believe."

1:10: Here St. Thomas argues that it is reserved ultimately to the Pope to formulate the creeds of the faith, at least in the sense of approving as creeds of the faith formulas that have been proposed by councils or even by individuals.  Note, also, ad 2, where St. Thomas says that subsequent councils can formulate new creeds, consistent with those formulated by previous councils, in order to meet the challenge posed by new heresies.
 

Question 2: The interior act of faith

2,1: Here St. Thomas defends St. Augustine's characterization of the act of faith as "cogitating with assent."  His main goal, though, is to accomplish the important task of giving a precise characterization of the intellectual act of faith.  He begins by noting that 'to cogitate' can be taken either (a) very broadly for any sort of "actual consideration by the intellect," or more strictly for either (b) intellectual inquiry before it reaches the certitude of evidentness with regard to a truth involving purely general or universal concepts (intentiones) or (c) the inquiry of the sentient 'cogitative sense' before it reaches the certitude of evidentness with regard to particulars.

In sense (a) "cogitating with assent" does not express a complete account of faith, since then someone would have faith even when he contemplates what he has understanding of (intellectus:  viz., evident first principles) or what he has scientific knowledge of (scientia: viz., conclusions evidently derived from evident first principles).  But sense (b) does capture the precise nature of faith.  For (i) the act of faith involves assent simultaneously with the cogitation, whereas in intellectus and scientia the cogitation (i.e., inquiry) has already been completed prior to the relevant intellectual acts, and (ii) the act of faith involves firm assent, whereas (1) in an act of intellectually hesitating or doubting (dubitatio) there is not even an inclination toward one part of a pair of contradictories, (2) in an act of suspecting (suspicio) there is a very weakly based  inclination toward one part but no firm assent, and (3) in an act of adopting an opinion (opinio) there is adherence to one part, but not the firm or confident adherence of assent in the proper sense.

So an act of faith involves both firm adherence to one part and continuous inquiry unterminated by any evident seeing of the truth.  That is, one who has faith with respect to a given object firmly assents to that object without seeing its truth clearly.  In ad 1 St. Thomas clarifies this by pointing out that the 'inquiry' associated with faith does not aim to demonstrate the object of faith, but rather to look into those things that lead one to the assent of faith.  In other words, what one looks into are indications of the trustworthiness of the revelation that a given object is, though not evident, worthy of one's assent.  And in ad 3 St. Thomas makes explicit what has to this point has been implicit:  that the intellectual assent involved in faith is voluntary rather than, as with scientia and intellectus, automatic and involuntary.

2,2: This question explores St. Augustine's invocation of the threefold relation that the act of faith has to God as its object:  to wit, an act of fact is (a) an act of 'believing God' , i.e., believing something because God tells you (credere Deo) [this is the formal object of faith], (b) an act of  'believing that God exists and is such-and-such' (credere Deum) [this is the material object of faith], and (c) an act of 'believing in God' (credere in Deum), i.e., tending toward God as an object of the will moving the intellect to assent.  (This last--or perhaps a combination of (a) and (c)--is what Pope John Paul has in mind when he talks of the act of faith as an act of "entrusting oneself to God.")

In ad 3 St. Thomas flat-out denies that non-believers believe that God exists and is such-and-such in the same sense that believers do.  The reason is that they do not know God in the intimate way revealed through the act of faith in the articles of the Catholic Faith.  For instance, the best that non-believers can do is to prove the existence of God under some such description as 'First Cause' or, at best, 'Perfect Being'.  But this is to think of God in a way that falls far short of the doctrines of the Trinity and Incarnation, wherein God is seen in three persons:  Loving Father, Word Made Flesh, and Sanctifier.  And so, St. Thomas concludes, "[Non-believers] do not truly believe that God exists, since as the Philosopher says in Metaphysics 9, when it comes to simple entities, the only defect in knowing them lies in not grasping them at all."

2,3: St. Thomas argues that it is necessary for salvation to have faith with regard to something that surpasses natural reason:  "Insofar as natural reason has a universal notion of good and being, it has an immediate relation to the principle of being.  Therefore, the perfection of a rational creature consists not only in what belongs to it by its nature, but also in that which is given to it by a sort of supernatural participation in God's goodness ...... But man cannot attain the vision of God except by way of learning from God as a teacher.  Now every student must first take things on faith in order to come to perfect knowledge.  And so in order for us to come to a perfect knowledge of God in the beatific vision we must first trust God through faith as our teacher."  This means that faith is necessary for our fulfillment as human beings and hence for our salvation (which is what fulfillment amounts to, given original sin).
 
2,4: From here we get more specific with respect to exactly what must be believed explicitly for salvation.  First of all, is it necessary for salvation to have faith with respect to the preambles of the faith, i.e., those revealed truths that we can in principle come to strict knowledge of by natural reason alone without revelation? The answer is yes, and this for three reasons.  First of all, this is the easiest and most timely way for us to come to the cognition of divine truth, since natural theology is a difficult undertaking that presupposes knowledge of many other disciplines.  Second, in this way the knowledge of God is more widespread, given that many people are unable for one reason or another to do philosophical inquiry.  Third, faith gives more certitude with respect to divine matters than does natural reason, even under the best of conditions.  (Note that St. Thomas seems a bit more more pessimistic about natural reason here than even in Summa Contra Gentiles 1, chap. 4.)

2,5-8: What, if anything, must be explicitly held on faith?  This is the topic of the next four articles.  The objections in art. 5 point out that people who have not heard the Gospel are unable to believe the mysteries of the faith, and that all that such people can be held responsible for is preparing themselves to hear the Gospel and having a prompt spirit of obedience.  In his reply St. Thomas distinguishes what is properly and per se the object of faith and that which is related to the object of faith as a consequence.  It is the former, rather than the latter, that falls under the precepts associated with the virtue of faith.  To wit, that which makes one a happy or flourishing human being is the per se object of faith--these are the articles of the Faith--whereas everything handed down in Sacred Scripture is related to faith as a consequence (e.g., that Abraham had two sons).  Only the former must be held explicitly.

In reply to the objections, St. Thomas claims that 'ought' does not imply 'can' if we limit 'can' to what is in our power without the help of grace. When God gives someone the grace to assent to the articles of the faith, this is a function of his mercy, whereas when he withholds this grace because of our sinfulness, this is a function of his justice.

St. Thomas explains this further in art. 6 by pointing out that those who are charged with teaching the faith should have more knowledge of and thus a more explicit faith with respect to the mysteries of the faith, whereas those who are receiving this teaching will have less knowledge and thus a less explicit faith.  By the same token, simple believers who have been misled by heretics should not be blamed for this as long as they do not hold to the false teachings obstinately.

Is faith in Christ necessary for salvation (art. 7)?  Yes, but in different ways according to the diverse circumstances that human beings find themselves in.  After the sin of the first parents, all who made sacrifices, both before and after the Law, foreshadowing Christ's sacrifice knew implicitly or explicitly that the anointed one of God would come to save us from our sins.  As St. Thomas puts it in ad 3:  "If any were saved without receiving any revelation, they were not saved without faith in a Mediator.  For even though they did not have explicit faith in him, they nonetheless had implicit faith in divine providence, believing that God would deliver mankind in whatever way pleased him, and that he would have revealed the truth to some."

Something similar holds for the doctrine of the Trinity (art. 8), since it is presupposed by the doctrine of the Incarnation:  "Thus just as before Christ the mystery of Christ was believed explicitly by the learned, but implicitly and under a veil, so to speak, by the simple, so too it was with the mystery of the Trinity."  In the age of grace, however, faith in the Trinity is required.

Later on--and especially in the missionary fervor of the 15th and 16th centuries, these claims of St. Thomas would be carefully reexamined.  The two relevant doctrines are salvation through Christ alone and God's universal salvific will.  St. Thomas seems to leave room for a kind of implicit faith on the part of non-believers who are simple and believe in God's sovereignty.  (See also 10,4 ad 3 below.) But the issue is murky.

2,9-10:  These articles ask about the meritoriousness of faith, and they are absolutely essential for our understanding of the affective element involved in the act of faith.

The objections in article 9 ("Is the act of faith meritorious?") are interesting and, in fact, St. Thomas spends the bulk of the article replying to them.  I'll get to them in a moment.  The thing to be clear about is that the act of faith is voluntary, proceeding from free choice:  "Every human act that is subject to free choice is, if referred to God, capable of being meritorious.  But to have faith is itself an act of intellect assenting to divine truth at the command of the will, which is moved by God through grace.  And so it is subject to free choice as referred to God.  Hence, the act of faith is capable of being meritorious."

The first objection is that charity, which is our participation in the very life and happiness of the Holy Trinity, is the principle of merit; but the act of faith--at least the very first one--precedes the infusion of the virtue of charity and so cannot itself be meritorious.  (Note that not every morally upright free act is meritorious.  We merit only because of God's gratuitous initiative in transforming us by grace into his children, members of his divine family.)  St. Thomas's reply is that the act of faith is like a material disposition that precedes the last form induced by an efficient cause.  In the present case, faith is a disposition effected by God that prepares us for his intended effect, viz., charity.  It is true that the subject of a form cannot act in the power of that form before it has the form, and to this extent the objection is on the mark.  However, once charity has been effected in the soul by God, then an act of faith can be meritorious.

The second objection is that because acts of knowing scientifically (scire) and acts of adopting opinions (opinare) are not meritorious, acts of faith--which fall in between these two--are not meritorious, either.  St. Thomas agrees that since the assent of knowing scientifically is not voluntary, it is not itself meritorious.  Nonetheless, it can be meritorious to will the actual consideration of something that is known, since it is within our power to will or not to will to give our consideration to a particular object.  Opinions by definition do not involve firm assent and hence do not proceed from a "perfect" will.  Thus, such assent does not seem to have much by way of merit, even though, once again, the actual consideration of objects of opinion can be meritorious if done for love of God.

The third objection goes like this:  When one assents with faith to some object, he does this either in the presence of some cause that is sufficient to induce his assent or he does it without such a cause; if with a sufficient cause, then the act is not meritorious because it is not free; if without a sufficient cause, then the act does not seem to be meritorious, either--presumably, because in such a case the act is foolish.  St. Thomas replies that one who assents by faith has sufficient (in the sense of 'enough of a') reason, since he is induced to make the act by "the authority of divine doctrine confirmed by miracles."  Yet this cause is not sufficient for scientific knowledge (scientia), because it does not make the object of the assent evident in the way a demonstration does.

Article 10 goes into this last point a bit more deeply.  Shouldn't it be the case that the stronger the arguments adduced for the doctrines of the faith, the less meritorious the act of faith itself is?  St. Thomas begins by saying, "The act of faith can be meritorious insofar as it is subject to the will not only with respect to the use but also with respect to the assent."  This is a reiteration of the conclusion of article 9.  Unlike the case of scientia, where 'the use' of the intellect, i.e. consideration of the conclusions, is subject to free choice but the intellect's assent to those conclusions is not, with the act of faith both the 'use', i.e., the consideration of the articles of the faith and the assent are subject to free choice.

He then explains that there are two ways in which human reasons adduced in favor of the faith are related to the will:

 In the first or antecedent way, someone would not will to believe at all--or at least would not will to believe with promptitude--unless he were induced by human reasons.  This does indeed diminish the meritoriousness of the act of faith, just as an antecedent passion diminishes the praiseworthiness of a virtuous act.  "For just as a man ought to exercise the acts of the moral virtues because of the judgment of reason and not out of passion, so too a man should believe what pertains to faith not because of human reasons but because of God's authority."  (Note, though, ad 1, where St. Thomas makes clear that one's readiness to believe on God's authority would add merit even if one had a demonstrative proof of the preambles.  For in such a case one would promptly believe even in the absence of the proof.) 

However, in the second way, human reasons are consequent to the willing to believe.  For instance, when someone has a prompt will to believe, he loves the truth he believes and thinks about it and asks whether there are human, as well as divine, reasons to believe it.  Here human reasons not only do not diminish merit but even add to it.

3,1: Here we are concerned with the outward confession (or profession) of the Faith, say, through the recitation of one or another creed.  Is it an act of faith?  One objection here is that the confession of the Faith is an act of fortitude rather than of faith, while another is that the interior act of faith leads to many actions that are not acts of faith.

In reply St. Thomas first invokes a general principle concerning the relation between a virtue and its proper exterior acts:  "The exterior acts of a virtue are, properly speaking, the acts which by their species are directed to the ends of that virtue.  For instance, fasting is by its species directed to the end of abstinence ..... and so it is an act of abstinence."  So, too, the exterior confession of the articles of the faith is by its species directed to the end of the virtue of faith and so is an act of faith, properly speaking.

In ad 1 St. Thomas points out that fortitude may be a per accidens (rather than per se) cause of a confession of faith in virtue of removing an obstacle such as fear or embarrassment.  And in ad 2 he points out that faith, mediated by a supernatural act of love, is a cause of the acts of other virtues by commanding them rather than, as in the case of its own proper acts, by eliciting them directly and without mediation.

3,2:  Is the exterior confession of the faith necessary for salvation?  St. Thomas begins by noting that those things necessary for salvation fall under the precepts of divine law, and that confession of faith, as something positive, must fall under an affirmative precept.  An affirmative precept is such that even though it always obliges, it does not oblige for every time.  That is, while it is always true that one must confess the faith, it is not the case that one must be confessing it at every moment.  Instead, the command is that one must confess at appropriate times and places and in due circumstances.  But given the precept, there will be times and places and circumstances in which it would detract from God's honor or from the benefit one owes to others not to confess the Faith openly.  It is in this sense that confession of the Faith is necessary for salvation.

In ad 2 St. Thomas acknowledges the distinction between those who are charged with teaching the Faith and refuting errors and those who are not so charged.  Nonetheless, under certain conditions everyone will have an obligation to confess the Faith openly.  Still, in ad 3 St. Thomas acknowledges that there might be circumstances in which a public confession of Faith would upset nonbelievers without benefiting either believers or the Faith itself.  And in such circumstances it would not be praiseworthy to give a public confession of Faith.  On the other hand, there will also be circumstances in which a profession of Faith is called for even if it perturbs nonbelievers.
 
 

Question 4: The very virtue of faith

4,1:   Having discussed the interior and exterior acts of faith, St. Thomas now addresses certain issues concerning the habit or virtue of faith.  First, in answer to the question, "What is [the virtue] of faith?", he glosses St. Paul's statement that faith is "the substance of things hoped for, the evidence (argumentum) of things that are not apparent."  What he aims to do is to transform this statement into a proper definition of faith.  This work has already been done in effect in Question 2, since one defines a virtue by its proper act. 

As we have already seen, the proper act of faith is an act of the intellect that is determined to its object by the command of the will.  So the act of faith is ordered both (a) to the object of the will, which is the good, and (b) to the object of the intellect, which is the true.  Each of the theological virtues has God for its end and its object. 

The object of the act of faith is the First Truth insofar as it is not seen, i.e., not evident, and those things that are adhered to because of the First Truth.  So the First Truth is related to the act of faith in the manner of an end that is unseen.  Consequently, this end is hoped for ("the substance of things hoped for").  And it is in this way that the First Truth is the object of the will, i.e., as an end qualified in a certain way by the fact that the relevant act of will is hope, i.e., the desire for what is not yet possessed.

On the other hand, the relation of the object of the act of faith to the object of the intellect is that it is an "argument" (argumentum) of things that are not evident.  For an argument is something that induces the intellect to adhere to some truth.  In this case, it is the authority of God which prompts the intellect of the believer to adhere to things that it does not see clearly.

St. Thomas sums up his discussion by proposing the following formal definition:  "Faith is a habit of the mind by which eternal life begins in us and which makes the intellect assent to things that are not evident."  As noted above, it is distinguished from dubitatio, suspicio, and opinio by the fact that it involves firm assent, whereas it is distinguished from intellectus and scientia by the fact that this firm assent is not to something seen clearly.

4,2:  This article focuses on the proper immediate ontological subject of faith, and helps us to better understand the interplay between the cognitive and affective dimensions of the act of faith.

Even though faith involves will and volition, as we have seen, it is properly an intellectual virtue having the true as its object, and hence it has the intellect as its immediate subject.  Still, because the assent of the intellect is prompted by the command of the will, both principles need to be well-disposed in order for the act of faith to be perfect.  Note St. Thomas's example of the act of sawing a piece of wood--both principles, the saw and the one who uses it, need to be well-disposed in order for the act to be 'perfect'.  Also note the analogy he draws between reason and the passions, on the one hand, and the will and the intellect, on the other.  Just as both the passions and reason need to be habituated in their own right (prudence is the relevant virtue in the case of reason) in order for, say, an act of courage to be perfect, so too, it is not enough just for our intellective appetite to desire and command an act of faith; our intellect must be well disposed--that is, open to receiving God's word--as well.  This good disposition is the habit of faith itself.

This is a common enough phenomenon with regard to all acts of faith in general.  There is often something we sincerely want to take on someone's word but find it difficult to because of various "intellectual" obstacles or objections.  We want to avoid gullibility, but by the same token, we want to avoid a pathological mistrust in the word and character of others.  Recall Augustine's intellectual difficulties with the Catholic Faith.  Part of his intellectual problem had to do with disordered affections (for instance, his initial disdain for Sacred Scripture), but part of it was his genuine inability to see the possible truth of certain doctrines.

In any case, the object of the act of faith is the First-truth-qua-hidden and so faith is a properly intellectual virtue, even though it intimately involves affective considerations.  Those considerations come to the fore in the next article.

4,3: Charity is the 'form' of faith in the sense of prompting and providing motivation for the exercise of the virtue of faith.  As with every other action, the act of faith takes one species from its object and one from its end or motive (see notes on ST 1-2, 18-21), and like every other action by one who has God's gift of habitual grace, the motive for acts of faith is the supernatural love of God, or charity.  "Therefore charity is called the form of faith in so far as the act of faith is perfected and formed by charity."

4,4:  The next question is about the relationship between faith formed by charity and faith not formed by charity, which is how the relevant habit exists in one who has, through sin, repudiated the filial relationship with God established by the gift of grace.  Is it the same virtue or habit that was once formed and is now unformed.  This is an important question for the life of the believer, since it describes one dimension of the condition of a believer who has turned his back on God through serious (mortal) sin.

At least at the beginning of the state of mortal sin, the sinner seems to have the very same disposition to acts of faith.  (This is especially clear in the case of one who repents of his sin almost immediately.)  St. Thomas accepts this datum of experience and holds that the very same infused habit which was previously formed can become unformed through sin.  In doing so, he rejects (a) the opinion that formed and unformed faith are distinct habits infused separately by God as appropriate to the believer's condition, and (b) the opinion that formed and unformed faith are distinct habits always present in the believer, the one operative only in the state of grace and the other operative only in the state of mortal sin.

Still, in article 5 St. Thomas makes clear that unformed faith does not count as a virtue, because by definition "a virtue is a kind of perfection."

4,5-7:  The next three articles concern faith's status as a virtue.  Formed faith is a virtue because it is a habit that is invariably the principle of a good act.  The habit of formed faith invariably gives rise to a good act, because through it the intellect is invariably and infallibly guided toward its object, the true, and the will affected by charity is invariably directed toward its authentic final end, union with God, and as such commands the assent of the intellect.

But just as the habit of a passion is, though moderate, not a virtue unless it is directed by prudence, so too unformed faith is not a virtue because it is not motivated by charity.

Furthermore, art. 6 tells us that faith is a single virtue despite the fact that (a) it is had by many different subjects with different degrees of intensity (for all virtues are like this) and that (b) its material object is differentiated into many articles (for its formal object, viz., assenting to something because God reveals it) is unified and the same in all subjects).

Here St. Thomas also makes the distinction between the virtue of faith on the one hand and the gifts of knowledge and understanding on the other.  First, as we learn in art. 8, the certitude of these two gifts of the Holy Spirit derives from the certitude of the faith which is their underlying principle.  Second, the object of faith includes both eternal and temporal matters, the latter insofar as they relate to something eternal.  On the other hand, the gift of knowledge is concerned specifically with temporal matters, since this gift is a disposition to respond quickly to the Holy Spirit's promptings to see particular temporal affairs from the perspective of faith, whereas the gift of understanding is a similar disposition to respond quickly to the Holy Spirit's promptings to discern eternal matters, and most especially what does and does not belong to the despotism of faith.

Art. 7 turns to the question of whether faith is "the first" of the virtues.  Questions of this form often give very interesting descriptions of the relations among the virtues.  The first thing to understand--and this is clear if one reads the treatise on virtue very carefully--is that from the perspective of faith the only virtues in an unqualified sense are the theological virtues and infused moral virtues.  This is because only these virtues order us properly toward our genuine final end of filial union with God.

With this in mind, it is easy to understand St. Thomas's claim that faith is properly speaking the first of the virtues.  For (a) the theological virtues are prior to the moral virtues in the sense that they relate us directly to our genuine ultimate end, the triune God, and (b) among the theological  virtues the intellectual apprehension of the triune God and his plan of salvation  logically precedes our love for him (charity) and our hope for full union with him.  (Note the claim that "natural cognition cannot attain to God as the object of that beatitude that [the virtues of] hope and charity tend toward.")

On the other hand, there are fixed acquired dispositions (virtues in the improper sense) that prepare the way for faith--e.g., humility, which overcomes the pride that can keep us from submitting ourselves to God's revelation, and courage, which overcomes the sorts of fear which might keep us from the assent of faith.

Notice, by the way, that in ad 5 St. Thomas distinguishes the disposition of will required for an initial act of faith from the disposition of the will (viz., charity) which informs that initial act of faith.

4,8:  The next article gives St. Thomas the opportunity to distinguish two different types of certitude.  In other places he characterizes this as a distinction between certitude of adherence and certitude of evidentness.

The first type derives from the cause of the cognition:  the more reliable the cause, the greater the certitude.  And here St. Thomas asserts unabashedly that because God is a more reliable source of truth than our natural cognitive faculties, the certitude of faith is greater than the certitude of the natural intellectual virtues of intellectus (understanding of evident first principles), scientia (grasp of conclusions evidently derived from evident principles), and sapientia (wisdom combining the other two).  The idea, articulated in ad 2, is this:  We all know what it is like to be in a position where it is better to trust the word of an expert than our own grasp of a particular matter.  That is, even though I might not be able to grasp fully the matter at hand, I can be more certain of the truth concerning that matter if I trust someone who knows.  In the matters of faith (especially as regards the mysteries of the faith, which in principle surpass our grasp by natural reason) I am always in this position in the present life.  As St. Thomas puts it in ad 2:  "A man of little science is more certain about what he hears on the authority of an expert in science than about what is apparent to him according to his own reason: and much more is a man certain about what he hears from God, Who cannot be deceived, than about what he sees with his own reason, which can be mistaken."

On the other hand, what faith does not give is the evidentness that is possible with respect to objects proportioned to our intellects.  This is why "cogitation" is not terminated by an act of faith, as it is with acts of intellectus and scientia.  (See above.)  Nonetheless, the light of faith is like the sun compared to the 60-watt light bulb of our cognitive faculties.  Hence, faith is more trustworthy than intellectus and scientia.  Of course, this does not preclude considerations, of the sort raised by Locke, about our ability to identify sources of cognition worthy of our trust and about the degree of assent we should give them.  It is clear, however, that on St. Thomas's view our degree of assent does, and should, in the case of faith exceed even our certitude about the created mediators used by God to convey his revelation.  (We are, after all, talking about the faith of the martyrs.)  More on this later in the course.

Question 5: Those who have faith

5,1:  Here St. Thomas asserts, with utter reasonable as I see it, that in their original states--i.e., in the state of justice before the decision for or against God made by angels and our first parents--they all had the virtue of faith, since (a) they were in a graced state and (b) they had not yet attained eternal beatitude.  So they were free to reject God.  As St. Thomas puts it in ad 3: "In the state of the original condition of men and angels there was no obscurity caused by either sin or punishment.  Still, there was a certain natural darkness in the intellect of men and angels, since every creature is darkness in comparison to the immensity of the divine light. This sort of darkness is enough for the nature of faith."  Still, their condition was better than ours, because God was more manifest to them than he is to us in our postlapsarian state.  As ad 1 puts it:  "The contemplation was of a higher nature than ours ..... [and] they were able to grasp clearly more elements of God's effects and mysteries than we are.  Hence, they did not have a faith by which an absent God is sought, in the way that he is sought by us.  For he was more present to them by the light of wisdom than he is to us--even though he was not as present as he is through the light of glory to the blessed in heaven."

5,2:  Even the demons have the habit identified with faith, though in them this habit is not a virtue.  For their wills are not directed to the good.  Instead, they are practically compelled to assent to the mysteries of the faith by the various evident signs of the trustworthiness of God's revelation, even though they are displeased by this.  However, St. Thomas makes clear that this habit is not a "gift of grace." This makes their faith differ even from the unformed faith of human beings, which is still the result of a certain "affection for the good."

5,3: The next article is interesting, given the times we live in and also for the further light it sheds on the notion of the formal object of faith.  It asks whether a heretic who rejects one article of the faith can have unformed faith with regard to other articles.  To put it tersely, St. Thomas's answer is no.  His argument is a simple and, to my mind, effective one.  The formal object of faith is the First Truth "as manifested in Sacred Scripture and the teaching of the Church," so that in the act of faith one is assenting to whatever is so manifested "as an infallible rule."  So one who rejects a given doctrine is no longer adhering to the formal object of faith as an infallible rule.  Rather, as St. Thomas puts it, "he is adhering to his own will" instead.  At best, then, such a person is of the opinion that certain other doctrines are true.  But this is not faith, not even unformed faith, because it lacks the fundamental stance of faith, which is to assent to whatever it is that God has revealed.

5,4:  In the last article of this question, St. Thomas discusses both the quantitative and qualitative extent of faith. 

As for the quantitative extent of faith, there are two points.  Since every believer has the same formal object of faith--viz., assenting to revealed propositions because they have been revealed by God and manifested in Sacred Scripture and the teachings of the Church--all believers share the same faith.  However, some have a more explicit, sophisticated, or profound grasp of some doctrines, and so in this respect there can be differences among believers.

Now for the qualitative extent, or intensity, of faith.  In his treatment of virtue in general, St. Thomas noted that one person or subject may participate in a given virtue to a greater degree than another.  Likewise, here he notes that in the case of faith such participation has two elements, one intellectual (i.e., one person might hold to revealed doctrine with greater "certitude and firmness") and the other affective (i.e., believers differ from one another in the degree to which they are devoted to God as he reveals himself, or are prompt in affirming or witnessing to revealed truth, or place their trusting in God as a truth-teller).

Question 6: The cause of faith

6,1: In the treatise on virtue St. Thomas lists acquisition through action and infusion as the two principal causes of virtue and claims that the virtues infused in us by God (viz., the theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity and the infused moral virtues) are the only genuine virtues in an absolute sense, since they alone order us toward true human fulfillment.

In this article he provides a few more details about the causes of faith.  First of all, we must be informed of what it is that God wants us to assent to by faith.  This can happen either immediately by a direct revelation or (much more commonly) through the mediation of teachers and preachers of the faith, but in both cases God is the principal cause.

Second, we must assent to that which is revealed, and this requires internal principles.  St. Thomas rejects the heresy of the Pelagians, according to which human free choice is the sole cause of our initial interior preparation for faith, so that all we need from God is to be informed of what specifically we are to assent to.  Rather, St. Thomas asserts that God is the principal cause even of our preparedness to assent, since in the assent of faith we are elevated "beyond our nature."  "And so as regards the assent, which is the principal act of faith, faith is from God moving us interiorly by grace"--though, as he notes in ad 3, this is a movement of our will and so it is consonant with free choice.  (Here we broach the mystery of grace and freedom, about which much ink has been spilled in the history of Christian theology.)

6,2: Furthermore, even unformed faith is a gift from God, although it lacks charity.  For unformed faith, as we saw above, is an intellectual habit by which we assent to God's revelation, despite the fact that we lack, at least for the time being, the love of God which should move us to the act of faith.

Question 7: The effects of faith

7,1: St. Thomas discusses two effects of faith, each of which pertains to the affections. 

In art. 1 he contends that fear--both servile fear of punishment from God and, more importantly, filial fear of offending or equating ourselves with or being separated from God--are effects of faith, since faith makes us aware of God both as our judge and as our loving Father.  It is faith prescinding from charity that causes servile fear and faith with charity that causes filial fear.

7,2: Article 2 deals with the "purification of the heart" that is induced by the virtue of faith.  That is, faith has the affective effect of initially turning our hearts to God as our chief good and away from regarding any finite good or set of goods as our chief good.  This movement is perfected by charity.

In reply to the objection (obj. 2) that faith without charity cannot purify our hearts, St. Thomas has this to say:  "Even lifeless faith excludes a certain impurity which is contrary to it, viz. that of error, and which consists in the human intellect, adhering inordinately to things below itself, through wishing to measure Divine things by the rule of sensible objects. But when it is quickened by charity, then it is incompatible with any kind of impurity, because 'charity covereth all sins' (Prov. 10:12)." 

Question 8: The gift of understanding

8,1: St. Thomas now takes up the two gifts of the Holy Spirit connected with faith, understanding (intellectus) in q. 8 and knowledge (scientia) in q. 9.  The gifts of the Holy Spirit lie at the heart of St. Thomas's moral theory.  The infused virtues, he explains, are not as firmly rooted in us as are the acquired virtues, and for this reason we need further dispositions that move us to the acts of the infused virtues, just as the passions need new intrinsic dispositions to listen to reason.  In this case, the promptings in question come not from reason but from the Holy Spirit (either directly or indirectly) and the gifts dispose us to respond quickly to those promptings.  The gifts are distinguished from one another by the objects of these promptings.

As for understanding, we must first distinguish natural understanding (intellectus) from the supernatural gift of understanding, even though there is a root meaning in common, viz., the grasp of principles and, more broadly, the sort of simple (i.e., non-discursive) intellectual insight that allows us to penetrate below the surface of substances, spoken and written words, causes and effects, and "likenesses and figures." The natural light of reason is a limited power capable of penetrating just so far--not far enough for us to see clearly our ultimate end and the means to attain it.  Consequently, we need an added power of insight that brings our natural power to fulfillment.  This is the gift of understanding. 

In ad 2 St. Thomas makes this more explicit:  "Discursive reasoning always begins from understanding and terminates in understanding.  For we reason by proceeding from things that are understood, and discursive reasoning is completed when we arrive at an understanding of what we were previously ignorant of.  Thus, what we reason to discursively proceeds from something previously understood.  But the gift of grace does not proceed from the natural light of reason; rather, it is added to that light and, as it were, perfects it.  This addition is called 'understanding' rather than reason, because the added light is related to what is supernaturally known in the way that the natural light is related to those things that we know as first principles."

8,2: Further, the gift of understanding is compatible with faith, even though the notion of understanding implies insight and comprehension, whereas faith implies that what is assented to is in some sense not comprehended. 

St. Thomas draws two distinctions.  The first is between the central mysteries of the faith (e.g., the Trinity and the Incarnation) and other revealed truths that are subordinate to them (including the preambles of the faith).  The second distinction is between perfect and imperfect understanding.  The former gives us direct insight into what is understood in such a way that we can be said to see (intellectually) the essence of a thing or the truth of a proposition, whereas the latter gives us only an assurance that what is understood is true and not incompatible with external appearances, even though  we do not see exactly what it is or how it is true or how it coheres with external appearances.  (There are lots of everyday examples of this sort of thing, many having to do with interpersonal relationships.)

St. Thomas agrees with the objectors that we cannot have perfect understanding of the central mysteries of the faith, though we can have such understanding in principle of some truths subordinate to them (the preambles of the faith).  On the other hand, we can have imperfect understanding of them; that is, we can understand that we should not back away from them just because we do not see how they cohere with external appearances.  And it is clear that this sort of imperfect understanding is compatible with the epistemic limitations involved in faith.

8,3: In the next article, St. Thomas argues that the gift of understanding is not just theoretical or speculative but also practical, at least in the sense that the theoretical truths which are its primary object provide the stable framework within which we live our lives and carry out our good works, since our works are ordered to the end of union with God and regulated by the eternal law, which guides us toward that end.  But our knowledge of our final end and of the eternal law is theoretical knowledge that provides a framework within which practical reason operates.

8,4:  St. Thomas next claims that the gift of understanding is had by everyone in the state of grace.  For to be in the state of grace is, first and foremost, to have charity, i.e., supernatural rectitude of will.  But some understanding of the truth about God and salvation is necessary in order for us love God and seek our salvation.  However, St. Thomas makes clear that this level of understanding, which is common to all in the state of grace, does not mean that every such person understands fully (plene) the mysteries of the faith.  Well, just what do they understand beyond those things that are absolutely necessary for salvation?  In ad 2 St. Thomas replies as follows:  "Even though not all who have faith understand fully the things that are proposed for belief, they nonetheless do understand that these things ought to be believed and ought not to be deviated from for the sake of anything."

8,5:  Conversely, and this is again important for grasping the interplay of affective and cognitive elements in faith, no one who is not in the state of grace has the gift of understanding.  As the objections point out, this seems contrary to appearances.  First of all, there are those who seem to have a relatively deep understanding of the deposit of faith and yet lack the will to follow it.  Again, in the Gospels we hear of people who have prophesied in Christ's name (which, presumably, takes understanding), but whom the Lord will disown on the day of judgment.  More generally, we have already seen that it is possible to have the habit of faith without habitual grace (unformed faith).  So why hold that the gift of understanding is had only by those in the state of grace?

St. Thomas first recalls the nature of a gift of the Holy Spirit.  It is a disposition to respond expeditiously to the promptings of the Holy Spirit.  Thus, understanding is an intellectual disposition to respond to the Holy Spirit's giving us intellectual illumination that makes us see more clearly what it is that we believe and ought to believe by faith.  But our response itself presupposes a due orientation to our ultimate end:  "Therefore, unless it is moved by the Holy Spirit to have a correct conception of the end, the human intellect has not yet obtained the gift of understanding, regardless of how much it knows by the Holy Spirit's illumination about other truths that are preambles to the faith." But this due orientation to our ultimate end consists in (a) not being in error about it and (b) "adhering firmly to it as the greatest good," and this is possible only for one who has habitual grace.

8,6:  St. Thomas next explains the difference between the gift of understanding and the six other gifts (to wit, knowledge, wisdom, counsel, piety, fortitude, and fear of the Lord).

First of all, understanding is a gift of the cognitive faculty and thereby differs from piety, fortitude, and fear of the Lord, which are gifts of the appetitive faculty. 

But the distinction among the gifts of the cognitive faculty, viz., understanding, knowledge, wisdom, and counsel, is "not so clear."  After rejecting one way of drawing the distinction, St. Thomas has this to say:

"'Faith is through hearing' (Rm. 10:17).  Hence, it is necessary for some things to be proposed to man for belief not as seen, but as heard, and to these he assents by faith.  Now faith is primarily and principally related to the First Truth, secondarily related to certain considerations concerning creatures, and extends beyond that to directing human actions as well, in so far as it works through love--as is clear from what was said above (4, 2, ad 3).  Therefore, two things are required on our part with respect to things proposed to faith for belief.  The first is that the intellect penetrate or grasp the objects of belief (both theoretical and practical), and this pertains to the gift of understanding.  The second is that man must have correct judgment concerning them, so that he might determine that he should adhere to these and withdraw from their opposites. With respect to divine things, this sort of judgment pertains to the gift of wisdom; with respect to created things, it pertains to the gift of knowledge; and with respect to its application to individual actions, it pertains to the gift of counsel."

So understanding has to do with the grasp of the doctrines of the faith, whereas the other with making good judgments about (a) the central mysteries of the faith (wisdom), created things (knowledge), and particular actions (counsel). 

8,7:  Here St. Thomas makes the connection between the gift of understanding and the beatitudes.  More specifically, understanding is connected to the sixth beatitude, "Blessed are the clean of heart, for they shall see God." (This fits in with St. Thomas's discussions of the gifts and the beatitudes in the treatise on virtue.)

The reason for this connection should be fairly clear by now.  Cleanness, as obj. 1 avers, is indeed in one way a trait of the appetite, and as such it disposes one toward seeing God.  This sort of cleanness results from the virtues and gifts of the appetitive power.  In a second sense, however, cleanness is a trait of the intellect insofar as it is purged of error and false imaginations and open to grasping the truth and rejecting heretical falsehood.  This is the cleanness that results from the gift of understanding.  In the next life, the gift of understanding finds its perfection in the face-to-face vision of God, whereas in this life it helps us to grasp that the more perfectly we know God in our present state, the more we realize that he surpasses all that our mind comprehends.

8,8:  Lastly, we turn to the relation between the gift of understanding and the fruits of the Holy Spirit, specifically, the fruits of faith and, ultimately, joy.  In the context of the fruits, the fruit of faith is the certitude of faith, which perfects the intellect.  This, in turn, engenders joy, which brings the appetitive power or will to completion.

Note the reply to obj. 2, which clarifies the nature of understanding.  The objection was that faith precedes understanding and hence cannot be its fruit:  "Faith cannot altogether precede understanding.  For a man could not assent to things proposed for belief unless he understood them in some way or other.  However, the perfection of understanding follows upon the faith that is a virtue,  virtue of faith: which perfection of understanding is itself followed by a kind of certainty of faith."
 

Question 9: The gift of knowledge

9,1: St. Thomas first reiterates the distinction between grasping or understanding a proposition, on the one hand, and making a sure judgment about it on the other.  The gift of understanding has to do with grasping the mysteries of the faith, whereas the gift of knowledge helps us to make good judgments about them in such a way that we "discern what is to be believed from what is not to be believed."

Further, in ad 1 we learn that the gift of knowledge gives us a share in God's own simple and non-discursive knowledge of created things.  And in reply (ad 2) to the objection that many holy people seem to be unlearned in matters of faith, he gives the following interesting reply that helps us to distinguish the gift of knowledge, strictly speaking, from the sort of knowledge of the faith that faithful intellectual inquirers have:

"There are two types of knowledge that can be had concerning the things to be believed.  The first is a knowledge by which a man knows what he ought to believe, distinguishing what is to be believed from what is not to be believed.  Knowledge in this sense is a gift [of the Holy Spirit], and it belongs to all holy persons. The other is a knowledge concerning matters of belief by which a man not only knows what he ought to believe, but also knows how to explain the faith, induce others to believe it, and refute objectors. Knowledge in this sense is numbered among the graces given to the already graced (gratiae gratis datae), which are given not to all, but [only] to some.  Hence Augustine, after the words quoted [in the objection], adds:  'It is one thing for a man merely to know what he ought to believe, and another to know how to dispense what he believes to the godly, and to defend it against the ungodly'."

9,2-4: The next three articles revisit the specific subject matter of the gift of knowledge (see 8,6 above). From what St. Thomas says, it seems that the gift of knowledge has created things as its subject in the sense that by it we are prompted to assess created things correctly and order them to God instead of putting them before God in some way:  "they alone have the gift of knowledge, who judge correctly about matters of faith and action, through the grace bestowed on them, so as never to wander from the straight path of justice. This is the knowledge of holy things, according to Wis. 10:10:  'She conducted the just . . . through the right ways . . . and gave him the knowledge of holy things'" (art. 3, ad 3).

The upshot, as I understand it, is that the gift of knowledge gives one the sort of theoretical perception of created things which enters directly into practical reasoning (art. 3), making us sorrowful about our past sins and consoled by the correct ordering of created goods to God (art. 4).  This is why it corresponds to the third beatitude, "Blessed are they who mourn, for they shall be consoled."  Further, knowledge in this sense consists, at least in part, of intimations of God's presence in and superiority to created goods.  So by this knowledge we are led to God as the highest good and the fulfillment of what we seek in all created goods.
 

Question 10: Unbelief in general

10,1:  The first question is whether unbelief is a sin, and St. Thomas begins his answer by making an important distinction.  There are two senses of unbelief.  The first is simple non-belief, so that someone is called an unbeliever simply because he is not a believer.  So, for instance, someone who has never heard the Gospel (or has heard it but under circumstances that excuse his not accepting it) is an unbeliever in this sense, i.e., a simple non-believer.  In the second sense, unbelief involves not just non-belief, but, in addition, an active refusal to listen to the faith, or dissent from the faith once heard, or even contempt of the faith.  It is only in this second sense, which we might call active unbelief, that unbelief is a sin punishable in itself.

In simple non-believers unbelief is a punishment for original sin rather than a punishable sin in itself.  In other words, if simple non-believers are damned, they are damned because of sins other than active unbelief.

As for the origins of active unbelief, St. Thomas identifies pride, "through which it happens that a man is unwilling to subject his intellect to the rules of faith and to the sound understanding of the Fathers."

10,2: What's more, even though every sin is voluntary and thus involves an act of will, the immediate subject of the sin of active unbelief is the intellect, which actively dissents from the faith under some aspect or other.  Thus, just as the intellect is the immediate or proximate subject of the assent that constitutes the act of faith, so too the intellect is the immediate subject of the act of dissent from the faith that constitutes the sin of active unbelief.  For this dissent is an act of the intellect, even though it is moved by the will.  This is similar to the way in which, say, an act of gluttony has the concupiscible appetite as its immediate subject, even though it is moved by the will.  (The theory of action that underlies this view is carefully worked out in the treatises on action and passion in ST 1-2.)

10,3:  The argument for the claim that active unbelief is the greatest of sins is that faith is necessary for our having the correct orientation to our final end.  St. Thomas accepts this argument in part.  On his view, carefully laid out in the treatise on sin and vice in ST 1-2, every sin involves both (a) a turning away (aversio) from God, which constitutes the formal character of a sin, and (b) a simultaneous turning toward (conversio) some created good in preference to God.  Active unbelief constitutes the maximal turning away and distancing oneself from God, since one who has a false conception of God "does not approach him but is instead distanced from him" and "cannot have any cognition of him at all, whence what he thinks about is not God."  Consequently, such a person cannot love God as he should.  So active unbelief is in itself or by its nature (or genus) the greatest of sins.

Still, circumstances might mitigate the degree of guilt incurred by this sin.  And, indeed, Augustine "hesitated to decide between an evil Catholic and a heretic who is not otherwise sinning, since, even though it is more grave by its genus, the heretic's sin can be mitigated by some circumstance--and, conversely, the Catholic's sin can be aggravated by some circumstance" (ad 1).  In ad 3 St. Thomas elaborates on this by pointing out that with respect to sins other than active unbelief, the Catholic, other things being equal, sins more grievously than an unbeliever because of the knowledge of the truth he has from faith (i.e., he should have known better) and because of the sacraments, which insults by sinning.

10:4:  Furthermore, it is not the case that an unbeliever's every act is sinful just because of his unbelief.  Here St. Thomas reiterates his claim, made in the treatise on sin in ST 1-2, that mortal sin (and original sin, for that matter) does not completely destroy "the good of [human] nature."  So even active unbelievers do not sin in everything they do, even though they do sin when they commit acts of unbelief.  Note, though, that St. Thomas takes for granted what he argued in the treatise on grace in ST 1-2, viz., that it is impossible to avoid mortal sin entirely without grace and, hence, without faith.

Here the reply to the 3rd objection is interesting, since St. Thomas takes the occasion to clarify the status of Cornelius (Acts 10) before his conversion.  Cornelius had been mention in the sed contra:  "It is said (Acts 10) that even when Cornelius was still an unbeliever, his works of mercy were accepted by God.  Therefore, not every action of an unbeliever is a sin."  St. Thomas comments that this consideration is beside the point, since Cornelius was not in fact an unbeliever before his baptism; otherwise his acts would not have been accepted by God (i.e., they would not have been meritorious).  "Rather, he had implicit faith when the truth of the Gospel had not yet been made clear to him."  Once again, the notion of implicit faith deserves more scrutiny.

10:5:  St. Thomas here divides active unbelief into various species.  One sort of active unbelief consists in rejecting the faith without ever having embraced it.  This is the unbelief of the "pagans and gentiles."  But what of someone who rejects the faith after having embraced it?  There are two cases here:  (a) Under the Old Law the Christian faith was prefigured, and so Israelites who rejected the faith thus prefigured were guilty of a species of unbelief; and (b) those who reject the faith after having explicitly embraced it in its fulness are guilty of that species of unbelief which is called heresy. 

There are some interesting points made in ad 1.  Once again we can consider the "formal object" of a sin to be either the good to which the sinner turns (conversio) or the good away from which the sinner turns (aversio).  It is the differences in the former that give us various species of sin under a given genus.  In the case of faith, the species can be considered either by looking at the various general ways in which the faith is rejected, and this is what was done in the previous paragraph, or by looking at the various false beliefs that unbelievers adopt in rejecting the faith--and in this case there is no determinate number of species of unbelief, since there are infinitely many possible false opinions and combinations thereof.

10,6:  As we might expect, St. Thomas holds that from the perspective of its relation to the faith, heresy is a more serious sin than the unbelief of the Chosen People, and their unbelief is a more serious sin than the unbelief of pagans and heathens.  That is, to reject the faith once accepted (either in its explicit or prefigured forms) is a worse sin, generically speaking, than to reject it without ever having accepted it in any way.  On the other hand, heathens and pagans are worse off, even if their sin is less grievous, because they are farther from the saving truth.

10,7-12:  From here St. Thomas goes on to examine various questions having to do with the relations between believers and non-believers (including, but not limited to, active unbelievers).  These questions are interesting and, in part, reflect the historical context in which St. Thomas writes.  However, our main interest in them has to do with what St. Thomas assumes or says about certain theoretical topics concerning (a) the modus vivendi of a missionary community (the Church) composed of both inquirers and non-inquirers and (b) the relations of that community to individual non-believers and communities of non-believers.  Remember that he has already divided unbelievers into (a) heathens and pagans (Muslims seem to count as heathens), (b) Jews, who fall into a separate category because of their status as the People of God under the Old Law, and (c) heretics and apostates, i.e., Christian who have departed in one way or another from the norm of faith.  Some of the things he says apply to all non-believers and others to just some of them.

In article 7 the relevant problem is whether believers ought to engage in disputes or exchanges with unbelievers.  The answer is that this depends on circumstances.  In particular, the main question is whether or not the Christians in the audience are "well-instructed and firm in the faith."  If so, public disputations are in general fine; if not, they are fine only if (a) the simple believers in the audience have a lot of exposure to non-believers and are often proselytized by them, (b) the believer-disputants "are equal to the task of confuting errors," and (c) if the latter remained silent, simple believers might well fall into error.  In all other circumstances such disputations can confuse and undermine the faith of simple believers and ought not to be engaged in.

Note right away that St. Thomas assumes that only a proper subset of believers are fit to be either participants in or hearers of such disputations without danger to their faith.  In essence, they are the children of the family of the Church.  His view is thus "paternalistic," i.e., it puts into the hands of the leaders (parents, as it were) the grave responsibility of safeguarding those who are unfit by temperament or training to participate in public debates or learn from them--either by keeping them away from such debates or by making sure that believers participating in the debates are worthy of the task.  We will later have the opportunity to contrast this approach with Mill's liberalism.

In article 8 St. Thomas agrees with the objectors that non-believers should not be compelled (i.e., coerced under threat of punishment) to accept the faith.  However, they can legitimately be compelled not to hinder the faith by blasphemy, false persuasions, or persecution.  (Of course, the context here presupposes that the political regime is openly Catholic; article 10 addresses the other possibility, though even here what St. Thomas says can be adapted to the question of what the Church should sponsor within its own purview.

As for heretics and apostates, St. Thomas has no problem with their being compelled them, even "corporeally," to fulfill their promises and hold to what they at one time accepted.  (Physical punishment would be carried out by the political power, and its justification would be preservation of the common good.  Though this sort of thing is repulsive to those of us who live in liberal democracies, it has its roots in the Socratic idea that care of souls is much more important than care of bodies.  The problem is to say what the reasonable limits of this care are.  In a sense, that is the issue that St. Thomas is addressing in these articles.)

Article 9 addresses the question of whether or not believers should "communicate with," i.e., share a common life with, non-believers.  Once again, when we are talking about those who have never received the faith, the Church does not forbid believers from communicating with non-believers, as though these non-believers were being punished by the Church with excommunication.  For the Church does not have the authority to exercise spiritual judgment over them.  Nonetheless, in certain circumstances the Church can legitimately forbid some believers--especially those who are less firm in the faith--to communicate, at least unnecessarily, with non-believers, and this in order to safeguard their faith.

Article 10 has to do with the legitimacy of non-believers exercising political or domestic authority over believers.  St. Thomas believes in general that it is not good for non-believers to exercise authority over believers.  Indeed, believers should resist the initial establishment of such a regime or domestic situation.  On the other hand, already established political or domestic regimes are not made illegitimate by the mere fact that non-believers exercise power over believers, even though the Church has the right, often not exercised out of prudence, to do away with the right of non-believers to exercise such power over believers.

As for the toleration of the rites of unbelievers, in art. 11 St. Thomas makes a distinction between the Jews, whose rites foreshadow the truth of the faith, and the rites of other unbelievers.  The rites of the Jews are to be tolerated because they bear witness to the faith in their own way, whereas the rites of other unbelievers should be not be tolerated except for the purpose of avoiding scandal or social unrest.

Finally, in art 12. St. Thomas argues that Jewish and heathen children ought not to be baptized against the will of their parents before they have reached the age of reason.  This is mainly a matter of natural justice, according to which children belong to their parents.

15,1: Blindness of the mind (caecitas mentis) is the privation of a principle of mental or intellectual sight.  There are three such principles, and each has a characteristic form of blindness associated with it:
 
• the light of natural reason.  This principle is the foundation for natural understanding (intellectus) and knowledge (scientia).  This light is part of our nature and hence it is never absent from the soul--though its operation can be impeded by defects in the lower powers that are needed for the proper functioning of the human intellect, as in the those who suffer from mental retardation or insanity.
 
• an habitual light added to natural reason--this is the light of grace (or the light of faith), and the privation of this habitual light is a punishment for either original or personal sin.
 
• a non-habitual intelligible principle through which a man understands other things and which he can either pay attention to or not pay attention to.  This inattention is sometimes spontaneously willed in its own right and is sometimes the byproduct of the passions, especially the concupiscible passions, which induce a man to turn toward other things that he loves more.  In both cases, this sort of blindness of mind is a sin.

15,2:  Dullness of sense (hebetudo sensus).  Just as dullness in sensory cognition connotes a certain lack of perceptual acuity in one or more of the corporeal senses, so too mental dullness of sense connotes a lack of the intellectual insight (intelligentia) by which one comprehends the nature of a thing, even with regard to the smallest details, upon apprehending its properties or even its effects.  So someone who is dull with respect to such insight needs many things explained to him and even then cannot penetrate through to everything that pertains to the nature of the thing in question.  So dullness of sense "connotes a certain weakness of mind in the consideration of spiritual goods," whereas blindness of mind connotes a complete absence of the cognition of such things.  "And both are opposed to the gift of understanding (intellectus), through which a man knows spiritual goods by apprehending them and subtly penetrates their inmost nature."  Insofar as such dullness is voluntary, it is a sin.

15,3: Both blindness of mind and dullness of sense arise paradigmatically from carnal sins such as lust and gluttony--which is a good reason for cultivating abstinence or restraint with respect to the desire for food and chastity with respect to sexual desire.  (This is one way to make sense of the old saying, "Masturbation will make you blind.")

16,1: St. Thomas first deals with the question of whether the Old Law should have contained explicit precepts concerning faith--at least over and beyond the First Commandment.  However, St. Thomas thinks that this was sufficient, since hidden mysteries of the faith were not explained to the people, and so no further precepts were appropriate.

16,2:  Here St. Thomas argues that it was fitting for the Old Law to contain precepts concerning understanding and knowledge.  He notes that knowledge and understanding can be considered in three ways:  

• in their acquisition, and here it was appropriate for there to be precepts commanding parents to teach their children about the covenant with God and precepts commanding the children to learn these things.
 
• in their use, and here there are precepts commanding the people to meditate on the law.
 
• in their preservation, and here there were precepts commanding the people to remember God's law and to have it constantly before their minds.

All of this applies all the more in the New Law.