Obrázky na stránke
PDF
ePub

tues. Thus the principal and immediate matter on which our faith is exercised is God and His divine attributes; the direct and immediate object of hope is the future possession of God in heaven; and the direct and immediate object of charity is God as the perfection of all that is good and amiable.

The theological virtues therefore relate immediately to God, inasmuch as they have God for their object; but they also relate immediately to God, inasmuch as they have God for their motive. Thus we believe the various truths of faith, because God, who is the sovereign truth, who can neither deceive nor be deceived, has revealed all these things to His Church. We hope to enjoy God hereafter in heaven, because He has promised to assist us in the performance of our duty towards Him in this life, and to reward our fidelity in His service by the eternal possession of Himself. We love God because, for His own infinite perfections, He is most worthy of our love.

But if it be necessary that the theological virtues should have God for their object and God for their motive, how is it that we believe what may be called the secondary truths of faith, e. g. those relating to the Church, to purgatory, to saints and angels? or how is it that we hope for grace, or even temporal blessings? or how, again, is it that we love our neighbour as ourselves? The observation of St. Thomas in reference to charity will apply to the other theological virtues. He tells us the habit of charity extends not only to the love of God, but also to the love of our neighbour; and that the act by which we love our neighbour for God's sake is of the same nature as the act by which we love God. To love our neighbour for God's sake necessarily includes an act of the love of God in Himself. A fond mother loves the nurse who is attentive and kind to her child; but because she loves the nurse for the sake of her child, her love belongs rather to the child than to the nurse. So is it with the exercise of the theological virtues. If we believe certain truths because God has revealed them, by that same act we necessarily believe in God; if we hope from the goodness and promises of God for the means and helps which are necessary for us to

work out our salvation, we thereby hope for the future possession and enjoyment of God Himself; and if we love any thing for God's sake, by the very same act we love God.

CHAP. II. Faith, its Nature and Qualities.

FAITH is to believe without doubting whatever God teaches. There are many grounds on which our various opinions and judgments rest. Some truths, for instance, are self-evident, and for this reason cannot be doubted; others are deduced from such as are self-evident, or well known by way of inference or demonstration; other things we know because we were present when they happened, or have seen them; and, in fine, there are things which we do not know of ourselves, but which we believe on trustworthy testimony. If, then, we believe such things on the testimony of men, it is human or historical faith; if we believe on the Revelation, or the Word of God, it is divine faith, or faith in its theological sense. Faith, then, is a firm adherence to the doctrine which God has revealed, or it is believing on His testimony. By faith we honour God in a twofold way, viz. (1) by acknowledging Him as the infinitely perfect Being made known to us by revelation ; and (2) by believing on His veracity, or sovereign truth.

Such being the nature of faith, it will necessarily possess two qualities;—it will be firm and entire.

1. As the sovereign truth of God, which is pledged in support of revelation, is the highest possible testimony which we can have, the adherence of our mind to the truth revealed by God should be firm and unwavering.

2. Our faith must also be entire; that is, it must include all the truths which have been revealed. If we doubt or deny any single truth which we know has been revealed by God, we virtually call in question the divine veracity, and so destroy the foundation on which all faith rests. Here the question will naturally occur, How is the faith of the poor ignorant Catholic as entire as that of a priest who is learned in theology? In reply, we must explain that there are two ways in which we believe the

truths of revelation, viz. (1) we may have a distinct knowledge of each separate article, and give an explicit assent to each distinct doctrine; or (2) we may believe a number of doctrines in the mass as implied or contained in some general truth of revelation. Thus the theologian will know and believe each separate article, while the illiterate Catholic is instructed in a few fundamental and practical points, and accepts the rest as included in the general belief of all which the Church teaches. The former is called explicit, and the latter implicit faith.

It may also be asked whether the truths of faith rest on the authority of the Church. The Church is the divinely appointed guardian and interpreter of the deposit - of revealed truth, and the ordinary channel by which we ascertain the fact of what truths have been revealed, but our faith is grounded on the authority of God as the author of revelation. To understand the office of the Church as the witness to the fact of revelation, take the following illustration: I want to know whether a document which I possess is drawn up with all the legal formalities required by the laws of my country; I accordingly send it by the hands of a friend, on whose intelligence and honour I can thoroughly rely, to an eminent lawyer, and receive a verbal reply. In this case, my friend simply makes known to me the opinion of the lawyer; but the importance which I attach to that opinion rests not on the testimony of my friend, but on the learning and knowledge of the lawyer. So is it with faith. The Church tells me what truths have been revealed, and then I accept them on the testimony of God. Thus she never makes a new article of faith, but, as occasions arise, she simply declares that such or such truths have been revealed by God from the beginning.

But how do we come to the possession of faith? Those who are properly and validly baptised receive, together with the character of Christians, the habit of faith, or a power or faculty which enables them, when they come to the use of reason, and are instructed in revealed truth, to elicit acts of faith. The habit of faith may be compared to conscience. In the same way as our conscience tells us

that certain things are right and others wrong, however ill qualified we are to reason on the subject, and to convince others, so the habit of faith enables us clearly to see and firmly to hold the truths of religion. All who have been baptised receive the habit of faith; but if, after coming to the use of reason, they wilfully reject the truth, or cling to heresy, they forfeit the supernatural habit which was implanted at their baptism. Those who have never been baptised, or who have lost the habit of faith, arrive at the possession of faith in the following manner. By coming into contact with the Catholic religion, by examining the motives of credibility, or by the direct action of the illuminating grace of God on the soul, they see that it is their duty to accept the teaching of the Church as the revelation of God; and as grace is never wanting to those who are willing to make a good use of it, the Holy Spirit enables them to elicit corresponding acts of divine faith.

CHAP. III. The Necessity of Faith.

ST. PAUL tells us (Heb. xi. 6), without faith it is impossible to please God; and our Lord Himself, in the commission which He gave His Apostles to preach the Gospel, has clearly laid down the necessity of faith for salvation: "Go ye into the whole world and preach the Gospel to every creature. He that believeth, and is baptised, shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be condemned" (St. Mark xvi. 15, 16). The necessity of faith to salvation being clear, the question arises, How much faith is necessary? It is evident from the nature of faith that all the revealed truths of God must be believed with implicit faith. After our Lord had commissioned the Apostles to teach the whole world, to observe all things whatsoever He had commanded, He added, "And he that believeth not" (viz. all things which He had commanded) "shall be condemned." (Compare St. Matt. xxviii. and St. Mark xvi.) But if implicit faith in all revealed truth be necessary, it is equally clear that all are not required to have a distinct knowledge, and to make an explicit act of belief

in each separate truth. The three thousand converts who were added to the Church after St. Peter's first sermon could only have been instructed in a few general truths. Our inquiry therefore is, what amount of explicit faith is required in all who have come to the use of reason? or in other words, what are the articles of faith which all are obliged to know? Before answering this question, we must explain the difference between what we are bound to believe as a necessary condition to salvation, and what we are simply commanded to believe. When we say that any thing is a necessary condition to salvation, we mean that its absence, even though it be without any fault on our part, is sufficient to exclude us from heaven. Thus baptism, either in reality or desire, is a necessary condition to salvation, because if a child die without baptism, even when there has been no fault in the omission, that child cannot go to heaven. But when we say simply that we are commanded to do something in order to be saved, we mean that the obligation exists as soon as the precept is made known to us. If, however, a person, without any fault on his part, were to live and die in ignorance of such a command, he would not in any way be accountable for it.

The question, then, to be considered is twofold:

1. What articles of faith are all required to know, and to believe with explicit faith, as indispensable conditions of salvation?

2. What amount of religious knowledge are all commanded to possess?

In answer to the first part of the inquiry, St. Paul declares that all are required to believe in God, and a future state of rewards and punishments. "He that cometh to God must believe that He is, and is a rewarder to them that seek Him" (Heb. xi. 6). So much, then, is certainly required; and it is held by the greater number of theologians that we are also required, after the coming of our Lord, to believe as a necessary condition to salvation the mysteries of the Blessed Trinity, and of the incarnation and death of Christ.

2. All are commanded to know, in substance at least,

« PredošláPokračovať »