’

W·

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vation is preserved and communicated within this sacramental
shell. The liturgy of Easter night is the sacred act wherein Christ
the Highpriest, under visible signs, accomplishes in objective real­
ity the work for which He was sent, wherein the mysten· of the
new and eternal covenant is perfected, wherein God and mankind
are bound together in the one Mediator, Jesus Christ, King of
kings and Lord of lords.

(7'o be continued)
I’ijji.H- T, Weller

The Catholic University of America
Washington, D. C.

A New Decree
After Fr. Weller’s article, “Easter Eve,” was already in print, the
Sacred Congregation of Rites issued a new decree, dated Jan. 11, 1952,
extending for three years the faculty of celebrating the Easter vigil in
place of the ordinary Holy Saturday liturgy, and containing a number
of practical directives on this subject. Fr. Weller has been kind enough
to bring together a translation of the decree and explanations of the
various directions given in this new document but not in the previous
decree. This “Supplement” to the second part of Fr. Weller’s article
has been sent to the printer, and will be incorporated into the April
issue of The American Ecclesiastical Review.
I he April number will be in the hands of our subscribers early
enough to be of use to them if they plan to celebrate the Vigil according
to the prescriptions of the new decree.

J. C. F.

THE NEED OF KNOWLEDGE OF FAITH
That Catholics should have a knowledge of the faith—that is, of
the teachings of the Church—is axiomatic; but the subject with
which we are concerned in this article is the necessity of a knowl­
edge of faith itself, the theological virtue mentioned by St. 1’auh.
when he said: “So there abide faith, hope and charity, these three ,
but the greatest of these is charity.”1 It is an unquestionable fact
that the majority of Catholics are not sufficiently acquainted with
the nature of divine faith, its excellence and necessity, and par­
ticularly some of the practical problems connected with the exer­
cise and the manifestation of this virtue. This may be due to a
misapplication of the revealed doctrine that charity is the greatest
ofthe three theological virtues. It is possible that in centering their
attention on charity, many Catholics neglect to give to faith the
appreciation that it deserves. At any rate, it is vitally important
that they be instructed by their spiritual shepherds in the nature
of this virtue, in. its essential qualities and in the proper practice
of faith in daily life. There is no dearth of material for such in­
structions in the official pronouncements of the Church and in the
writings of Catholic theologians.
No more appropriate principle could serve as the starting-point
for an instruction on faith than the statement of the Council of
Trent in its Decree on Justification, that “faith is the beginning of
man’s salvation, the foundation and the root of all justification.
Actually, the primary purpose of this chapter of the Decree was
to condemn the Lutheran doctrine that man is justified by faith
alone—a doctrine which the Reformers endeavored to prove from
such scriptural texts as the assertion of St. Paul that justice comes
“through faith in Jesus Christ upon all who believe.”3 T he pur­
pose of this eighth chapter of the Decree was to explain that man
is said to be justified by faith in the sense that faith is the initial
step in the supernatural process toward the attainment of sanctify­
ing grace. This same doctrine was proclaimed in the ninth canon
approved at the same session : “If any one shall say that the sinner
is justified by faith alone ... let him be anathema.”4 However, the
pronouncement of the Council, though primarily intended to de­
clare what faith cannot do, furnishes a valuable statement of the
Π Cor 13:13.

DDR, 801.

» Rom. 3: 22.

195

4 DR, 819.

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THE AMERICAN ECCLESIASTICAL REVIEW

Catholic Church on the importance and the necessity of this virtue
as the foundation of man’s supernatural life, “without which it is
impossible to please God.”5
That the word “faith” is used in various senses in the New
Testament cannot be denied. Indeed, we can readily admit that the
idea of confidence is frequently connoted by this word, which is
employed about 240 times in the New Testament. But the interpre­
tation traditionally given by the Catholic Church of faith as belief
is surely predominant.6
In other words, faith as Catholics understand it, and as Christian
tradition proposes it, is a perfection of the intellect , a supernatural
gift of God, enabling man to believe as true the doctrines of divine
revelation, not because he perceives their truth through the light
of reason but solely because of the wisdom and the truthfulness .of
God who has revealed them. Such was the definition of faith pro­
posed by the Vatican Council—“the supernatural virtue by which,
through the inspiration and aid of God’s grace, we believe as true
the things revealed by Him, not on account of the intrinsic truth
of the subjects perceived by the natural light of reason, but on
account of the authority of God Himself revealing, who can neither
be deceived nor deceive.”7
That faith is essentially an intellectual perfection cannot be em­
phasized too strongly for Catholics of the present day, because
“faith” as generally proposed by non-Catholics is something that
pertains, at least in great measure, to the will or even to the sen­
sitive faculties. The view of Luther, that faith is nothing else than
personal trust in the sin-forgiving grace of God has been modified
in the course of time among the majority of Protestants to the extent of admitting a greater measure of intellectual activity in the
exercise of faith,8 yet in Protestant theology “faith” still includes
the fiduciary factor ascribed to it by the Reformers. Thus, we have
the statement of Theodore M. Greene of Princeton : “Faith mav
be defined as whole-hearted belief on the basis of evidence, but not
wholly conclusive evidence, and of interpretation which is reasonable, but which falls short of absolute proof. On this view, faith is
never wholly blind . . . nor is it ever completely enlightened.”9
•'Heb. 11:5.
6 Harent, S., “Foi,” DTC, 6, 75.
? DB, 1789.
$ Cf. Hastings’ Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics (New York, 1922 ),
5. 691 ff.
9 The Christian Answer (New York, 1945), p. 76.

THE NEED OF KNOWLEDGE OF FAITH

197

In other words, outside the Catholic Church the concept of faith
includes, to a greater or less degree, the notion of trust inspired
by religious feeling, an instinctive turning to God, even though this
attitude is not preceded by an adequate logical process of reason.
In view of the prevalence of such ideas among non-Catholics,
Catholics should realize that in discussing the subject of faith with
those not of their creed there may be confusion and ambiguity un­
less there is explicit understanding as to what is meant by faith.
Every Catholic capable of grasping the intellectual process involved
in the making of an act of faith should have a knowledge of this
process; and one need not be a trained theologian to possess a very
satisfactory understanding of this process and to perceive how
logical and reasonable an act of faith really is. In the making ol an
act of faith as the Catholic Church explains it, the opposite ex­
tremes of fideism and rationalism are avoided. On the one hand, the
preambles of faith and the motives of credibility (proofs from
reason and history that God exists, that He is all-wise and all
truthful, that He has spoken through Jesus Christ) give certain
proot that the Christian revelation is the message of God to all men.
The Church has emphatically condemned the opinion that mere
probability of the fact of revelation suffices for the intellectual
preparation for the act of faith.10 On the other hand, in eliciting
the act of faith the intellect does not base its assent on the motives
of credibility; the sole motive of faith is the authority of God re­
vealing. The judgment of credibility (“these doctrines are certainly
revealed”) and the judgment of credentity (“I am bound to be­
lieve these doctrines”) are intrinsically natural acts; the assent of
faith (“I believe these doctrines on the authority of God”) is es­
sentially supernatural. The transition from the former to the latter
is explained in different ways by theologians,11 but all explanations
show that no violence is done to human reason, no unreasonable
demand is made on man’s intelligence in the eliciting of an act
of faith. An act of the will is indeed necessary to command the
intellect to accept the truths of revelation, since they arc not intrin­
sically evident; yet this act of the will is not a blind, sentimental
urge or a religious sense based on the need of the divine, as the
Modernists conceive it.12 For this act of the will is itself guided
by the intellect proposing the acceptance of divine revelation on
™DB. 1171, 1622-27,

n Cf. DTC, art. cit., 6, 469-512.

^DB, 2074.

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account of God’s authority as a good. That a person may elicit an
act of faith, actual grace, aiding both the intellect and the will, is
absolutely necessary, for it is an intrinsically supernatural act.
However, the will is free to believe or not to believe, even after
the motives of credibility have been adequately proposed and
accepted ; hence, a person may refuse to make an act of faith even
though he has made the judgment of credibility. In the words of
Garrigou-Lagrange : “Some persons, like the pharisees, when the
preaching of the Gospel, confirmed by miracles, is proposed to them,
resist internal grace, and do not sincerely desire salvation. Hence,
on seeing the miracles, they can evidently judge of the credibility
of the preaching, and even know of their obligation to believe, and
yet through perversity be unwilling to believe.”13
However, though grace is necessary in order that a person may
elicit an act of faith, it would seem evident that anyone who ar­
rives at the judgment of credibility and the judgment of credentity
will receive sufficient grace to make an act of faith. For God will
not refuse a person the grace to perform an action which his con­
science tells him must be performed. This principle was enunciated
by Pope Pius IX in his Encyclical Qui pluribus of Nov. 9, 1846:
“Human reason, clearly and evidently recognizing by these most
firm and lucid arguments that God is the author of the faith, can
go no further, but, casting aside every difficulty and doubt must
give full assent to the faith, since it recognizes as certain that what­
ever the faith proposes to be believed and done by men has been
communicated by God.”14 The Sovereign Pontiff clearly implied
that the supernatural grace to make an act of faith is given to all
who arrive at the conviction that the Christian revelation is a divine
message and must be accepted, inasmuch as he stated that all who
come to this conviction must make the act of faith.
Not only is the Catholic meaning of “faith” different from that
given to it by most non-Catholics, but even in Catholic literature
and speech this word is accepted in various senses ; and Catholics
should be aw'are of this fact so that their concepts may be clear
when they speak or read about faith. Thus, preachers and ascetical
writers are inclined to include under the general term of “faith”
those virtues which are essential to a good Christian life. In other
13 Garrigou-Lagrange, De revelatione (Rome, 1932), p. 285.
^DB, 1639.

P ' H -

iiPiLii-

THE NEED OF KNOAVLEDGE OF FAITH

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words, by “faith” they sometimes mean a living faith. indeed in
some of the passages of the New Testament in winch ‘’faith” ap­
pears, it may be used in this sense.However, Catholics should
realize, and Catholic preachers should emphasize, that faith in the
proper sense is a speculative virtue, which can exist without char­
ity. Even this faith is a gift of God, as the Vatican Council as­
serted.16 At the same time, in order to exist in a perfect state, faith
must be joined with charity, so that it is a living or formed faith?1
To understand faith properly one must distinguish clearly be­
tween the act and the habit of this virtue. Both in Sacred Scripture
and the decisions of the Church the same word is used for both
aspects of faith, and one must sometimes examine the context in
. order to find out the particular sense intended. If the distinction
is not observed, one might conclude that there is a contradiction
in the Church’s teaching. Thus, while the Council of Trent taught
that “faith is the beginning of man’s salvation,”18 Pope Clement
XI condemned the teaching of Quesnel, that “faith is the first
grace, and the font of all other graces.”19 There was no contradic­
tion because Trent referred primarily to the act of faith, whereas
Quesnel was speaking of the habit of faith. In his condemnation of
the Jansenistic Synod of Pistoia, Pope Pius VI clearly pointed
out this erroneous interpretation of faith by denouncing the propo­
sition that “faith from which the series of graces begins, and
through which, as by the first voice we are called to salvation and
to the Church, is the excellent virtue by which men are called and
are the faithful,” stating that it was already condemned in the teach­
ings of Quesnel.20 The false conclusion which Quesnel and the
Jansenists of Pistoia had drawn from their confusion between the
act and the habit was that no one receives a supernatural grace un­
less he is already in possession of the habit of faith. Now, while
it would seem that before the grace by which one is called to the
act of faith, no intrinsically supernatural actual graces are given,21
undoubtedly in the process of the justification of an infidel, super­
natural actual graces are given before he receives the habit of faith
with the infusion of sanctifying grace.
« Cf. DTC, art. cit., 74.
DB, 1791 ; cf. 838.
17 Merkelbach, Summa theologiae moralis (Paris, 1938), 1, n. 717.
^DB. 801.
19 DB, 1377.
™DB, 1522.
21 Cf. Van Noort, De gratia Christi (Hilversum, 1934), n. 131, note.

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Hence, the infant receives in Baptism the habit of faith, although
he is as yet unable to make an act of faith. On the other hand, the
pagan to whom the Christian revelation is preached may and should
elicit an act of faith; yet he does not receive the virtue itself until
he is baptized or elicits an act of divine charity or perfect contrition.
Catholics should also be aware that there is a distinction between
divine faith and what is called ecclesiastical faith. The latter is
sometimes called mediately divine faith,22 and signifies the act
whereby we accept a doctrine not contained in the deposit of revela­
tion, but in some way connected with it, such as the declaration of
Pope Leo XIII that Anglican Orders are invalid23 or an official
decree of canonization. The formal object or motive of this latter
type of assent is the divinely guaranteed infallibility of the Church,
whereas the formal object of divine faith is always the authority of
God Himself. The practical application of this distinction is that
Catholics should be frequently reminded that in eliciting an act
of divine faith they should base their acceptance on God’s authority,
not on the teaching of the Church. Perhaps, as Van Noort states,
it does not make much difference in practice if the faithful say that
they believe a certain doctrine because the Church teaches it, since
they mean the right thing,24 yet it is always better to instruct Cath­
olics in the exact truth. The Church is, indeed, the infallible pro­
ponent of divine revelation ; but the teaching authority of the
Church is not the basic motive for the acceptance of the truths of
revelation. That motive can be only the authority of God, who can
neither be deceived nor deceive.
The possession of the virtue of faith is not necessarily connected
with actual membership in the Catholic Church. A non-Catholic,
sincerely desirous of doing God’s will and believing in general all
that God has revealed can have the virtue of divine faith, at least
if he has explicit faith in the four fundamental truths—God’s
existence, divine retribution in the future life, the Holy Trinity
and the Incarnation. Such a person actually has implicit faith in
all that the Catholic Church teaches. However, he is not an actual
member of the Catholic Church, though he is rightly said to be
affiliated with the Catholic Church by implicit desire. This dis­
tinction is important in view of the common custom among Cath22 Cf. Van Noort, De fontibus revelationis (Bussum, 1920), nn. 247-50.
23 DB, 1966.
24 yan Noort, De fontibus revelationis, η. 190.

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dies of saying of a person that he does not possess “the faith” be­
cause he is not actually a member of the true Church of Christ.
It should be noted that we are here considering the case of one
who was brought up from childhood in heresy or as an adult re­
ceived instructions from an heretical source. Whether it is possible
for a Catholic to renounce his allegiance to the Catholic Church
without being guilty of a grave formal sin against the virtue of
faith will be considered in a subsequent article.
Catholics should be able to distinguish between divine faith and
divine-Catholic faith. The former must be given to any truth re­
vealed by God, once a person has sufficient certainty of the fact of
revelation. This would extend to private revelations, which must
be accepted by those for whom they arc made, and may be accepted
by other persons, though there is no obligation on the part of others
to accept them.25 Divine faith is also given to particular truths con­
tained in the deposit of public revelation which an individual clearly
perceives to be revealed, though they have not been proposed as
such by the infallible magisterium of the Church.26 Divine-Catholic
faith is given to doctrines revealed by God and proposed as such
by the Church, either by solemn definition or by the ordinary and
universal magisterium.27 Because some of the truths of divine
revelation have come to the explicit consciousness of the Church
only after the lapse of a considerable period of time, such as the
doctrines of Mary’s Immaculate Conception and her Assumption,
an increase in the explicit object of divine-Catholic faith is possible,
although the content of public revelation admits of no objective
addition since the death of the last apostle. It is only by the perti­
nacious denial or doubt of a doctrine of divine-Catholic faith that
one becomes guilty of the specific sin of heresy,28 though the delib­
erate denial or doubt of any revealed doctrine, once a person has
sufficient certainty that it is revealed, constitutes a grave sin of
infidelity and ejects the infused virtue of faith from the soul, if it
has been present.
In explaining the act of faith, some theologians make a fine dis­
tinction, which is helpful to emphasize the precise nature of this
25 Cf- Finlay. Divine Faith (New York, 1917), 55 ff.
26 Van Noort, De fontibus revelationis, η. 207, note; Herrmann, Institu­
tiones theol. dogmaticae (Paris, 1926), 1, n. 31.
27 DB, 1792; Can. 1323.
28 Can. 1325, §2.

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exalted virtue. They distinguish between faith in the broad sense
(fides late dicta) and faith in the strict sense (fides stride dicta).
The attitude of one who makes an act of the former is: “I believe
the statement of the speaker because it is evident to me that he is
neither deceived nor deceiving.” The attitude of one who makes
an act of faith in the strict sense is : “I believe the statement of
the speaker because he is neither deceived nor deceiving:" The
distinction is very important, especially in its application to divine
faith. Only faith in the strict sense merits to be accounted as the
theological virtue. One who would accept the doctrines of divine
revelation merely because of the clear evidence that God is all-wise
and all-truthful and has made a revelation would be making an
intellectual act based on the motives of credibility—and that would
not be an act of faith, save in the sense in which St. James says:
“The devils also believe.”29 In the case of one who makes an act
of faith in the strict sense, the motives of credibility are a necessary
condition to lead him to the judgment of credibility; but in eliciting
the act of faith the motive of his assent (with the aid of divine
grace) is not the evidence that God is all-wise and all-truthful, but
the attributes of God’s wisdom and truthfulness themselves.30
Finally, Catholics should be aware of the difference between
faith and the intellectual act known as religious assent. This latter
term signifies the acceptance of a doctrine taught authoritatively
by an official teacher or teaching body in the Church, but not with
the use of the infallible magisterium. Such would be a doctrine
proposed by the Holy Office or the Biblical Commission. The Pope
himself can teach in this manner, and frequently does so in his
Encyclical Letters. Merely because a doctrine of this kind is not
infallibly proposed does not mean that Catholics may reject it or
subject it to criticism as they might the teaching of a private theo­
logian. For, as Pope Pius XII asserted in Humani generis: “Nor
must it be thought that what is expounded in Encyclical Letters
does not of itself demand consent, since in writing such Letters
the Popes do not exercise the supreme power of their teaching
authority. For these matters are taught with the ordinary teaching
authority, of which it is true to say ‘He who heareth you, heareth
29 James 2 : 19.
30 Van Noort, De fontibus revelationis, η. 300.

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Me’."81 An act of religious assent proceeds from the virtues of
religion and obedience rather than from divine faith.32
Evidently, then, there is need for Catholics to have a clear and
precise notion of what is meant by faith, in view of the various
senses in which this word is understood, and of the many erroneous
notions prevalent today about the nature of faith. In fact, it is not
unusual to read vehement attacks on the very idea of admitting
doctrines above the direct perception of the senses and natural
reason. For example, at the dedication of the University of Roches­
ter’s psychiatric clinic on March 31, 1949, Homer W. Smith, pro­
fessor of physiology at New York University made the statement:
‘The unwarranted claim to knowledge of certain properties not
available to empirical examination, such as God, transcendent good
and evil, absolute values, future reward and punishment, and the
like, has in practice, whatever it might have accomplished in theory,
done more to retard man’s intellectual and social development than
any other misadventure that has ever befallen him.”33
However, even those who admit the existence of God and revela­
tion entertain very indefinite notions about faith, generally desig­
nating it by such terms as “inner experience,” the “vision of spirit­
ual values,” “the active response of the whole man to things of the
spirit,” etc. Hence it is vitally important that Catholics clearly
understand and be prepared to explain the concept of faith in the
sense accepted by their Church. The obligation of instructing the
laity in this matter rests on bishops and priests, to whom has been
committed the responsibility of providing their flocks with the
spiritual nourishment of Christ’s doctrine. No more important sub­
ject can be chosen for the detailed instruction of the faithful in our
own times than the nature of divine faith.
Francis J. Connell. C.SS.R.
The Catholic University of America
Washington, D. C.
31 A AS, 42 (1950), 468.
32 Cf. Bénard, E., “The Doctrinal Value of the Ordinary Teaching of the
Holy Father.” in Proceedings of the Sixth Annual Convention of the Catholic
Theological Society of America (New York, 1951), 78-107; and Fenton.
Msgr. Joseph C., “The Humani generis and the Holy Father’s Ordinary
Magisterium,” in AER, CXXV,'1 (July, 1951), 53-62 ; and also Msgr.
Fenton’s article, “The Doctrinal Authority of Papal Encyclicals,” in AER,
CXXI, 2, 3 (Aug. and Sept., 1949), 136-50; 210-20.
33 Washington Post, April 1, 1949, p. 6.