Aquinas on Faith, Part 1: Mary's Unique Grace, Whether Anything False Can Be Believed (II-II Q.1 A.3), and Whether Faith Is About Things Seen (A.4)

Orientation #

He opens by tying the Sunday Isaiah reading (“my thoughts are not your thoughts”) back to “the point Thomas is making in the Article Two there” (prev. lecture): God knows composed things in a simple way, we know even simple things in a composed way, hence faith is per modum enuntiabilis though founded on the simple first truth. He then says “we’re up to Article Three and Question One”, and later “fourth and fifth kind of go together” — Article 5 and the definition of faith from Hebrews are deferred. The previous class treated aa. 1–2 on the object of faith as first truth and as enuntiabile; the next continues aa. 4–6.

The class, in order #

1. Isaiah and Article 2: our thoughts are composed, God’s simple (“my thoughts are not your thoughts”) #

The point: the Isaiah reading illustrates why the object of faith, though the simple first truth, is for us something enuntiabile.

• God knows all things by knowing himself and is completely simple, so he knows composed things in a simple way; we are “just the reverse,” knowing everything, even simple things, in a composed way (statements).
• Hence ex parte credentis (from the side of the believer) the object of faith is complexum, enuntiabile, “statable in a proposition,” even though it is based on the simple first truth (a. 1).

2. Aside: Mary’s grace is of the hypostatic order (“grace of Mary is of the hypostatic order”) #

Reading from Fr. Peter J. Cameron, O.P., on the 17th-c. Dominican Louis Chardon (The Cross of Jesus, died of plague 1651): Mary’s singular grace, the fruit of her immaculate conception and of the hypostatic order, gives her “kinship with God”; she “constitutes an order all by herself, somewhere between God by nature and God by participation,” and Chardon says she is, next to Christ, an object of our acts of religion rather than someone to imitate.

• He connects this with his thesis director Msgr. Maurice Dion’s article (Laval) saying the same, and with Fatima’s request for reparation to her Immaculate Heart.
• Student: “Hail Mary, full of grace” is said of no other saint; mediatrix of all grace requires grace of a different order.
• Analogy he draws: one saint is better than another by partaking more of goodness; God is better than us not by partaking more but by being goodness itself — a different order. “Mary’s a little like that.”
• Aside: Charles De Koninck and Maurice Dion, his two great teachers, were both periti at Vatican II for the Cardinal of Quebec; De Koninck died in Rome, his letter home saying “My work here is finished.”

3. Article 3, the objections: can faith be of something false? (“It seems that faith can be”) #

The point: four objections, which “tie you up” until untied “like Houdini.”

1. Faith is divided against hope and charity; under hope something false can be (many hope for eternal life who will not have it), and under charity (many are loved as good who are not); therefore also under faith.
2. Abraham believed Christ was to be born (John 8, “Abraham your father rejoiced that he might see my day”); but after Abraham’s time God was able not to become flesh, since he took flesh only by his own will; so what Abraham believed could be false.
3. The faith of the ancients that Christ would be born survived in many until the preaching of the gospel; but by then Christ was already born, so they believed something false (“if you think Duane Berquist will be born and I’m already born, you’re thinking falsely”). He calls this “a hard argument. Pretty clever” — and recalls his mother on one of her sons: “He’s clever. He’s not smart.”
4. It pertains to faith that the true body of Christ is under the sacrament of the altar; but if something is not correctly consecrated there is only bread; so something false comes under faith.

4. Sed contra and body: nothing comes under a habit except by its formal object (“by reason of the formal object”) #

• Sed contra: no virtue perfecting the understanding has itself to the false, “the evil of the understanding,” as is clear from “the Philosopher” (Aristotle named by antonomasia) in Ethics VI, the book about the virtues of reason; faith is such a virtue; therefore nothing false under faith.
• Body, as an argument:
  1. Nothing comes under a power, habit or act except by reason of its formal object — as color is seen only through light, and a conclusion known only through the middle term of the demonstration.
  2. The ratio formalis of the object of faith is the first truth (a. 1).
  3. Under the first truth nothing false can stand — as non-being cannot come under being, nor evil under goodness.
  4. Therefore nothing false comes under faith.
• His restatement: the proper object of faith is what is revealed by God, and what God reveals cannot be false. “So there must be something wrong with these objections.”

5. Reply 1: intellectual virtues exclude the false; hope and charity (“the true is the good of the understanding”) #

• The true is the good of the understanding, not of the appetitive power (object of will: the good; of reason: truth); so all virtues perfecting the understanding — faith, natural understanding, reasoned-out understanding — totally exclude the false, since virtue has itself only to the good.
• Virtues perfecting the desiring power do not totally exclude falsehood: one can act according to justice (in the will) or temperance (in the concupiscible appetite) while holding a false opinion about the matter — e.g. mistaken through ignorance about what is owed to someone, though trying to be just.
• He notes Thomas does not fully concede the objection: neither is something false under hope, because one hopes for eternal life not by his own power (that would be presumption, “which is false”) but by the aid of grace, in which, if he perseveres, he will infallibly attain it — “a powerful statement by itself.” And charity loves God in himself; it does not pertain to charity to discern whether this neighbor loved on account of God is himself good.
• He recalls his earlier question of why there are two virtues in the appetitive part, noting “there’s not a similar reason about both of them.”

6. Reply 2: divine foreknowledge and eternity (“necessity of infallibility”) #

• God’s not being incarnate, considered in itself, was possible after Abraham’s time; but as it comes under divine praescientia it has a “certain necessity of infallibility” (as said in the First Part); and this is how it comes under faith, since one believes it because God reveals it; so as it comes under faith it cannot be false.
• Explanation via eternity: every now, past, present and future, is present to God. Image: the now of eternity as the center of a circle, opposite every point of the circumference, though on the circumference one point is before another.
• Contingent example: will Duane Berquist be standing or sitting (or collapsed flat) half an hour from now? You cannot know; but if what he does then were present to you, you could be certain. So God cannot be mistaken about who wins the election or the game — “he’s seeing already the touchdown being scored, the home run being hit.” Batter example: he may strike out or hit a home run; if what he does were present to you, you’d know.
• Boethius’s definition, which Thomas always defends: interminabilis vitae tota simul et perfecta possessio, “the all-at-once and perfect possession of unending life.” God is timeless, not in time. Our end is called eternal life: seeing God face to face, we partake of his eternity — “marvelous thing.”
• Eternity is not endless time: it has no beginning or end, but also no before and after. Time is defined as the number of the before and after in motion. One of the five attributes of the divine substance is that God is in no way subject to change; the consideration of eternity is attached to that of immobility; we, subject to motion, are in time.
• Aristotle defines motion in Natural Hearing [ed.: Physics] III and treats time in IV; De Koninck gave a whole semester on time, and on place — “beautiful course.”
• Aside: a high-school classmate asked whether after a few million years in heaven we’d get bored — “the best he could do.”

7. Reply 3: the time is from human conjecture, not from faith (“from human conjecture”) #

• The believer after Christ’s birth believes him “at some time to be born”; the determination of the time, in which he is deceived, is not from faith but from human conjecture — a guess. A believing man can estimate something false from a guess; that he estimate something false from faith itself is impossible.
• Example: people always predicting the end of the world (“supposed to be last Saturday”); we believe by faith that time will end (Apocalypse: “time is no more”), but God does not reveal when; “so far everybody’s been wrong up till now.”

8. Reply 4: faith is not about this individual bread (“this individual species of bread”) #

• The believer’s faith does not refer to this or that individual species of bread, but to this: that the true body of Christ is under the species of sensible bread when rightly consecrated. If not rightly consecrated, nothing false comes under faith.
• Illustration: the man at the altar might be an unbeliever or not even a priest (“he needs a job”) and everyone deceived; faith does not assert this individual consecration.
• Discussion: an older priest who turned two pages and skipped the consecration, then asked the congregation “Did I do the consecration?” (Christendom); Eucharistic miracles in Europe for doubting priests; the claim that 50% of priests here don’t believe in the real presence.
• Student: if the priest doesn’t believe in transubstantiation, is it invalid? Answer: it might affect the consecration since he must have the intention; hard to say how far disbelief enters intention. The old pre-Mass prayer stated the intention to make present the body and blood according to the rites of the Church; the Maronites show the consecranda, the matter, before consecrating — “your attention has to be on the matter”; Bishop Gregory called it a courtesy.

9. Article 4, the objections: is the object of faith something seen? (“the object of faith is something seen”) #

He says aa. 4 and 5 go together: something seen, and something known through something else.

1. The Lord said to Thomas (John), “because you see me, you believe”; so vision and faith are of the same thing. “Voltaire must have liked that one” — the devil likes to quote Scripture.
2. 1 Cor 13:12, “we see now through a mirror in an enigma,” said of the knowledge of faith; videmus, so what is believed is seen.
3. Faith is a spiritual light; by any light something is seen; so faith is about things seen.
4. Any sense is called a sight — as when listening to Mozart recordings imitating different emotions, or tasting two wines, one says “now I see”; or comparing a conductor with Beecham (“taught the other conductors how to conduct Mozart”). But fides est ex auditu, faith is from hearing; so faith is about things seen.

• He rates these “better than the last ones… they stumped me.”
• Aside: he and Brother Mark wanted to lock up professors with only the objections before giving them the rest of the article — “a requirement for PhD”; the editions that print the answers in big print, and a colleague who wrote “yes, no” at the head of each question, spoil this; computers could give the objections first.

10. Sed contra: Hebrews, argumentum non apparentium (“faith is the argument of what is not seen”) #

Faith is argumentum non apparentium, the argument or “conviction” of things not seen; he notes the Greek behind argumentum is “a little different” and defers this to the definition of faith itself, where he’ll check the Bible translations.

11. Body: two ways the understanding assents (“the understanding assents to something in two ways”) #

• Faith implies assent of the understanding to what is believed.
• (a) Moved by its own object: either known to itself, as in first beginnings (a whole is more than a part; no odd number is even, if you know what odd and even are; a perfect number is composite, not prime) — of which there is natural understanding; or known through another thing known, as conclusions — of which there is science, certain knowledge, following necessarily from statements ultimately known to themselves.
  • “Known to itself” does not mean the statement proves itself; it is known through its parts, not through other statements.
• (b) Not sufficiently moved by its object but by a choice, the reason moved by the will, inclining to one part of a contradiction (it is so / it is not so). With doubt and fear of the other part: opinion or guess — “the Red Sox will win,” inclined but fearing the other side (wife Rosie turning off the game from nerves; Brady’s four passes in the last two minutes). With certitude and without fear: faith.
• Things are said to be seen which through themselves move our understanding or sense to knowledge of them: he sees the students sitting — not a guess; he sees that a perfect number (equal to the sum of what measures it) can’t be prime since a prime is measured only by one. Hence neither faith nor opinion can be about things seen, by sense or by understanding.
• He nonetheless puts: “But is there some kind of seeing in faith? Seems to me” — left open.
• Digression (from Joshua’s BU ethics group, on De Anima III): the question to put to ethics students, “Is anything good or bad by nature?” with the if-then “if nothing is good or bad by nature, then anything goes.” Easier preliminary: are some statements naturally known, or does every statement need proof by other statements? If every statement needs proof, nothing can be proven (regress), and you can’t even know the statement “every statement needs proof.” So some statements are known by nature — whole/part, odd/even, perfect number — which opens the student to “by nature.”

12. Reply 1: Thomas sees one thing and believes another (“Thomas sees one thing and believes another”) #

• Thomas sees the man and, believing, confesses him God: “My Lord and my God.” What he sees (the wounded man) and what he believes are not the same; the sight is a sign helping him believe.
• Aside: taught as a boy to say “My Lord and my God” at the consecration, imitating the believing Thomas; also “greater love than this hath no man” (the bishop’s motto) — a young priest explained the separate consecration of bread and wine represents Christ’s death on the cross.
• Asides: Fra Angelico’s crucifixion, where Thomas alone stands trying to understand; a Tampa window (c. 1900) of the Christ Child in the temple with Cardinal Newman in red listening and a Dominican friar with a look of wonder.

His words #

• per modum enuntiabilis / enuntiabile: statable in a proposition; the object of faith ex parte credentis, from the side of the believer.
• complexum: composed; opposite of the simple first truth.
• hypostatic order: Mary’s grace, a different order not merely more grace.
• antonomasia: calling Aristotle “the Philosopher.”
• ratio formalis: the formal object; the first truth for faith.
• presumption: hoping for eternal life by one’s own power.
• praescientia: divine foreknowledge.
• necessity of infallibility: what contingent events have as under divine foreknowledge.
• interminabilis vitae tota simul et perfecta possessio: Boethius’s eternity, “all-at-once and perfect possession of unending life.”
• time: the number of the before and after in motion.
• Natural Hearing [ed.: Physics].
• conjecture: a guess; source of the mistaken time.
• consecranda: the matter to be consecrated (Maronite usage).
• fides est ex auditu: faith is from hearing.
• argumentum non apparentium: argument/conviction of things not seen.
• natural understanding vs. reasoned-out understanding [ed.: intellectus vs. scientia]; first beginnings [ed.: first principles]; known to itself [ed.: per se nota].
• science: certain knowledge of conclusions.
• opinion/guess: assent by choice with fear of the other part; faith: with certitude, without fear.

Texts #

Read in class

• Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae II-II, q. 1, a. 3 (objections, sed contra, body, four replies)
• Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae II-II, q. 1, a. 4 (objections, sed contra, body, reply 1)
• Isaiah, Sunday reading (“Seek the Lord while he may be found… my thoughts are not your thoughts”) (Isaiah 55, inferred)
• Fr. Peter J. Cameron, O.P., introduction quoting Louis Chardon, The Cross of Jesus

Mentioned

• Summa II-II, q. 1, aa. 1–2 (first truth; ex parte credentis); Prima Pars on foreknowledge (“as said in the first”)
• John 8 (Abraham rejoiced); John (Christ to Thomas, “because you see me”); 1 Cor 13:12; Hebrews (“argumentum non apparentium”); Apocalypse (“time is no more”)
• Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics VI; Physics III (motion) and IV (time); De Anima III
• Boethius, definition of eternity
• Msgr. Maurice Dion on the grace of Mary; De Koninck’s course on time and place

His questions #

• Can you believe something false by faith? No: nothing comes under faith except through its formal object, the first truth, under which nothing false can stand.
• Why can hope and charity have something false in their matter but faith not? Faith perfects the understanding, whose good is the true; hope and charity perfect the appetite — though Thomas adds that neither hope (by grace, not one’s own power) nor charity (loving God in himself) is really of something false.
• After Abraham, could God not have become flesh? In itself possible; but under divine foreknowledge, which sees all nows as present, it has a necessity of infallibility, and so comes under faith.
• Will Duane Berquist be sitting or standing half an hour from now? We can’t know; God knows, because it is present to him in eternity.
• Those who believed Christ “to be born” when he was already born — believing falsely by faith? The time was from human conjecture, not from faith.
• If the consecration is invalid, is faith of something false? No; faith is not about this individual bread but about the body of Christ under the species when rightly consecrated.
• Are there statements known without proof? Yes; otherwise nothing could be proven, not even “every statement needs proof.”
• Is there some kind of seeing in faith? left open (“Seems to me”).
• Did Thomas see and believe the same thing? No: he saw the man and believed him God.