By RAYMOND DE SOUZA, KM
Part 2
“Without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to Him must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who earnestly seek Him,” is the categorical teaching of St. Paul (Heb. 11: 6).
The first step is to believe that God does exist. We have been through the proofs of God’s existence in previous lessons, to the extent that we can say that we know that there is a God. His existence is not a matter of pious belief, but the result of the unbiased observation of the world around us.
Now we are investigating the act of faith, or supernatural faith. Since St. Paul says that without faith, it is impossible to please God, we must investigate it in this series of articles.
How do we define an act of faith? It is the act of our intellect whereby we firmly and piously accept — with God’s help — as true what God has revealed to us, because He has revealed it, and He can neither deceive nor be deceived.
Here is an essential aspect of the true act of faith: We need divine grace to do it. To make a true act of supernatural faith, divine grace is absolutely necessary. Jesus said: “Without me, you can do nothing” (John 15:5). Every act of faith is a step toward Heaven, and without God’s help we cannot do it. This help is divine grace. Without it, we cannot even take one step toward Heaven. We can go upstairs to the upper floor of a building taking firm steps with our own natural strength, but to take a single step toward Heaven we need grace. That is good for our humility. . . .
So, since the act of faith is impossible with our natural powers, and depends on God’s help, grace, it is called a supernatural act. To walk up the stairs in a building is a series of natural acts, and to take steps toward Heaven is a supernatural act.
The act of faith is not a feeling — this cannot be emphasized too much — it is an act of the mind, of the intellect, of the understanding, which may or may not be assisted by a good feeling. It does not matter if feelings are present or not. It is, therefore, an act of the mind, the intellect, the understanding, at the command of our will.
The act of faith does not blossom automatically in the intellect. You must want to make it, you must will it. There is a subtle but important distinction here: It is by the intellect that we accept a truth revealed by God, but it is by the will that we decide to accept it.
God’s grace gives us a gentle submissiveness to accept the truth because God revealed it, and not because we understand it or just like it. We decide that our intellect will not be guided by our natural reason, our good arguments, but because God said so. We are submissive to Him, and to His Revelation. And that is the end of it. One could accept a truth of faith merely intellectually, without submissiveness to God, but that would not be a supernatural act, only a natural one. It is the submissiveness to God that counts for salvation.
From the foregoing, we see that the act of faith is an act of worship of God, based upon His supreme authority and infallibility.
And in what are we expected by God to believe? The ensemble of truths He revealed through the Sacred Scriptures, Tradition as taught by the Magisterium of His Church. This ensemble of truths is called the Deposit of Faith. It is found in the Creed and the teachings of the Church’s Magisterium, based on foundations of the Scriptures and the apostolic Tradition.
We have seen before that God did not give the Bible to every Tom, Dick, and Harry, but to the Church founded by Jesus Christ. She, and only she, has the divine right to teach the truths that Jesus commanded the apostles to teach, when He said, “Going therefore, teach ye all nations; baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and behold I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world” (Matt. 28:19-20).
So, how do we know that something is true and useful to salvation? We cannot ask the authors of the New Testament books, of course. The answer is simple: The Catholic Church conveys Jesus’ teachings to all mankind.
And here we see another aspect of God’s mercy toward simple and uneducated people. He gave them teachers, bishops and priests. It is their mission to teach the people to observe all things whatsoever Jesus taught the apostles. But woe to the priest or bishop who, instead of teaching, just makes friends and never says any truth that may upset anybody. He becomes like the useless salt that cannot give flavor, and that deserves to be thrown out and trodden under men’s feet (Matt. 5:13).
But is it reasonable to make an act of faith in things we don’t see? Yes, it is. Every day we make little acts of natural faith. For instance, we believe that the people who brought us up are our biological parents simply because they told us so (we do not verify their DNA, do we?); we accept that the books we read were indeed written by the folks whose names are written on the cover; we believe that information received at the airport desk is accurate about the flight we must catch. These are acts of natural faith, which we do not give to political promises very often, but this is another issue.
So, if we accept as true what men tell us, why should we not give the same assent to what God tells us? Men are fallible, God is infallible. Since it is certain that God has spoken through Moses and the other prophets, through Jesus Christ and His apostles, who performed miracles to prove the truth of their teaching, it is perfectly reasonable to make the act of supernatural faith and will to accept their teachings.
Next article: mysteries and secular sciences.
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(Raymond de Souza is an EWTN program host; regional coordinator for Portuguese-speaking countries for Human Life International [HLI]; president of the Sacred Heart Institute, and a member of the Sovereign, Military, and Hospitaller Order of the Knights of Malta. His website is: www.RaymonddeSouza.com.)
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