5. Faith and Reason: Their Harmony and Mutual Support

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Lecture Notes

Main Topics #

• The Two-Fold Order of Knowledge: Knowledge of divine things comes through natural reason (natural light) and through divine faith (light of faith). These can address the same objects but in different ways.
• Credibility of Miracles: Miracles and fulfilled prophecies strike the senses and serve as motives of credibility (motiva credibilitatis), leading minds to God as their author.
• The Nature of Faith as Free Act: Faith requires a free act of the will moved by grace; it is meritorious only when performed in the state of grace (sanctifying grace).
• Formed vs. Unformed Faith: Faith without charity (unformed faith) is still a gift from God but does not save; formed faith (faith working through charity) is the faith that saves.
• The Use of Reason in Understanding Mysteries: Reason can aid understanding of faith mysteries through: (1) analogy from natural knowledge, (2) connection between mysteries, and (3) connection of mysteries to man’s final end.
• The Impossibility of Contradiction Between Faith and Reason: Both have God as their source; truth cannot contradict truth.
• The Limits of Different Orders of Knowledge: Higher knowledge (with greater character of wisdom) must distinguish itself from lower knowledge and show the proper order between them. Applied to faith/reason: theology distinguishes itself from philosophy.
• The Mutual Aid of Faith and Reason: Reason establishes preambula fidei (preambles of faith); faith delivers reason from errors and furnishes knowledge of many things.

Key Arguments #

The Nature and Necessity of Signs (Motives of Credibility) #

• Miracles and prophecies are sensible signs that bring to mind something beyond themselves (God as author)
• Man, as an animal with reason, naturally learns through sensible signs—this is appropriate to human nature
• Hume’s rationalist attack on miracles denies their credibility, but Vatican I anathematizes those who reject the knowability of miracles with certainty
• The resurrection accounts provided sufficient historical evidence even to convince the young C.S. Lewis

The Freedom and Merit of Faith #

• Assent to faith is a free act—unlike assent to necessary truths (e.g., “no odd number is even”), where reason is compelled
• Only free acts in the state of grace are truly meritorious
• Unformed faith (faith without charity) is a gift of God but not saving faith
• Formed faith (faith formed by charity) is the saving faith spoken of by St. Paul: “charity believes all, hopes all”

The Relationship Between Natural Light and Light of Faith #

• Some truths (e.g., God’s existence, the fourth commandment) are knowable by both natural reason and faith
• Knowledge through different faculties need not be contradictory—the example of roundness known both by touch (through hardness) and by sight (through color)
• Modern error: conflating “knowable by faith” with “not knowable by reason,” forgetting that the same truth can be attained by both ways
• Platonists (e.g., in the Laws) can know that homosexuality is contrary to nature through reason alone

How Reason Aids Faith: Three Ways #

1. By Analogy (analogia proportionalitatis): Using natural knowledge to illuminate mysteries. Example: God’s self-knowledge producing the Word (Logos), analogous to mind knowing itself and producing thought
2. By Connection Between Mysteries: One mystery clarifies another. Example: Mary’s status as Mother of God (Theotokos) is connected to and follows from the mystery of the Incarnation; denying one risks denying the other
3. By Connection to Man’s Final End: The final end of man is to know and love God; hence the Son (who proceeds by way of knowledge) and the Holy Spirit (who proceeds by way of love) are appropriately sent to us

The Impossibility of True Contradiction #

• God cannot deny Himself; truth cannot contradict truth
• Both natural reason and faith have God as their source, so harmony is guaranteed
• Apparent contradictions arise from: (1) failure to properly understand dogmas of faith according to the Church’s mind, or (2) mistaking unsound philosophical views for conclusions of reason
• Vatican I anathematizes those who defend as conclusions of science opinions known to contradict the faith

The Proper Order Between Philosophy and Theology #

• Higher knowledge (with greater character of wisdom) always distinguishes itself from lower knowledge and shows the order between them
• Reason cannot distinguish itself from the senses or from imagination—only reason can
• Natural philosophy judges the proper use of mathematics within natural science
• Theology distinguishes itself from philosophy: the distinction between these orders belongs to theology, not philosophy
• Modern philosophy’s error: After revolting from theology, philosophers lost the ability to distinguish between philosophy and theology, leading them to confuse their domains and attempt substitutes for theology within philosophy
• Examples: Feuerbach’s Essence of Christianity, Hegel placing philosophy above theology

Important Definitions #

• Motiva credibilitatis (motives of credibility): Sensible signs (miracles, prophecies) that move the mind toward faith in God as their author
• Sanctifying grace (gratia sanctificans): The state necessary for acts to be truly meritorious; unformed faith can exist without it
• Formed faith (fides formata): Faith informed by charity (love), which works and saves
• Unformed faith (fides informis): Faith without charity, still a gift from God but not saving
• Analogy (analogia proportionalitatis): A likeness of ratios or proportions between natural knowledge and divine mystery
• Preambula fidei (preambles of faith): Truths about God knowable by natural reason (e.g., God’s existence) that precede and support faith
• Theotokos: Mother of God—affirmed because the one who has both divine and human natures is God

Examples & Illustrations #

The Mug (Sensory Knowledge) #

• Roundness can be known by touch (through perception of hardness) and by sight (through color)
• Two different senses know the same thing but not in the same way
• Shows that different modes of knowledge can address the same object without contradiction

The Word of God (Analogy from Natural Knowledge) #

• Man’s mind knowing itself produces a thought of itself
• Similarly, God knowing Himself produces the Word (Logos), which is also God (John 1:1)
• This is analogy: using what we know naturally to illuminate a divine mystery

Mary, Mother of God (Connection Between Mysteries) #

• Nestorius objected that Mary should be called “Mother of Christ,” not “Mother of God”
• But since Christ is one person with both divine and human natures, Mary (mother according to His human nature) is truly Mother of God
• To deny this would deny something essential to the mystery of the Incarnation

The Shepherd and Flock (Analogy in Scripture) #

• “The Lord is my shepherd”: God is to us as shepherd is to flock
• Psalm 8’s reference to man ruling beasts, applied to Christ, shows how different levels can share analogous relationships
• Thomas interprets beasts, fish, and birds as figures for those in different spiritual conditions

Aristotle on the Fourth Commandment (Natural Knowledge) #

• In the Topics, Aristotle states that if someone questions whether one should honor father and mother, he needs punishment, not argument
• This shows such knowledge is naturally known; it is not a matter of reasoned disputation
• The fourth commandment is known by both natural reason and faith

The Pythagorean Theorem (Belief Preceding Understanding) #

• One must believe a teacher that following a certain path will lead to understanding
• Belief precedes and aids the attainment of knowledge
• Shows faith’s role even in natural knowledge

Anaxagoras on Self-Ruling (Apparent Contradiction) #

• Anaxagoras says the ruler must be separated from the ruled (reasonable: judge must be impartial)
• But the mind is self-ruling (also reasonable: mind rules itself)
• These seem contradictory but actually involve different senses of “ruler” and “ruled”
• Shows that even reasonable propositions can appear contradictory when senses are confused

The Paradoxes of Zeno (Dialectical Argument Against the Obvious) #

• You cannot exit a door because you must first go halfway, then half of that, infinitely
• Achilles can never catch the turtle with a head start
• These arguments seem to refute obvious truths; most people cannot answer them
• Shows how sophisticated argument can create apparent contradictions

The “Whole Greater Than the Part” Sophism (Equivocation) #

• “The whole is greater than the part” and “Animal is part of man’s definition”
• But “animal” includes dog, cat, horse, etc., which together are more than man
• Confusion: composed whole vs. universal whole; definitional part vs. extensional part
• Illustrates how equivocation creates apparent contradictions

Questions Addressed #

Q: Can miracles be known with certainty? A: Yes. Vatican I teaches that miracles are knowable with certainty and can serve as motives of credibility for Christian faith. Those who deny this are anathematized.

Q: Is faith always meritorious? A: Only when performed in the state of sanctifying grace. Unformed faith (faith without charity) is a gift from God but not meritorious in the saving sense.

Q: Does knowledge by reason remove faith? A: When a truth is known by reason (e.g., God’s existence), it no longer pertains to faith strictly speaking—it becomes part of the preambles to faith. Yet the light of faith still illuminates it differently than reason alone.

Q: Can the same truth be known by both reason and faith? A: Yes, but not in the same way. The example of sensing roundness by touch and sight shows this is possible. However, modern error conflates “known by faith” with “unknowable by reason.”

Q: How can reason help understand faith mysteries that exceed reason? A: Through analogy from natural knowledge, by seeing connections between mysteries, and by relating mysteries to man’s final end. These do not achieve perfect understanding but aid development of theology.

Q: Can faith and reason truly contradict? A: No. Both come from God; truth cannot contradict truth. Apparent contradictions result from misunderstanding dogmas or mistaking unsound philosophy for real conclusions of reason.

Q: Who determines the proper relationship between faith and reason? A: Theology (as the higher wisdom) distinguishes itself from philosophy and shows the proper order. Philosophy cannot make this distinction; it can only receive it from theology.

Notable Quotes #

“The whole world, by believing, might come to hope, and by hoping, come to love.” — Augustine (cited from Vatican II, De Verbo)

“Faith formed by charity.” — St. Paul (as interpreted by Berquist and the Council)

“If anyone says that the ascent to Christian faith is not free, but is necessarily produced by arguments of human reason…let them be anathema.” — Vatican I, Canon 3 on Faith

“Even though faith is above reason, there can never be any real disagreement between faith and reason. Since it is the same God who reveals the mysteries and infuses faith, and who has endowed the human mind with the light of reason. God cannot deny himself, nor can the truth ever be in opposition to truth.” — Vatican I (paraphrased by Berquist)

“Charity believes all, hopes all.” — St. Paul (on formed faith)

“You should not love your opinions like your children.” — Didactic principle cited by Berquist, attributed to a logician/philosopher