Part IV, Chapter 12: Of what we know through Faith, whether Human or Divine
ALL that we have said hitherto relates to sciences purely human, and to knowledges which are founded on the evidence of reason. But before finishing, it is right to speak of another kind of knowledge, which is often not less certain or less evident in its manner,—that, to wit, which we derive from authority.
For there are two general ways which lead us to believe that a thing is true: The first is, the knowledge which we have of it ourselves, from having known and sought out its truth, whether by our senses or by our reason. This may be called, generally, reason, since the senses themselves depend on the judgment of reason,—or science, taking that term more generally than it is taken in the schools, for all the knowledge of an object derived from the object itself.
The other way is, the authority of persons worthy of credence, who assure us that such a thing is, although we ourselves know nothing about it. This is called faith or credence, according to the expression of St Augustine—Quod scimus debemus rationi; quod credimus auctoritate.
But as this authority may be of two kinds—of God, or of men,—there are also two kinds of faith—divine and human.
Divine faith cannot be exposed to error, since God can neither deceive nor be deceived.
Human faith is of itself subject to error, since every man is a liar according to the Scripture, and it is possible that he who assures us that a thing is true may be himself deceived. Nevertheless, as we have indicated already, there are things which we know only through human faith, of which we are as certainly and indubitably assured as though we had received mathematical demonstrations of them: as what we know through the continued relation of so many persons, that it is morally impossible that they could have conspired together to maintain the same thing, if it had not been true. For example, men have considerable difficulty, naturally, in conceiving that the antipodes exist: nevertheless, though we have never been there, and know nothing of them save through human faith, he would be a fool who did not believe in them. In the same way, he must have lost his senses who could doubt whether Caesar, Pompey, Cicero, Virgil, ever existed, and whether they were not fictitious personages, like those of Amadis.
It is true that it is often very difficult to mark precisely when human faith has reached this certainty, and when it has not. And this leads men to fall into two opposite errors: the one, that of those who believe too readily, on the slightest rumour; and the other, of those who foolishly oppose the whole force of their mind against the belief of the best attested things, when these offend their prejudices. We may, however, mark certain limits which must be passed in order to secure this human certainty, and others beyond which it is certainly possessed,—leaving a mean between these two kinds of limits which approaches more to certainty or uncertainty, according as it comes nearer to the one or to the other.
And if we compare together the two general ways which lead us to believe a thing—reason and faith—it is certain that faith always supposes some reason. For, as St Augustine says, in his 122d letter, and in many other places, we could never have been led to believe that which is above our reason, if reason itself had not persuaded us that there are things which we do well to believe, though we are unable as yet to comprehend them. This is principally true in relation to divine faith, because true reason teaches us that God, being truth itself, cannot deceive in that which he reveals to us of his nature and his mysteries: from which it appears, that though we are obliged to bring our understanding into captivity to the obedience of Jesus Christ, as St Paul says, we nevertheless do not do this blindly and unreasonably, which is the origin of all false religions, but with the knowledge of the cause, and because it is a reasonable action to bring ourselves thus into captivity to the authority of God, when he has given us sufficient proofs—such as the miracles, and other extraordinary events—which oblige us to believe that it is himself who has discovered to men the truths which we ought to believe.
In the second place, it is certain that divine faith ought to have more weight with us than our own reason, because reason itself shows us that we ought always to prefer that which is more certain to that which is less, and because that is more certain which God says is true, than that of which our reason persuades us, and because it is more possible for our reason to be deceived than for God to deceive us.
Nevertheless, if we consider things with minute attention, we shall find, that what we evidently see, either by reason, or by the faithful report of the senses, is never opposed to what divine faith teaches us; but that what leads us to imagine this is, that we do not observe the point where the evidence of our reason and senses must terminate. For example, our senses show us clearly, in the Eucharist, the roundness and the whiteness; but our senses do not inform us whether it is the substance of bread which causes our eyes to perceive the roundness and the whiteness: and thus faith is not contrary to the evidence of our senses, when it tells us that it is not the substance of bread any longer, having been changed to the body of Jesus Christ by the mystery of transubstantiation, and that we only now see the images and appearances of bread which remain, although the substance is no longer there.
Reason, indeed, shows us that the same body cannot be at the same time in different places, nor two bodies in the same place; but this ought to be understood of the natural condition of bodies, because it would be a want of reason to imagine that our mind, being finite, is able to comprehend the extent of the power of God, which is infinite: and thus, when the heretics, in order to destroy the mysteries of faith, as the Trinity, the Incarnation, and the Eucharist, oppose to them these pretended impossibilities derived from reason, they manifestly, in this very act, separate themselves from reason, by pretending that they are able to comprehend, by their mind, the infinite extent of the power of God. It is sufficient, however, to say, in reply to all these objections, what St Augustine said, on the same subject, of the penetration of bodies: —
Sed nova sunt, sed insolita sunt, sed contra naturae cursum notissimum sunt, quia magna, quia mira, quia divina, et eo magis vera, certa, firma.