Author Topic: Vatican I on the object of supernatural faith (Read 11091 times)

Ladislaus · « **Reply #50 on:** April 09, 2014, 03:27:52 PM »

Quote from: Nishant

1. That the primary objects of faith be explicitly identified by the intellect, and firmly and unhesitatingly adhered to,
2. That the secondary objects of faith be assented to at least implicitly, by the will purposing to believe whatever authority reveals.

Those secondary objects can be believed implicitly, but the key in your quote is what i have bolded; they do so because they have what's called the formal motive of faith, the authority of God revealing.

My contention is that while this can suffice for Catholics (who do not know one or another article of Faith), the Protestant formal motive of faith is inherently defective and does not suffice for supernatural faith ... as per what you cited later from St. Thomas.

Quote from: Nishant

St. Thomas says elsewhere that the true rule of Faith is the authority of the Church, for a book, any Book, even Holy Writ, is incapable of resolving disputes. The Angelic Doctor points out that Scripture already shows (Mat 18:15-18) that all Christians must subject themselves to the judgment of a visible Church, a Church built on St. Peter.

This is why the formal motive of faith is inherently defective for Protestants. In order for us to know a supernatural truth with the certainty of faith, our formal motive must have the certainty of faith, and just because a Protestant says he believes some truth based on the authority of God in the Scripture, for instance, that is still a fallible rule which ultimately reduces to private judgment and therefore lacks the certitude of faith. If the formal motive does not have the certitude of faith, the object of that faith (i.e. the supernatural truths) are not themselves believed with supernatural faith, but based on human knowledge and human certitude.

Let's take a Catholic who rejects a dogma of the Church, just one. Let's say he does it with complete sincere conviction, honestly believing that the Protestants were right about one thing or another and the Church got it wrong. That person loses the supernatural virtue of faith. He believes in EVERY OTHER dogma except for the one he denied, but he loses faith because he no longer believes them with a supernatural formal motive of faith, the infallible authority of the Church. Protestants, however, believe maybe 50% of what Catholics do (just to throw a number out there), but they can have a supernatural motive of faith whereas this aforementioned individual cannot? There's no difference. Protestants similarly lack the supernatural formal motive of faith.

Formal / material heresy is a related subject that I'll come back to later (as per the St. Augustine quote).

Ladislaus · « **Reply #51 on:** April 09, 2014, 03:48:01 PM »

Quote from: Ladislaus

Quote from: Lover of Truth
You make a strong case for the majority view but the Church has not condemned the minority view.

OK, there are two separate issues here, as Nishant earlier distinguished.

1) Which view you consider to be the correct one?
2) Whether or not the other view should be condemned / rejected.

You answered the second question, obviously.

Which view do YOU believe / adhere to / follow?

Let me add this. We know that the Church does not explicitly condemn EVERY error that might be out there. Based on various prudential considerations, the authorities (assuming that they are diligent defenders of the faith and not some Borgia pope more interested in mistresses than the duties of the office) intervene and make judgments based on various circuмstances and historical contexts. In fact, there are usually so MANY errors floating around out there at any given time that they usually prioritize going after the ones they consider most dangerous or prevalent or whatever. So just because the Church hasn't explicitly condemned something doesn't mean that it's tenable by Catholics and not at least implicitly erroneous or even implicitly heretical. Sometimes the error is just one logical step removed from some other error the Church HAS condemned, which is enough to make it not explicitly condemned but one can argue that it's at least IMPLICITLY condemned by the Church.

That's the argument I'm making from Vatican I, that the Vatican I passage I cited implicitly condemns the notion that belief in the rewarder God can be suffice for supernatural faith and salvation. This position can therefore be condemned by way of syllogism (which I'll explicitly lay out later this evening when I have some time).

SJB · « **Reply #52 on:** April 09, 2014, 07:53:38 PM »

Quote from: Ladislaus

Quote from: SJB
Who teaches this? Anyway, the fact that a validly baptized child has the infused virtue of faith means that he can only lose it by an personal act.

Wrong. In "adults", i.e. those who have reached the age of reason, explicit belief in the Incarnation and the Holy Trinity is necessary in order to have supernatural faith and therefore salvation. I even took that off the table when in the example I said the child was raised an atheist, so that he didn't even have any explicit belief in the existence of God.

Who teaches this? When does a Catholic child have to make his explicit belief in the Incarnation and the Trinity? How does he accomplish this?

Alcuin · « **Reply #53 on:** April 09, 2014, 09:47:23 PM »

Derailing again I see...

Ambrose · « **Reply #54 on:** April 10, 2014, 12:32:42 AM »

Quote from: Alcuin

Derailing again I see...

Asking for a source is derailing? :confused1: