Ladisalus I appreciate your comments; however I am trying to understand what the Church teaches in this matter at hand? I agree that Charity kills mortal sin and there is No hope of heaven in hell. But does that mean by the Church teaching that one loses Faith such as a Catholic? For the question could be raised about those that never had the faith, do they believe or have faith? And what about the Demons in hell? Thanks a million!
The opinion of St. Thomas:
Article 2. Whether in the demons there is faith?Objection 1. It would seem that the
demons have no
faith. For
Augustine says (De Praedest. Sanct. v) that "
faith depends on the believer's will": and this is a
good will, since by it
man wishes to
believe in
God. Since then no deliberate will of the
demons is
good, as stated above (
I:64:2 ad 5), it seems that in the
demons there is no
faith.
Objection 2. Further,
faith is a
gift of
Divine grace, according to
Ephesians 2:8: "By
grace you are saved through
faith . . . for it is the
gift of
God." Now, according to a
gloss on
Hosea 3:1, "They look to strange gods, and love the husks of the grapes," the
demons lost their
gifts of
grace by
sinning. Therefore
faith did not remain in the
demons after they
sinned.
Objection 3. Further, unbelief would seem to be graver than other
sins, as
Augustine observes (Tract. lxxxix in Joan.) on
John 15:22, "If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have
sin: but now they have no excuse for their
sin." Now the
sin of unbelief is in some men. Consequently, if the
demons have
faith, some men would be guilty of a
sin graver than that of the
demons, which seems unreasonable. Therefore in the
demons there is no
faith.
On the contrary, It is written (
James 2:19): "The
devils . . .
believe and tremble."
I answer that, As stated above (
II-II:1:4;
II-II:2:1), the believer's
intellect assents to that which he
believes, not because he sees it either in itself, or by resolving it to first self-evident principles, but because his will commands his
intellect to assent. Now, that the
will moves the
intellect to assent, may be due to two
causes. First, through the
will being directed to the
good, and in this way, to
believe is a praiseworthy action. Secondly, because the
intellect is convinced that it ought to
believe what is said, though that conviction is not based on objective evidence. Thus if a
prophet, while preaching the word of
God, were to foretell something, and were to give a sign, by raising a dead
person to life, the
intellect of a witness would be convinced so as to recognize clearly that
God, Who lieth not, was speaking, although the thing itself foretold would not be evident in itself, and consequently the
essence of
faith would not be removed.
Accordingly we must say that
faith is commended in the first sense in the faithful of Christ: and in this way
faith is not in the
demons, but only in the second way, for they see many evident signs, whereby they recognize that the teaching of the
Church is from
God, although they do not see the things themselves that the
Church teaches, for instance that there are three Persons in
God, and so forth.
Reply to Objection 1. The
demons are, in a way, compelled to
believe, by the evidence of signs, and so their will deserves no praise for their
belief.
Reply to Objection 2. Faith, which is a
gift of
grace, inclines
man to
believe, by giving him a certain affection for the
good, even when that
faith is lifeless. Consequently the
faith which the
demons have, is not a
gift of
grace. Rather are they compelled to
believe through their
natural intellectual acuмen.
Reply to Objection 3. The very fact that the signs of
faith are so evident, that the
demons are compelled to
believe, is displeasing to them, so that their
malice is by no means diminished by their
belief.
https://www.newadvent.org/summa/3005.htm
Topic: A Catholic Dies in Mortal sin? (Read 761 times)