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THE word faith is used to signify both what we believe and the act of believing.
Thus there is "the faith once delivered to the saints" and there is "justification by faith".
The virtue of faith is the habit of belief;
the object of that virtue is what we believe.
The theological virtue of faith is habitual belief in God.
The object is, whatever God has been pleased to reveal about Himself.
The content of that revelation is to be found in the Creeds and in Scripture; or rather, in the Creeds it is collected from
Scripture, for the Creeds are a summary of God's revelation of Himself to man.
The essential quality of faith is a readiness to believe whole-heartedly anything that God has said, for no other reason than that
God has said it.
The true believer asks only and doubts only whether God has in fact said this
or that.
"As, if I be told that God said, "there are three and one in heaven,"
I ask, who said it?
Is he credible, why?
If I find that all things satisfy my reason, I believe him saying that God said so; and then pistis or faith enters.
I believe the thing also, not because I can prove it directly, for I cannot, but I can prove it indirectly; testimony and
authority is my argument, and that is sufficient" (Jeremy Taylor, Ductor Dubitantium, I, 11. 22). In general we
believe that that is an authentic divine revelation which is contained explicitly in Scripture and which was propounded and
taught by the undivided Church. Our reason is that the Church exists to mediate to men the knowledge and the grace of God, and
that it is, therefore, improbable and inconsistent with the character of God as we have come to know Him, that He should allow
the whole Church to fall into error, or to persist in error over any length of time. What, therefore, the whole Church has taught,
and taught for a very long time, must have been revealed by God, and therefore ought to be believed. It ought to be believed
because to doubt is to doubt the veracity of God, since we accept, on the testimony and authority of the Church, that God is its
source.
Faith, then, is an act of the reason that,
satisfied with the genuineness of a statement,
accepts it on the tried reliability of its author.
Such an act involves an assent of the will.
The will assents, without any shadow of doubt, to a proposition,
on account of the authority of God Who has revealed it.
In the absence of any shadow of doubt, faith is like knowledge:
yet because there is no certain proof or demonstration, it is also like opinion.
We do not know that so-and-so is true, but we hold firmly to the belief that it is, not because of any proof, but because God says
so. It is an act of the intellect, which has been moved by the will to assent to a particular proposition. It is because an act of
the will is necessary in belief, that faith is a virtue and meritorious. For if assent to an article of belief were as immediate
and necessary as assent to the conclusion of a syllogism, faith would be the same as knowledge and would not be a proper object
of praise. But because the truth of an article of belief is not self-evident, but an act of the will is necessary to assent to it
wholeheartedly, the act of faith is seen to be deserving of great merit. Thus if the existence of God is held to be logically
demonstrable, or to be the object of an immediate and unquestionable intuition, there is no merit in belief in the bare
existence of God:
"The devils also believe and tremble" (James ii, 19).
But to believe something that God has revealed,
because God has revealed it,
is to exhibit the virtue of faith.
It is meritorious, since it can only result from the striving of the will towards God.
This raises the problem of the relation of grace and free will.
For on the one hand an act of the human will is required in order to believe what God has revealed.
Yet on the other hand the will is powerless without the prevenient act of God to move the will.
Not only is it necessary that God should in fact reveal Himself, in order that the intellect may be presented with a proposition
to which the will may move it to assent: it is also necessary that the will be itself moved. And for this, as St. Thomas points
out (S.T. II, ii, quaest. vi, art. i), two things are required.
First, some external inducement,
for example a miracle or persuasive preaching,
and secondly, some internal inducement.
For the first by itself is not sufficient, since it often happens that of two men confronted with the same miracle, or listening
to the same sermon, one believes and the other does not. The necessary internal inducement is the act of God, Who moves the will
to assent. But the will is not compelled. Assent is not made necessary; it is made possible. By the grace of God all men can
believe.
Why, then, do some not believe?
Sometimes, of course, as in the case of the heathen, it is because the revelation of God
has not been propounded to the intellect as an object of belief. Sometimes it is because the will rebels from God, and from the
moral implications that would flow from assent to the articles of belief. Sometimes it is because the reason cannot accept the
proposed objects of belief. St. Thomas would not allow this last explanation. He refused to believe that the reason could ever
have any serious grounds for rejecting any of the articles of belief. Such an attitude could only arise either from a wilful
refusal to believe, or from a culpable dullness or blindness of intellect, or from a pride that will not submit its judgments to
the rule of faith (II, ii, quaest. v, art. 3, and quaest. x, art. i).
The same may perhaps be said of Hooker.
We find by experience that although faith be an
intellectual habit of the mind, and have her seat in the understanding, yet an evil moral disposition obstinately wedded to the
love of darkness dampeth the very light of heavenly illumination, and permitteth not the mind to see what doth shine before it.
Men are 'lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God'. Their assent to His saving truth is many times withheld from it, not that
the truth is too weak to persuade, but because the stream of corrupt affection carrieth them a clean contrary way.
(E.P. V, li, 2).
The cause of this reluctance to admit the possibility of a conscientious disbeliever lies in a determination to hold fast to the reasonableness of faith. "Faith is born of knowledge" (Augustine, De Trin. XIV, cap. i). There are certain things which we know for certain, and it is this underlying certain knowledge which makes it reasonable to believe the several articles of faith. St. Thomas calls this knowledge "the preambles of faith" (S.T. I, ii, quaest. ii, art. 2 ad i). It consists of the knowledge of the existence of God, which can be demonstratively proved (S. T. ibid.), and of the "infallible divine rule, the teaching of the Church which proceeds from the first truth, manifested in the Scriptures" (S.T. II, ii, quaest. v, art. 3). Thus we know that God is, and we know that He has revealed this or that doctrine. Therefore to believe that doctrine is essentially reasonable; to disbelieve it is perverse and wilful blindness. In this way St. Thomas asserts that faith is reasonable, without denying that it is also voluntary and therefore meritorious. For the doctrine that it is thus reasonable to believe, is not itself proven. All that we know is that God has spoken it; therefore we are to believe it. Faith is born of knowledge. Hooker also presupposes a similar underlying certainty to faith. It is probable that to him the existence of God was an immediate intuition, an inner "light of heavenly illumination". To this he added the certain revelation of Scripture whereby we know the content of the divine revelation. "If the foundation of faith do impart the general ground whereupon we rest when we do believe, the writings of the Evangelists and the Apostles are the foundation of Christian faith" (Sermon II, 15).
Few of us who are not Roman Catholics would be prepared to assert that the existence of God
can be thus demonstratively proved, or that it is self-evident that the teaching of the Church provides an infallible rule of
revelation. We should not so defend the reasonableness of faith as to convict all unbelievers of irrationality and moral
obliquity. On the contrary, we should admit the honesty of the unbeliever, and stress that quality in faith that holds firmly to a
conviction in spite of a degree of evidence against it.
That God exists is either itself an object of belief or it is a relatively certain but not conclusively demonstrated inference.
For the preambles of faith, the knowledge upon which our faith is grounded, do not differ very much from any other kind of
knowledge.
Scientific enquiry, for example, is seen more and more to rest first upon a conviction, not provable against the sceptic, that the
universe is reasonable, and secondly, upon a number of relative certainties and hypotheses. We should not maintain that faith is
so reasonable that no honest man can doubt. We should maintain that faith is so reasonable that no man may be convicted of folly
for the mere fact that he believes.
Faith is not credulity.
If we admit the right and duty of a man to refuse assent to the articles of belief if he finds them to be irrational - for to
believe without good reasons or on insuffi?cient reasons would be to treat serious things in a spirit of levity - we also
maintain that those who assent have solid grounds for doing so. Faith is not based exclusively on feeling or temperament. There
are intellectual grounds that render faith at the least not unreasonable. It is true that there always remain strong arguments on
the other side. For instance, the providence and the love of God are not easily reconciled with many of the facts of our
experience. And alternative theories to that of creation are not without their merits. Yet it can also be said of any theory of
the universe which denies the existence of God that it is not more certain or more reasonable than the view of faith.
Similarly, assent is not to be given to the
specific articles of the faith light-heartedly.
We believe them on the reasonable ground that the Church as part of the divine revelation teaches them, and that the Church
does not err in matters of faith.
Her witness is sufficient guarantee.
Nevertheless it is a duty to try so far as we may to understand the wholeness and inter-relatedness of the faith, and to be sure
in respect of any doctrine propounded for our belief, not that it is proven true or that we fully understand it, but that it is
really taught by the Church.
For faith is not a credulous acceptance of anything.
But if we find a particular article to be wholly incompatible with the rest of what we believe about God, what then?
Here is the conflict between "private judgement" and "authority".
The essence of faith is assent to the Word of God through the Church, the interpreter of His self-revelation. The utmost deference is due to the Church's "magisterium". She teaches with authority. To follow one's own judgment against the expressed and defined teaching of the Church is heresy. Of that we shall have more to say shortly. Here it is sufficient to note the saying of Augustine: "If you believe what you like in the Gospel and reject what you like, it is not the Gospel you believe but yourselves" (Qui in Evangelic quod vultis creditis, quod vultis non creditis, vobis potius quam Evangelic creditis: Cont. Faustum, XVII, 7). The object of faith is the divine revelation as a whole, not merely those parts of it which are congenial or which we think we understand. On the other hand, faith is reasonable and cannot assent to propositions, as being authentic parts of the divine revelation, which are opposed to and incompatible with the character of God as we know Him; cannot assent, that is, to alleged revelations which are not only not understood, but cannot be in any way fitted into the integrated whole of revelation.
Within the Christian life there is always the tension between that consecration of the reason which searches for truth in a clearer understanding of the mysteries of God, which tries to purge the revealed doctrine of all merely human and transient associations, and which seeks to pass through the human messenger to the divine message; that on the one hand. And on the other, that consecration of reason that consists in the submission of the human understanding to the divine wisdom, and sees its noblest activity in the humble acceptance of the content of revelation for no other reason than that it is revealed. The activity of faith lies within this tension. If regard were had only to the first pole, the result is one-sided and fragmentary. Much truth is discarded for lack of understanding or for reasons of temperament. For example, to one man justification by faith is welcomed and embraced as a divine revelation, so much so that justification by works is perforce wholly discarded; to another the Incarnation is congenial, the Atonement abhorrent and rejected. If regard be had only to the second pole, the result is credulity, superstition and error. Faith lives in the tension between the two. "Because the Christian loves God, he desires to believe about Him all the good that can be believed. He searches for more and yet more 'truths' to be embraced by faith, and though his respect for reason as a God-given quality makes him apply the test of reason to whatever may be propounded to him as being 'of faith', he adopts this precaution simply because he aims at finding a creed worthy in all respects of the God of whom it is asserted" (Kirk, Ignorance, Faith and Conformity, p. 119).
Faith in God and His self-revelation is thus reasonable, in
that it rests upon good grounds.
But neither these grounds nor the revelation itself are proved.
They are open to doubt and times of misgiving.
It is this that gives to faith its meritorious quality.
It demands a movement of the will, which issues from trust in God as a Person.
Faith, though based on reason, transcends reason and involves an act of will and aspiration.
Faith clings to God, in spite of doubt and failure to understand.
This is the aspect of faith that emerges most clearly from even a casual study of the Bible.
It is an heroic fidelity to a conviction which is dearer than life itself.
It is a firm tenacity that holds on to the belief in God's goodness and truth in the face of disappointment, suffering and
bewilderment. The true heroism of faith is manifested in those times when recognition of the reasonableness of its grounds is
hard to recapture in the face of present bitter experiences. It holds on in spite of growing clouds of doubt and uncertainty. And
this because it is "formed with love"; it loves God, and knows that life without God has no sweetness. The tenacity with
which we cling to faith in times of doubt is evidence at once of the attractive power of God and of our desire for Him. Doubt,
even dereliction, which assails us all from time to time, is itself in some degree evidence of faith. For if there were no doubt
possible, we should be dealing not with faith but with knowledge. And faith, full faith and firm tenacity, is not born in a day.
It is an infused virtue, a gift of God: it grows with difficulty.
Doubt, then,
from one point of view, is but the other side of faith.
And passing waves of doubt, or at least the possibility of them, are to be expected by mortal men who do not yet enjoy the fulness
of the beatific vision.
Doubt is not itself a sin.
It becomes sinful when it is allowed to pass over into infidelity, just as it is a sin to yield to any other temptation. And it is
then the most serious of all sins. For when belief in God is gone, the last connection of the soul with God is broken, and all
possibility of the soul's growth towards Heaven is for so long destroyed. Doubt, then, like war, is a dangerous evil to be
dreaded; but it may also be welcomed as a testing at once of faith and love. For he who holds on to faith in spite of doubt, holds
on because he wills to cleave to God. By this he displays the measure of his trust in God, and his love for God is strengthened.
God is truly worshipped and glorified when in the midst of dark doubt a man will not leave or reject the mysterious power of God
that he dimly recognizes, in spite of doubt, to be at work within him. In such periods of doubt, it may comfort a man to go over
again the arguments for faith - its reasonableness. But what is infinitely better is that he remind himself continually that
faith is a virtue and a gift from God. It is to be prayed for, grasped and striven after. It is vain to think that doubt is in
itself sinful. It is vain to think that by reason alone doubt may be permanently dispelled.
It is very profitable to pray for faith,
and by acts of the will to remove obstacles to faith.
It is in this connection that external acts of faith are
important.
Of the internal act of faith, or of faith itself, theologians have always held that it is necessary to salvation, as means to an
end - ex necessitate medii, as the Schoolmen have it. And few of us would be concerned to deny this. It is difficult to
see how any soul may be prepared for the joys of full communion with God in Heaven that has not learnt to trust in Him unseen. It
is true that theologians have differed as to the precise degree of faith that is necessary in this life, and as to how explicit it
need be. They have discussed, for example, whether it is necessary to have an explicit belief in the Trinity or the Incarnation
(e.g. St. Thomas, S.T. II, n, quaest. ii, arts. 7 and 8). But whatever the answers to such questions may be, we should all
assert that some faith is necessary for the development of spiritual powers, even for the maintenance of spiritual life. If it
were not so, why should not men have been created, like the angels, in immediate possession of the beatific vision? What need is
there for this earthly life, if it is not that here the soul may learn to live by faith, and by growth in faith become fitted for
the higher life of vision? Moreover, if faith be not strictly necessary for the attainment of eternal life, it is hard to explain
the note of urgency which is so loudly sounded in the Bible. We may take it as certain that faith is necessary if man is to
achieve his eternal destiny.
For by faith, and by faith only, is he first brought into living contact with God.
Or, in the language of St. Paul, by faith is he justified.
But a man may believe and yet never give formal expression to his belief.
Is it equally necessary that faith be externally manifested?
This is not to say, should faith issue in works; that it cannot fail to do if it be genuine.
The question is whether a public confession of faith is necessary, and whether specific acts of faith are required. We might do
well to consider first the question "Is a man bound always to manifest his faith?" To this St. Thomas replies (II, 11,
quaest iii, art. 2) that it is a positive command of God that a man should confess his faith. For it is written in Scripture,
"With the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation" (Romans x, 12).
But this command, though universally obligatory, does not oblige on all occasions (non obligat ad semper, etsi semper obliget). That is, although every man is bound on some occasion or occasions to confess his faith, he is not bound to do so on every
occasion. He is only bound to do so when otherwise an injury would be done either to God or his neighbours. Thus it would not be
right to deny one's faith in answer to a direct question, for that would be a direct dishonour to God. Neither would it be right
if the denial led to a loss of faith on the part of others.
The matter is illustrated by the traditional doctrine of what is lawful for a Christian in times of persecution, or whilst living in pagan surroundings. Here two principles seem to be generally recognized. On the one hand, it is wrong to be ashamed of one's faith or conceal it by denial; on the other hand, it is wrong to create a profitless disturbance, or to court martyrdom unnecessarily, or to expose the faith to ridicule. "Cast not your pearls before swine." A certain reticence in certain circumstances is right. A Christian may not publicly say that he is no Christian. Nor may he do any action that it is known that no Christian may lawfully do. For this is a denial by act. He might not, for example, offer incense to the emperor's bust, or even get a certificate that said that he had done so, though in fact he had not. In these days it would be wrong for a Christian to go into a church and keep his hat on, in order to show that he was not a Christian. On the other hand, a Christian may sometimes conceal the fact that he is a Christian. This he can do by omitting for a time certain actions, which, though normal for Christians, are not so continuously obligatory that their omission amounts to a declaration that he is not a Christian. For example, a Christian normally goes to church on Sundays; but if he does not go for a time, it does not prove that he is not a Christian. Such concealment is sometimes lawful, when open declaration would do no good to anyone. Unnecessary martyrdoms were as much discouraged as cowardly denials were condemned. It was not necessarily a very creditable thing to draw the attention of the magistrates to oneself by a voluntary and unsolicited confession. As Mr. T. S. Eliot has reminded us in Murder in the Cathedral, God makes martyrs; it is not right for men to minister to their own pride by seeking martyrdom. Christians, therefore, though they are required boldly to declare their faith if they are detected, may yet sometimes take steps to avoid detection. [E.g. St. Cyprian's flight from Carthage. Also canon 12 of St. Peter of Alexandria (Routh, Reliquiae Sacrae, iv, p. 39): "Those who gave money to avoid arrest or enquiry are not to be criticised. For they preferred to lose their property rather than jeopardize their souls." And canon 13: "Those who abandoned their property and ran away are not to be criticised, as though they were responsible for those arrested in their place. For at Ephesus, they arrested Caius and Aristarchus instead of Paul, and Paul yielded to his friends' entreaties not to enter the market-place."]
All this may be applied to the position of the modern Christian living in the hostile or indifferent atmosphere of a factory. He may not, in order to escape ridicule or hostility, explicitly and directly deny his faith. On the contrary, he is under an obligation to ensure that he is known to be a Christian, in order that he may have opportunities of instructing unbelievers in the faith, when they ask him. He must also endure ridicule bravely, because there may be weaker brethren present who will follow him if he appears ashamed of his faith, but who will be encouraged to confess their faith boldly if he is brave. At any time, therefore, it may be necessary for the Christian to confess his faith before an open attack, or in answer to an honest enquirer. But at other times it may be his duty, not indeed to deny, but to refrain from proclaiming his faith. When unbelievers only seek an occasion for mockery and blasphemy, it is not for the Christian to provide them such an occasion. Where an open profession of faith will have no other result than to provoke an attack, the Christian should be silent. In general, when the surroundings are hostile, the Christian should refrain from all ostentatious display of religion and parade of its symbols. He has to steer a middle course, between the steadfast loyalty to the faith, which redounds to the glory of God and brings others to enquire of him, and that unnecessary provocation which brings the faith into ridicule and leads others to blaspheme.
If, then, it is granted that it is not always necessary for us to make an outward profession of our faith, is it necessary that we sometimes make specific acts of faith? By a specific act of faith is meant an affirmation of belief made to God, whether publicly or privately. There can be no doubt that such acts are absolutely necessary. It is commonly held that such a profession of faith is required at the beginning of every Christian life, and when the meaning and implication of the faith is first grasped. So at Baptism the creed is recited, and at Confirmation the candidates publicly declare their assent to the articles of faith. And it is clear that throughout his life the Christian ought to make acts of faith towards God. For the most part this duty is sufficiently discharged through the regular performance of religious duties, since these presuppose and require faith. Yet special circumstances may demand a conscious and deliberate act of faith. For instance, in times of special temptation, or at the hour of death, or in preparation for the reception of a sacrament it is proper to recollect oneself and to elicit a formal act of faith. But in general it may be said that the devotional life is itself an act of faith. And therefore there is laid upon us all the duty of frequent and fervent prayer, meditation on Scripture and the hearing of sermons. For by these means we grow in faith, and faith is formed in love.
Every virtue has its opposed vice, and by a consideration of these vices further light is thrown upon the virtue itself. We shall consider first heresy and then blasphemy.
HERESY is a sin against the virtue of faith, since it consists in the denial of a divinely revealed truth.
The Catholic faith is a body of truth revealed by God and taught by His Church. Refusal to believe any one article of that faith
is the sin of heresy. But such refusal may spring from different roots and the heresy be accordingly either formal or material. It
is formal when a man refuses to believe a truth propounded to him although he knows that it is taught by the Church as divinely
revealed, and although he has no cogent reasons for holding that it is not so. Such a refusal is born of a stubborn intellectual
pride that unwarrantably and excessively exalts private judgment against the authority of the official teaching of the Church,
based on tradition and the witness of generations of saints and doctors. Heresy is not doubt. Doubt still wavers and hesitates
between denial and belief, while the will strives to assent in spite of obstacles present to reason. Heresy is a firm denial: a
conviction that that is false which the Church proclaims to have been revealed by God, and therefore to be true. In other words,
formal heresy is when a man does not believe because he does not want to believe. It is not that he finds it impossible to
believe because to his reason the proposition is absurdly grotesque and altogether inconsistent with everything else which he
knows and believes about God; it is not that there are counter-arguments which amount for him to moral certainty; it is that he
prefers not to make the mental readjustment which acceptance of this article would involve, that he prefers to maintain his own
reputation for originality and independence, that he prefers to exalt his own judgment over that of the whole Church, even though
his own judgment does not pronounce with certainty that the doctrine which he denies is false.
It may be that there have never been many such formal heretics. It may be that most of those who denied any article of the faith have done so in complete sincerity after much anguish and hesitation, in the final conviction that the article is false. If that is so, they have acted under invincible ignorance and are guilty not of formal but of material heresy. The same must be said of those who, having been brought up as members of an heretical sect, have never had the Catholic faith presented to them, nor had any occasion to call in question the peculiar tenets of their sect. They also are in material heresy only, through their invincible ignorance. But whenever heretical error and denial of the faith is due to wilful refusal to believe, there is formal heresy. Wherever there is laziness in enquiry, unreasonable obstinacy in rejection, where pride or self-interest is allowed to masquerade as conviction, there you have the sin of formal heresy.
The existence of heresy and heretical sects is disruptive of the unity of the Church, and involves the propagation of error. In every way it hinders the work of men's salvation. It is therefore incumbent on all men to work for the cessation of heresy. This involves the duty of persuading heretics, individually and corporately, that they are in error. To this end, the Church must herself carefully examine her presentation of the truth, that no occasion be left for those misunderstandings and misrepresentations of her teaching which were perhaps the cause of the development of the heretical error. To this end every effort must be made to understand the underlying causes of the heresy, and everything done, consistent with the integrity of the faith, to make easy the heretics' way of return.
On the other hand, there is the negative duty of doing nothing that will serve to
perpetuate the heresy. To neglect this duty is to fall into the sin of cooperation in heresy. The most obvious form of this is
participation in heretical public worship.
Such participation is sinful because
(1) it either is or has the appearance of being a denial of the true faith and an acceptance of the tenets of the heretical body.
(2) It either is or appears to be an approval of the heretical form of worship.
(3) In this way it confuses men's minds, with the suggestion that the heretical errors are either not errors at all or are about
matters of no importance.
(4) It exposes those who take part in heretical services to the danger of themselves falling into heresy. For these reasons it is
sinful for the laity to attend [Such attendance is, however, occasionally
allowable, provided there is adequate cause - e.g. residence abroad or official duties - and provided reasonable care is taken
to avoid giving "scandal" and there is no actual assent to heresy.], and afortiori more
sinful for the clergy to take a public part in the conduct of, heretical worship. It is sinful to act as a godparent at a
heretical baptism, for to do so involves an active participation in procuring an infant to be baptised in heresy, and also means
giving a promise that is incapable of fulfilment and perhaps never intended to be fulfilled. The godparents promise to see that
the child is brought up in the true faith of Christ. But so long as it is a member of an heretical sect, it cannot be.
It is sinful to allow, and afortiori to invite, heretics to take a public part in the services of the Church. Such action involves or implies a condonation of the heretical errors, since the heretics are treated as though they were not heretics at all and are given exactly the same privileges and standing as members of the Church. The same considerations apply to the admission of heretics to Communion. Such action condones the heresy and tends to its perpetuation as a matter of no great moment. It is of no avail to plead that most heretics are men of good will and guilty of material heresy only, and that therefore it is right to treat them as Christian brothers. However personally blameless, they hold and they teach error; they lead others into error, to the great danger of their souls. Their exclusion from an active part in the Church's worship is not a condemnation of their morals but of their errors. And the Church's condemnation of those errors must be marked and consistent, lest others should fall into them, innocently believing that the Church approves of them. Nor is it possible to plead that the particular errors of some heretics are concerned with matters at the circumference of the Christian faith, and not with anything central and fundamental. The Christian faith is one and integrated. And within that integrated body of doctrine all is true or all is false. The Church only condemns as heresy that which denies a part of that integrated whole. What is denied outside that whole is not heresy, but a lawful, even if minority, opinion. If the Church has condemned an opinion as heretical, it means that she holds it to be a denial of a part of the essential integrated Christian doctrine. It is not possible for anyone, lay or clerical, to assert that the opinion in question is no such part, without himself falling into heresy, in however good faith. Nor can it be denied, in fact, that the heretical opinions which prevail to-day concern matters of vital importance to the Christian faith - the Deity of Christ, the nature of man's justification, the meaning and efficacy of the sacraments, the nature of the Church, these are all cardinal to man's salvation in Christ. Actions, however well-intentioned, which by their very nature must tend to obscure the importance of doctrinal error and to cast doubt on the clarity and authority of the Church's teaching, actions which must seem to assert that contrary opinions are equally tenable and true, can only serve to perplex men's minds, induce a paralysing relativism and perpetuate those very disputes, errors and divisions which all desire to see ended.
Nevertheless, it is permitted by authority in the Church of England for joint services of public worship to be held or for ministers of Nonconformist bodies to take part in services in church on certain specified occasions and under specified conditions, The general principles underlying such permission are that the actions shall be such as conduce to the furtherance of reunion, and that by their infrequency and the special nature of their occasions the danger arising from their appearance of condoning error shall be reduced to a minimum. But it is doubtful, even so, whether the permissions are wise, and really serve the end of reunion and of Christian charity that is given as their justification. In any case, it should never be forgotten that the permissions are strictly limited, and hedged round with conditions deliberately designed to guard against the normal results of cooperation in heresy. The permissions cannot rightly be taken as precedent or justification for unauthorised cooperation.
BLASPHEMY may be defined as insulting speech against God, though speech must be taken in its broadest sense of a
manifestation of emotion or thought by word or deed.
Blasphemy may be either direct or indirect.
It is direct when there is an explicit ascription to God of bad qualities,
or an explicit denial of good ones.
"God is an unjust tyrant" or "God may be just, but He is not loving".
It is indirect when it says what is true, but says it mockingly or
frivolously.
"Vicisti, Galilaee." This is, of course, much the commoner form, for under it are included all frivolous
quotations of Scripture and all "blasphemous bad language". It is the taking God's name in vain. Blasphemy is a sin
directly opposed to faith, because either it seriously denies what faith affirms or it involves treating God with contempt. No man
who has faith in God as the Almighty Creator, the Just Judge and the Loving Father, can possibly feel contempt towards Him. Even
the devils who believe, tremble; they do not laugh. And man who believes, may revolt from or curse God, but he cannot despise Him
or treat Him lightly. A contemptuous or frivolous attitude argues an absence of belief. The gravity of this sin depends on the
degree of meaning and sincerity with which the words or acts are invested. More often than not, perhaps, blasphemy is habitual.
The habit, so long as it is persisted in, is gravely sinful. But if the habit has been denounced and a sincere effort made to
overcome it, an involuntary relapse does not involve sin. Those who have contracted the habit of blasphemy do not easily shake it
off. They are not to be severely reproached when they inadvertently use bad language. They should be exhorted to use a short
ejaculatory prayer on each occasion as an act of amendment, and to fortify themselves against a recurrence of the habit by regular
devout meditation. Those who constantly use the name of Christ in the course of their ordinary speech will find it less easy to do
so if they set apart regular times for thinking devoutly about His life and passion.
Of all forms of blasphemy the most serious is
blasphemy against the Holy Spirit,
of which our Lord said that it is forgiven neither in this world nor the next.
When the nature of this blasphemy is understood, it will be clear how directly it strikes at faith and how properly, therefore, it
is called blasphemy.
St. Thomas (II, 11, quaest. xiv, art. i) says that in his day there were three views current about the sin of blasphemy against
the Holy Spirit.
The oldest view held that what is meant is a literal spoken blasphemy either
against the Trinity as a whole or against the Holy Spirit in particular.
Thus the Jews uttered a blasphemy against the Son of Man when they spoke of our Lord's human nature, that He was a gluttonous man
and a winebibber. They blasphemed against the Holy Spirit when they said of His divine nature that He cast out devils by
Beelzebub.
The difficulty about this view is that it offers no explanation why this sin alone
should be unforgivable.
To meet this objection, the second view, held by St. Augustine, maintained that blasphemy against the Holy Spirit means final impenitence, a persistence till death in mortal sin. This explains clearly enough why the sin is unforgivable, but leaves it obscure why precisely it should be called blasphemy. The upholders of the view try to meet this difficulty by arguing that impenitence is essentially a blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the love of the Father and the Son. It is therefore through the Holy Spirit that forgiveness of sins is effected. By impenitence to reject that forgiveness, is to reject and so to blaspheme against the Holy Spirit. This is, perhaps, not very convincing, and St. Thomas prefers the third view, which is a refinement and elaboration of the second.
This view holds that blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is not impenitence simply, but that persistence which arises from a perverse refusal to make any use of the divine aid of grace against temptation. This refusal is a sin directly and specifically against the Third Person of the Trinity. Ordinary sins of weakness, the yielding, for example, to gusts of passion, are sins against the Father. For the special quality of the Father is omnipotence. Sins committed in ignorance are sins against the Son. For the Son is Wisdom. Deliberate and persistent sin is sin against the Spirit, for the Spirit is goodness and sanctification. It is blasphemy against the Holy Spirit when it contemptuously or angrily rejects the assistance against temptation that the Spirit offers.
St. Thomas describes the various kinds of aids that are available to men,
and the different forms that this sin of blasphemy against the Holy Spirit may take in rejecting them.
In the first place, fear is a powerful deterrent and counter-weight to the seductive attraction of sin. As a man reflects
seriously on the justice and holiness of God, which must issue in punishment of sin, he is filled with fear and thus can more
easily resist temptation. But if he refuses to take the thought of the divine judgment seriously, he deprives himself of the
assistance of fear. This is presumption, and is blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, Who teaches proper reverence and godly fear.
Again, hope of God's mercy and His readiness to forgive is an incentive to persevere, and protects men from the despair of
improvement which follows constant failure. If a man deliberately refuses to meditate on the divine promises of forgiveness
contained in Scripture, but allows himself to fall into despair and so persist in his sin, he blasphemes against the Holy Spirit,
Who teaches godly fear and hope.
Thirdly, the truths of religion when they are firmly grasped are a powerful aid against
temptation.
When we understand the nature of God and of man, and how our true happiness lies in obedience to God, the attractiveness of sin is
lessened.
But many men reject or will not consider the teaching of religion because of its moral implications.
They know that if they believed, they could no longer continue with an easy conscience in the pleasant sinful habits that they now
so much enjoy.
Therefore they wilfully remain unbelievers.
This sort of infidelity is a blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, Who seeks to enlighten our minds with the knowledge of truth.
Or again, men are fortified against temptation by the assisting grace of God.
Yet persistent sinners may hate the very thought that such grace is obtainable, and hate all reminders of its existence, such as
are provided by the presence among them of good people, or of the ministrations and preaching of the Church. St. Thomas calls this
sin "invidentia frdternae gratiae", and such irreligion is truly a blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, Who is
present in the activities of the Church and the lives of good men.
There are two further kinds of aid against temptation,
which arise from a consideration of the nature of sin itself.
When a man considers quietly the wrongness,
meanness and nastiness of what he does,
his desire to do it lessens.
And when he obstinately shuts out from his mind considerations of this sort,
he is guilty of a wilful impenitence,
which is also a blasphemy against the Holy Spirit.
An impenitence, not in the Augustinian sense noted above
of an actual and de facto persistence in the sin,
but in the sense of a wilful refusal to repent
and an obstinate determination
not to do or think anything
which might conceivably make one want to repent.
Lastly, a man may be strengthened against temptation
by reflecting on the transitory and inadequately satisfying benefits to be derived from his sin.
And when a man shuts his eyes to this truth and will not allow himself to dwell on it,
even though time and again it thrusts itself upon his consideration,
he is guilty of an obstinacy which blasphemes against the Holy Spirit.
These, then, are the aids against temptation provided by the
sanctifying Holy Spirit.
They arise from reflection on the divine judgment, on the divine assistance and on the nature of sin.
They are the good thoughts and desires that the Holy Spirit instills into our
minds.
Their deliberate rejection, therefore, their angry or obstinate or perverse refusal, is blasphemy against the Holy Spirit.
And this blasphemy takes these six forms -
presumption,
despair,
infidelity,
irreligion,
impenitence
and obstinacy.
Such is the explanation given by St. Thomas of the sin of blasphemy against the Holy
Spirit.
He proceeds to consider why it is unforgivable.
If, he says, we understand the sin in the Augustinian sense of final impenitence, it may be said to be unforgivable because it is
in fact not forgiven.
For a sin that is never given up can obviously not be forgiven.
But if we take it in this other sense of a sin of deliberate wickedness against the grace of the Holy Spirit, it is not so simple
as that. It may then be said to be unforgivable in two different ways; and that not because, merely, it is in fact not forgiven,
but because, considered in itself, it deserves not to be forgiven. And this, clearly, is more what we mean by saying that a sin is
unforgivable. In this sense, then, it is unforgivable either with regard to the punishment it merits or with regard to the guilt
it involves. As to the punishment, a sin of this kind, which is one of deliberate and continued wickedness in the face of, and
directly against, the sanctifying influence of the Holy Spirit, unlike a sin of mere weakness or of ignorance, has no sort of
excuse. This does not necessarily mean that God will not ever forgive it, but only that we can never bring forward any sort of a
shadow of an extenuation for it - it is, par excellence, the "sin with a high hand" - so that by its very nature
there is never the least reason or excuse why it should be forgiven. In this sense it is unforgivable. As regards the guilt, it is
unforgivable much in the same way as diseases are incurable. Certain diseases are incurable because they themselves destroy the
necessary conditions of recovery; as when they induce such an extreme physical weakness that life cannot subsist, or when they
destroy all appetite and create a revulsion against drinking even one's medicine. In this way blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is
unforgivable, because it involves, or rather consists of, a revulsion against those very aids of the Holy Spirit by which
forgiveness is made possible. This again is not to say that God does not or cannot forgive this sin. For God's almighty mercy can
and does miraculously cure and forgive even this obstinate and malicious wickedness. It means that in its nature blasphemy against
the Holy Spirit is unforgivable.
This paraphrase of St. Thomas's excursus on the unforgivable sin, and in particular of the six forms which he says it may take, is perhaps worthwhile in order to show that just as the theological virtues are superior to the moral, so sins directly against them are more deadly. The theological virtues are superior to the moral in that they bring us into a more direct and immediate contact with God, and lift our lives above the natural plane. Sins against theological virtues directly and immediately cut us off from God, and starve the religious life at its roots.