Philosophy the Handmaid of Theology · §30

Whether faith is always the evidence of things not seen

Article III. Whether faith is always the evidence of things not seen.

1. The previous article showed that every faith — divine or human — is inevident assent. Hence the Apostle in Hebrews 11:1 calls faith the evidence of things not seen. The same is confirmed by 1 Corinthians 13:12 (we now see through a glass, in an enigma) and by the Apostle's teaching that faith will cease and be evacuated in the homeland — not perfected, as charity is — because obscurity and inevidence belong to faith's very notion and essence. So Augustine on John 14 ("I go to prepare a place for you"): let the Lord go that he may prepare a place; go that he may be seen, be hidden that he may be believed. Gregory likewise: appearances have not faith but recognition; what cannot be seen is truly said to be believed.

2. To make this plainer I will solve arguments that put even seen or known things under faith's object. First, the Lord's word in John 14: I have told you before it comes to pass, that when it is come to pass you may believe — as if faith were sometimes of things known by experience and so seen.

3. Next John 20: Thomas said, unless I see I will not believe (Christ risen); the Lord said to him already believing, because you have seen me, Thomas, you have believed.

4. Third: the other Apostles, the Virgin Mary, and many faithful believed what they saw — Christ as man, suffered, dead, buried, risen, ascended, and much else in the articles of faith. So 1 John: what we have heard, seen with our eyes, looked upon, and handled of the word of life, we announce to you.

5. Fourth: a philosopher who knows by demonstration that one God is principle and cause of all can, becoming a Christian from a pagan, receive faith of the same proposition while the prior cognition remains — and so have faith and science together, faith having for object things evidently known or seen.

6. To remove these arguments I first set foundations, then confute Fonseca, Estius, and others on the supposed repugnance of faith and science. First: "faith" or "to believe" is often taken in Scripture and among approved authors for assenting in any way that something is true — as when one "believes his eyes," or dialecticians say an argument "makes faith."

7. Second: St Thomas and the other Apostles and faithful saw one thing and believed another — a man seen, God believed. Augustine: they beheld a living man whom they had seen dying, and believed God hidden in the flesh; a man appeared among men, offering man to those who see, keeping God for those who believe.

8. Third: faith is called inevident assent and the evidence of things not seen — not because the things believed are altogether unseen, but because insofar as they are believed they lack evidence from that on account of which they are believed. Science's foundation (the middle of demonstration) convinces by the thing's evidence, opening causes; faith's foundation (God's authority) convinces by its certainty and infallibility, not by the evidence of the thing assented to. Faith's office is not to make obscure things clear, but to make the intellect yield to the speaker's authority. So things believed, as believed, are inevident (see Pareus; Field). Yet they may be evident in another respect — to sense or reason. One proposition can be necessary as a demonstration's conclusion and contingent as a probable syllogism's; so certain articles of faith have clarity insofar as the Apostles perceived them by sense or we demonstrate them by reason, but insofar as they are believed because of God's testifying authority they lack that evidence and are rightly called things not seen.

Latin

ART. III. An fides semper sit elenchos pragmaton ou blepomenon. 1. Ostensum est superiori articulo, fidem omnem, sive sit divina, sive humana, esse assensum inevidentem; & ob id Apostolum 11. ad Hebraeos, vers.1. asserere fidem esse elenchon pragmaton ou blepomenon; idem etiam confirmari potest ex 1 Corinth. cap.13. vers.12. ubi Apostolus asserit, nos nunc videre per speculum, & in enigmate. Item ex doctrina ejusdem Apostoli, de cessatione & evacuatione fidei, quae futura est in patria; ideo enim fides evacuari dicitur, & non perfici, sicut charitas, quia imperfectionem, nimirum obscuritatem & inevidentiam, in sui ratione & essentia involvit: quare Augustinus in illud Johannis 14. vado parare vobis locum, egregie dicit, eat DOMINUS, ut paret locum; eat, ut videatur, lateat, ut credatur. Similiter docet Gregorius, Hom. 16. in Evang. & lib. Dial. cap.5. apparentia (inquit) non habent fidem, sed agnitionem: & iterum: hoc veraciter dicitur credi, quod non valet videri. 2. Ut autem hoc planius evadat, afferami & solvam ea argumenta, quae probant ea etiam quae videntur vel sciuntur, sub fidei objecto comprehendi: quale imprimis est illud DOMINI ad discipulos, Johanne 14. dixi vobis priusquam fiat, ut cum factum fuerit, credatis: hinc enim colligitur, fidem esse aliquando rerum per experientiam cognitarum, atque adeo visarum. 3. Deinde Johan.20. cum dixisset Thomas Apostolus, nisi videro, non credam; CHRISTUM videlicet redivivum; dixit ei DOMINUS jam credenti, quia vidisti me Thoma, credidisti. 4. Tertio; caeteri quoque Apostoli & Virgo Maria, multique alii fideles, quod viderunt hoc crediderunt; CHRISTUM videlicet hominem, passum, mortuum, sepultum, a mortuis resurgentem, & in coelos ascendentem, et alia multa quae ipsis fidei articulis expressa sunt: unde Joh. Epist.1. ait, quod audivimus, quod vidimus oculis nostris, quod perspeximus, & manus nostrae contrectaverunt, de verbo vitae annuntiamus vobis. 5. Quarto: Philosophus aliquis sciens per Demonstrationem, unum DEUM esse omnium rerum principium & causam, potest ejusdem propositionis accipere fidem, manente priori cognitione; si videlicet e Pagano fiat Christianus: is ergo simul habebit fidem & scientiam, ejusque fides pro objecto habebit res evidenter scitas seu visas. 6. Ut haec argumenta tollantur, primo ponam aliquot fundamenta, ex quibus horum argumentorum solutiones colligi possunt; deinde Fonsecae, Estii, & aliorum pravam doctrinam de repugnantia fidei & scientiae confutabo. Primum fundamentum sit hoc: Fides seu to credere saepenumero in Scriptura, & apud probatos Authores generaliter accipitur, pro eo quod est quovis modo assentiri & judicare aliquid verum esse: sic enim dicitur aliquis oculis suis credere, & apud Dialecticos qualecunque argumentum fidem facere dicitur. 7. Secundum fundamentum est: S. Thomam, aliosque Apostolos & fideles, aliud vidisse, aliud credidisse: hominem enim viderunt, & DEUM crediderunt: h.e. ut ait Augustinus; Cernebant hominem viventem quem viderant morientem, & credebant DEUM in carne latentem; & alibi, apparuit inter homines homo, offerens HOMINEM videntibus, DEUM servans credentibus. 8. Tertium fundamentum: fides dicitur assensus inevidens; item dicitur esse elenchos pragmaton ou blepomenon, non quod ea quae creduntur omnino inevidentia sint, & nullo modo videantur; sed quod quatenus creduntur, inevidentia sint, seu quod non habeant evidentiam ab eo propter quod creduntur. In hoc enim differt fides a scientia, quod fundamentum quo nititur scientia (h.e. medium demonstrationis) per evidentiam rei intellectum convincat, causas ejus aperiendo; fundamentum vero quo nititur fides (videlicet DEI authoritas) intellectum convincat, non per evidentiam rei cui assentimur, sed per certitudinem suam & infallibilitatem. Cum igitur munus fidei, non sit efficere ut res obscurae fiant perspicuae, sed efficere ut intellectus cedat authoritati dicentis, & sic assentiatur; manifestum est ea quae creduntur quatenus creduntur esse inevidentia, seu non habere evidentiam a fundamento suo propter quod creduntur: vide D. Pareum de justificatione, lib. 2. cap.5. & D. Richardum Field, de Eccl. lib.4. cap.8. Caeterum hoc non impedit, quo minus ea quae creduntur alia ratione evidentia sint, & ex se manifesta vel sensibus externis vel rationi: sicut enim una & eadem propositio, quatenus est conclusio demonstrationis judicatur esse necessaria, & non posse aliter se habere; quatenus vero est conclusio probabilis syllogismi, judicatur ab eodem homine contingens, & posse aliter se habere: ita etiam articuli quidam fidei, quatenus ab Apostolis sensu percipiebantur, aut a nobis ratione manifesta demonstrantur, evidentiam habent & claritatem; quatenus vero creduntur propter DEI testantis authoritatem, evidentiam illam non habent, & ob id recte dicuntur pragmata ou blepomena.

About this text

Robert Baron — Philosophia theologiae ancillans from the 1658 Oxford Latin. Exercitatio Prima Art. I-XII On Being and Essence; Exercitatio Secunda Art. I-XV On the origin of the soul and the propagation of sin. Later Exercitationes / remainder of 213 pp remain.

English follows locked 1658 Oxford Latin. Prima Art. I-XII from IA PDF leaves ~15-53. Secunda Art. I-XV from PDF leaves 56-107 / printed pp.54-105 (tess+pdftotext+DjVu). No modern English copied. Exercitatio Tertia+ remain.

Catalogue & scope

Wing B887. IA bim_early-english-books-1641-1700_philosophia-theologi-an_baron-robert_1658. Exercitatio Prima Art. I-XII; Exercitatio Secunda Art. I-XV (De origine animae & propagatione peccati). Not whole Philosophia (213 pp). Exercitatio Tertia+ remain.

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