142
By his Revelation, "the invisible God, from the fullness of his love,
addresses men as his friends, and moves among them, in order to invite and
receive them into his own company."1 The adequate response to this
invitation is faith.
143
By faith, a man completely submits his intellect and his will to God.2 ( ) With his whole being man gives his assent to God the revealer. Sacred Scripture calls
this human response to God, the author of revelation, "the obedience of
faith".3
ARTICLE 1: I
BELIEVE
I.
The Obedience of Faith
144
To obey (from the Latin ob-audire, to "hear or listen to") in faith
is to submit freely to the word that has been heard because its truth is
guaranteed by God, who is Truth itself. Abraham is the model of such obedience
offered us by Sacred Scripture. the Virgin Mary is its most perfect embodiment.
Abraham
- "father of all who believe"
145
The Letter to the Hebrews, in its great eulogy of the faith of Israel's
ancestors lays special emphasis on Abraham's faith: "By faith, Abraham
obeyed when he was called to go out to a place which he was to receive as an
inheritance; and he went out, not knowing where he was to go."4 By faith,
he lived as a stranger and pilgrim in the promised land.5 By faith, Sarah was
given to conceive the son of the promise. and by faith, Abraham offered his only
son in sacrifice.6
146
Abraham thus fulfills the definition of faith in Hebrews 11:1: "Faith is
the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen":7
"Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness."8
Because he was "strong in his faith", Abraham became the "father
of all who believe".9
147
The Old Testament is rich in witnesses to this faith. the Letter to the Hebrews
proclaims its eulogy of the exemplary faith of the ancestors who "received
divine approval".10 Yet "God had foreseen something better for
us": the grace of believing in his Son Jesus, "the pioneer and
perfecter of our faith".11
Mary
- "Blessed is she who believed"
148
The Virgin Mary most perfectly embodies the obedience of faith. By faith Mary
welcomes the tidings and promise brought by the angel Gabriel, believing that
"with God, nothing will be impossible" and so giving her assent:
"Behold I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be [done] to me according to
your word."12 Elizabeth greeted her: "Blessed is she who believed
that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the
Lord."13 It is for this faith that all generations have called Mary
blessed.14
149
Throughout her life and until her last ordeal15 when Jesus her son died on the
cross, Mary's faith never wavered. She never ceased to believe in the
fulfillment of God's word. and so the Church venerates in Mary the purest
realization of faith.
II.
"I Know Whom I Have Believed"16
To
believe in God alone
150
Faith is, first of all, a personal adherence of man to God. At the same time, and
inseparably, it is a free assent to the whole truth that God has revealed. As
personal adherence to God and assent to his truth, Christian faith differs from
our faith in any human person. It is right and just to entrust oneself wholly
to God and to believe absolutely what he says. It would be futile and false to
place such faith in a creature.17
To
believe in Jesus Christ, the Son of God
151
For a Christian, believing in God cannot be separated from believing in the One
he sent, his "beloved Son", in whom the Father is "well
pleased"; God tells us to listen to him.18 The Lord himself said to his
disciples: "Believe in God, believe also in me."19 We can believe in
Jesus Christ because he is himself, God, the Word made flesh: "No one has
ever seen God; the only Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he has made him
known."20 Because he "has seen the Father", Jesus Christ is the
only one who knows him and can reveal him.21
To
believe in the Holy Spirit
152
One cannot believe in Jesus Christ without sharing in his Spirit. It is the
Holy Spirit who reveals to men who Jesus is. For "no one can say
"Jesus is Lord", except by the Holy Spirit",22 who
"searches everything, even the depths of God. . No one comprehends the
thoughts of God, except the Spirit of God."23 Only God knows God
completely: we believe in the Holy Spirit because he is God.
The
Church never ceases to proclaim her faith in one only God: Father, Son and Holy
Spirit.
III.
The Characteristics of Faith
Faith
is a grace
153
When St. Peter confessed that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God,
Jesus declared to him that this revelation did not come "from flesh and
blood", but from "my Father who is in heaven".24 Faith is a gift
of God, a supernatural virtue infused by him. "Before this faith can be
exercised, man must have the grace of God to move and assist him; he must have
the interior helps of the Holy Spirit, who moves the heart and converts it to
God, who opens the eyes of the mind and 'makes it easy for all to accept and
believe the truth.'"25
Faith
is a human act
154
Believing is possible only by grace and the interior helps of the Holy Spirit.
But it is no less true that believing is an authentically human act. Trusting
in God and cleaving to the truths he has revealed is contrary neither to human
freedom nor to human reason. Even in human relations, it is not contrary to our
dignity to believe what other persons tell us about themselves and their
intentions, or to trust their promises (for example, when a man and a woman
marry) to share a communion of life with one another. If this is so, still less
is it contrary to our dignity to "yield by faith the full submission of...
intellect and will to God who reveals",26 and to share in an interior
communion with him.
155
In faith, the human intellect and will co-operate with divine grace:
"Believing is an act of the intellect assenting to the divine truth by
command of the will be moved by God through grace."27
Faith
and understanding
156
What moves us to believe is not the fact that revealed truths appear as true
and intelligible in the light of our natural reason: we believe "because
of the authority of God himself who reveals them, who can neither deceive nor
be deceived".28 So "that the submission of our faith might nevertheless
be in accordance with reason, God willed that external proofs of his Revelation
should be joined to the internal help of the Holy Spirit."29 Thus the
miracles of Christ and the saints, prophecies, the Church's growth and
holiness, and her fruitfulness and stability "are the most certain signs
of divine Revelation, adapted to the intelligence of all"; they are
"motives of credibility" (motiva credibilitatis), which show that the
assent of faith is "by no means a blind impulse of the mind".30
157
Faith is certain. It is more certain than all human knowledge because it is
founded on the very word of God who cannot lie. To be sure, revealed truths can
seem obscure to human reason and experience, but "the certainty that the
divine light gives is greater than that which the light of natural reason
gives."31 "Ten thousand difficulties do not make one doubt."32
158
"Faith seeks understanding":33 it is intrinsic to faith that a
believer desires to know better the One in whom he has put his faith, and to
understand better what He has revealed; a more penetrating knowledge will, in turn, call forth a greater faith, increasingly set afire by love. the grace of
faith opens "the eyes of your hearts"34 to a lively understanding of
the contents of Revelation: that is, of the totality of God's plan and the
mysteries of faith, of their connection with each other and with Christ, the
center of the revealed mystery. "The same Holy Spirit constantly perfects
faith by his gifts, so that Revelation may be more and more profoundly
understood."35 In the words of St. Augustine, "I believe, in order to
understand; and I understand, the better to believe."36
159
Faith and science: "Though faith is above reason, there can never be any
real discrepancy between faith and reason. Since the same God who reveals
mysteries and infuses faith has bestowed the light of reason on the human mind,
God cannot deny himself, nor can truth ever contradict truth."37
"Consequently, methodical research in all branches of knowledge, provided
it is carried out in a truly scientific manner and does not override moral
laws, can never conflict with the faith, because the things of the world and
the things of faith derive from the same God. the humble and persevering
investigator of the secrets of nature is being led, as it were, by the hand of
God in spite of himself, for it is God, the conserver of all things, who made
them what they are."38
The
freedom of faith
160
To be human, "man's response to God by faith must be free, and...
therefore nobody is to be forced to embrace the faith against his will. the act
of faith is of its very nature a free act."39 "God calls men to serve
him in spirit and in truth. Consequently they are bound to him in conscience,
but not coerced. . . This fact received its fullest manifestation in Christ
Jesus."40 Indeed, Christ invited people to faith and conversion, but never
coerced them. "For he bore witness to the truth but refused to use force
to impose it on those who spoke against it. His kingdom... grows by the love with
which Christ, lifted up on the cross, draws men to himself."41
The
necessity of faith
161
Believing in Jesus Christ and in the One who sent him for our salvation is
necessary for obtaining that salvation.42 "Since "without faith it is
impossible to please (God) " and to attain to the fellowship of his sons,
therefore without faith, no one has ever attained justification, nor will anyone
obtain eternal life 'But he who endures to the end.'"]
Perseverance
in faith
162
Faith is an entirely free gift that God makes to man. We can lose this
priceless gift, as St. Paul indicated to St. Timothy: "Wage the good
warfare, holding faith and a good conscience. By rejecting conscience, certain
persons have made shipwreck of their faith."44 To live, grow and persevere
in the faith until the end we must nourish it with the word of God; we must beg
the Lord to increase our faith;45 it must be "working through
charity," abounding in hope, and rooted in the faith of the Church.46
Faith
- the beginning of eternal life
163
Faith makes us taste in advance the light of the beatific vision, the goal of
our journey here below. Then we shall see God "face to face",
"as he is".47 So faith is already the beginning of eternal life:
When
we contemplate the blessings of faith even now as if gazing at a reflection in
a mirror, it is as if we already possessed the wonderful things which our faith
assures us we shall one day enjoy.48
164
Now, however, "we walk by faith, not by sight";49 we perceive God as
"in a mirror, dimly" and only "in part".50 Even though
enlightened by him in whom it believes, faith is often lived in darkness and
can be put to the test. the world we live in often seems very far from the one
promised us by faith. Our experiences of evil and suffering, injustice and
death, seem to contradict the Good News; they can shake our faith and become a
temptation against it.
165
It is then we must turn to the witnesses of faith: to Abraham, who "in
hope... believed against hope";51 to the Virgin Mary, who, in "her
pilgrimage of faith", walked into the "night of faith"52 in
sharing the darkness of her son's suffering and death, and to so many others:
"Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let
us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run
with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer
and perfecter of our faith."53
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