eludes the possibility of doubt. Paul says, "I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which 1 have committed unto him against that day." (2 Tim. i. 12.) As Job had said ages before, "I know that my Re- deemer liveth." The Apostle declares, Hebrews xi. 1, faith to be an woWac-is and &cyx05> than which no stronger terms could be selected to express assured conviction. The power, also, which the Bible attributes to faith as the controlling principle of life, as overcoming the world, subduing kingdoms, stopping the mouths of lions, quenching the violence of fire, turning to flight the armies of the aliens, is proof enough that it is no weak persuasion of the truth. That definition, therefore, which makes the characteristic of faith to be a measure of confidence greater than opinion, but less than knowledge, cannot be deemed satisfactory.
Faith not a Voluntary Conviction.
A second definition of faith, founded on its nature, is that which makes it " a voluntary conviction or persuasion of the truth." This is a very old view of the matter. According to
Theodoret,1 moris Icrriv ckovo-ios rrjs ^VXV^ OT>y«M"a0€o-is, i. e., " a vol- untary assent of the mind." And Thomas Aquinas says,2 " Cre- dere est actus intellectus assentientis veritati divinae ex imperio voluntatis a Deo motae per gratiam." 3 He distinguishes between knowledge and faith by representing the former as the conviction produced by the object itself seen intuitively or discursively (" sicut patet in principiis primis, .... vel .... sicut patet de conclusionibus") to be true; whereas in the latter the mind is not sufficiently moved to assent " ab objecto proprio, sed per quandam electionem, voluntarie declinans in unam partem magis quam in alteram. Et siquidem haec sit cum dubitatione et for- midine alterius partis, erit opinio. Si autem sit cum certitudine absque tali formidine, erit fides."
This definition admits of different explanations. The word " voluntary," if its meaning be determined by the wide sense of the word • will," includes every operation of the mind not purely intellectual. And therefore to say that faith is a voluntary assent is to say that faith is not merely a speculative assent, an act of the judgment pronouncing a thing to be true, but includes feeling. Nitsch, therefore, defines faith to be a " gefuhlsmassiges Erken-
1 Grcecarum Affectionum Curatip, sermo i. edit. Commelinus, Heidelberg( ?), 1592, p. 16, lines 11, 12.
2 Summa, n. ii. quaest. ii. art. 9, edit. Cologne, 1640, p. 8 b, of third set. 8 Ibid, quaest. i. art. 4, pp. 3 b, 4 a, of third set.
vox,, in. 4
50 PART III. Ch. XVI. -FAITH
nen." " Die Einheit des Gefiihls und der Erkenntniss ; 1 a knowl- edge or persuasion of truth combined with feeling, — the unity of feeling and knowledge." But if the word " will " be taken in the sense of the power of self-determination, then nothing is volun- tary which does not involve the exercise of that power. If in this sense faith be voluntary, then we must have the power to believe or disbelieve at pleasure. If we believe the truth, it is because we choose or determine ourselves to receive it; if we reject it, it is because we will to disbelieve it. The decision is determined neither by the nature of the object nor by the nature or degree of the evidence. Sometimes both of these meanings of the word voluntary seem to be combined by those who define faith to be a voluntary assent of the mind, or an assent of the intellect determined by the will. This appears from what Aquinas, for example, says when he discusses the question whether faith is a virtue. He argues that if faith be a virtue, which he admits it to be, it must include love, because love is the form or principle of all the virtues ; and it must be self-determined because there could be no virtue in faith if it were the inevitable effect of the evi- dence or testimony. If a virtue, it must include an act of self-de- termination ; we must decide to do what we have the power not to do.
Remarks on this Definition of Faith. This definition of faith contains many elements of truth. In the first place, it is true that faith and feeling are often insepa- rable. They together constitute that state of mind to which the name faith is given. The perception of beauty is of necessity connected with the feeling of delight. Assent to moral truth involves the feeling of moral approbation. In like manner spir- itual discernment (faith when the fruit of the Spirit) includes delight in the things of the Spirit, not only as true, but as beau- tiful and good. This is the difference between a living and dead faith. This is the portion of truth involved in the Romish doc- trine of a formed and unformed faith. Faith (assent to the truth) connected with love is the fides formata; faith without love is fides informis. While, however, it is true that faith is often necessarily connected with feeling, and, therefore, in one sense of the term, is a voluntary assent, yet this is not always the case. Whether feeling attends and enters into the exercise of faith, depends upon its object (or the thing believed) and the evidence on which it is founded. When the object of faith is a
i System der Christlichen Lehre, Einl. n. A. § 8. 3, 5th edit. Bonn, 1844, p. 18.