[Appendix] Twenty Fifth Distinction

Single Question. Whether before Christ’s Coming Faith about the Things we now Believe was Necessary

Bonaventure, 3 Sent. d.25 q. 2, a.1
Scotus, 3 Sent. d.25 q.1
Thomas, ST IIaIIae
Richard 3 Sent. d.25 q.1
Durandus, 3 Sent. d.25 q.1

1. About the twenty fifth distinction the question asked is whether, before Christ’s coming, faith about the things we now believe was necessary for salvation.

2. That it was not:

They [men at that time] were not obliged to believe more than the Angels can understand; but the Angels did not understand Christ’s incarnation until after the Church had preached it; therefore etc. The major is plain, because an Angel’s intellect is higher than ours. The minor is plain from Paul Ephesians 3, ‘the sacrament of the incarnation was hidden from the princes and heavenly powers’, and it was made known to them by the Church. Isaiah 63 speaks thus: ‘The Angels ask, who is this who comes from Edom, his vestments stained with crimson, from Bosra?’

3. On the contrary: men were obliged to love all things lovable by charity, because charity is necessary for salvation in every state; but everything that we love is lovable by charity; therefore men were obliged to believe everything that, unless it were believed, could not be loved.

To the Question

4. I reply that one must first consider the faith of the ancients as to its habit; second as to its act; third as to its believable objects.

5. About the first I say that just as infused charity was always necessary (whereby the will deformed by sin might be reproved), so informed faith was necessary (whereby the intellect might be reformed), namely so that the whole image [of God] might be reformed; and just as no one is accepted by God without charity, so neither without faith; and this I say for the state of the wayfarer. Not indeed that it is a contradiction for faith and charity to be separated, because in fact now they are separated for wayfarers, where faith without charity remains unformed, and in the fatherland charity remains without faith. But because God so instituted from eternity that no one without faith could be perfect in charity.

6. About the second [n.4] I say that no adult can be saved without some act of moral virtue, and much less so without some act of the theological virtues; and so adults are bound to have some explicit act of faith, not indeed always but sometimes, in due place and time, for this falls under positive precept.

7. About the third [n.4] I say that simple and ordinary men did not need to believe explicitly as much as Moses and others believed (to whom more matters of belief were revealed), but they did need to believe some things explicitly, as that God is one, Creator of heaven and earth, and that they had to be saved in the faith of the one who was to come; nor perhaps did Moses and the ancestors believe explicitly as many things as we do now, because perhaps not as many matters of belief were revealed to them.

8. But to explicit faith in the Trinity men were not then bound, save those alone to whom God revealed it, who were more capable; but science cannot determine what matters of belief and how many the ancestors explicitly believed, for they had no fixed term of matters of belief, save that God revealed more or fewer things to them, either directly, as to Moses and the prophets, or through another, as to the leaders of the people through Moses and Aaron.

9. About ourselves too one must note that we are not all bound to believe all the articles explicitly, but the more principal ones, as that God is one and three, Creator of all things, that the Uncreated Son suffered and was raised, and other things of the sort that belong to the work of redemption. Nor is it necessary to know them with their complications, but it suffices that they be absolutely believed the way the Church holds them. And if someone were so ignorant as not to be able to understand the terms of ‘nature’ and ‘person’, then he need not explicitly believe the Trinity, for God does not bind anyone to anything impossible; but it is enough that he believe what he can grasp, with this addition, that he himself believes and wants to believe whatever the Church believes. Curates, however, need to know the articles explicitly, at least in general without their complications, so that they may know how to instruct the people entrusted to them in the rudiments of the faith. Bishops, however, since they are guarantors of the Church, are bound so to know the things that are of faith that they know how to defend them against those who wish to attack them; for to them does this belong, according to Augustine On the Trinity 14.1. What must be said about the rest, according to the diverse ranks they possess in the Church, can be made clear from what has been said.

To the Arguments

10. To the argument [n.2] I say that although by general law the Angels are illumined about things knowable before men are, yet God can do otherwise. It does not follow, therefore, that, if the mystery of the incarnation was hidden from the Angels, men were not bound to believe it; for men were bound to believe what was being done for their salvation, but Angels were not and so it was being hidden from them. But perhaps it was not hidden from all the Angels, for Gabriel announced the mystery of the incarnation to Mary.