a) They distinguished three kinds of faith: (1) belief in the existence of God and the historical fact that Christ has come on earth, suffered, and ascended (fides historica); (2) the sort of trust which is required for exercising the gift of miracles (fides miraculorum); and (3) faith in the divine promises with regard to the remission of sin (fides promissionum). The last-mentioned species of faith they subdivided into general and particular. Fides generalis is that by which we believe that the righteousness of Christ “covers” (but does not wipe out) our sins. Fides specialis or fiduciary faith (fiducia) is that by which a man applies to himself the righteousness of the Redeemer, firmly trusting that his sins are for Christ's sake not imputed to him. Thus the Reformers erroneously transferred the seat of justifying faith from the intellect to the will and completely subverted the Catholic notion of faith as an intellectual assent to revealed truth.
b) To this fundamental error the Fathers of [pg 275] Trent opposed the orthodox doctrine that (adults) “are disposed unto justice when, excited and assisted by divine grace, receiving faith by hearing, they are freely moved towards God, believing those things to be true which God has revealed and promised, ...”[782] and they solemnly anathematized those who assert “that justifying faith is nothing else but confidence in the divine mercy which remits sin for Christ's sake, or that this confidence alone is that whereby we are justified.”[783]
Hence it is de fide that the faith whereby man is justified, is not a confident persuasion of being esteemed righteous in the sight of God, but a dogmatic or theoretical belief in the truths of Divine Revelation.
2. Refutation of the Lutheran Doctrine of Fiduciary Faith.—Whenever Sacred Scripture and Tradition speak of justifying faith, they mean a dogmatic belief in the truths of Revelation,—that faith which the Protestants call fides historica.
a) Christ Himself solemnly commanded His [pg 276] Apostles and their successors to preach the Gospel to all nations, and before baptizing them to convert them to a firm belief in certain specified truths which no man may reject except at the peril of his eternal salvation.
α) Mark XVI, 15 sq.: “Go ye into the whole world, and preach the gospel[784] to every creature: He that believeth [i.e. in the Gospel] and is baptized, shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be condemned.” Agreeable to this injunction St. John declares it to be the object of his Gospel “that you may believe that[785] Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing, you may have life in his name.”[786] The Gospel is written “that we may believe.” What must we believe? That “Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God.” This is a revealed truth by firmly believing which we shall be saved. When the treasurer of Queen Candace begged to be baptized, Philip the deacon said to him: “If thou believest with all thy heart, thou mayest.” The eunuch replied: “I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God,” whereupon Philip baptized him.[787]
β) St. Paul in his Epistles to the Romans and the Galatians eloquently insists on the necessity of faith, not a mere fides fiducialis, but a believing acceptance of Divine Revelation. Cfr. Rom. X, 9 sq.: “For if thou confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and believe in thy heart that God hath raised him up from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart we believe unto justice, but [pg 277] with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.”[788] We must confess with the mouth and believe with the heart. External profession and internal faith go together and have for their common object a certain truth open to our knowledge, viz.: the resurrection of Christ,—a dogma in which the whole teaching of the atonement lies imbedded.
The character of justifying faith is still more plainly evident from Heb. XI, 6: “Without faith it is impossible to please God. For he that cometh to God [he that is to be justified], must believe that He is [the existence of God], and is a rewarder to them that seek Him.”[789] The Apostle here clearly asserts both the necessity of justifying faith and the minimum of doctrine to be explicitly “believed,” viz.: the existence of God and eternal retribution.[790]
γ) The Lutherans appeal chiefly to Matth. IX, 2, Luke XVII, 19, Rom. IV, 5, and Heb. XI, 1. But not a single one of these texts represents fiduciary faith as the instrumental cause of justification. The word πίστις occurs no less than eighty times in the Synoptic Gospels and in St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans, but there are [pg 278] only six passages in which it could possibly be construed as synonymous with fiducia, and in none of these is the interpretation entirely certain. Not once does the New Testament employ πίστις in the sense of “fiduciary faith,” i.e. a confident persuasion of one's own righteousness.[791]
b) Tradition is in such perfect agreement with Scripture on this point that the Reformers did not venture to deny that their doctrine ran counter to the time-honored teaching of the Church. The Fathers unanimously insist on the necessity of dogmatic faith as a requisite of justification.