Credibility

Chapter XV: Credibility

Article I: The Rational Notion of Credibility

I. The Catholic Notion of Credibility.

(From the objective standpoint): Credibility is defined as the aptitude for belief of those truths which, from most certain signs, appear to our reason to have been rightly revealed by God.

(From the subjective standpoint): The mysteries of Faith are credible inasmuch as the Divine origin of Christian Faith can, from most certain signs, be rightly known by human reason.

(A) Comparison with ordinary human belief. Human faith rests upon the testimony of witnesses worthy of credit — that is, of witnesses who (a) know what they affirm, (b) are truthful, and (c) genuinely intend to affirm what they say. Divine Faith rests, analogously, upon God, who can neither deceive nor be deceived.

(B) Catholic Credibility depends on certain previous truths — namely, that an act of Faith is not a species of religious experience, but the assent of the intellect to truths revealed by God on His own Divine authority.

(C) Other definitions of Credibility — such as credibility grounded merely on conformity with human aspirations — are insufficient.

(D) The evidence of Credibility is not the same kind of evidence an Apostle possessed when he directly witnessed the miracles worked in confirmation of Our Lord’s mission. The evidence of Credibility is, rather, a moral certitude, based on human testimony.

(E) Properties of Rational Credibility. (1) Credibility is common to all revealed truths alike. (2) The truth of Credibility is extrinsic to the revealed truths themselves. (3) The truth of Credibility is known as what is called “speculative-practical” — that is, a truth bearing directly on future conduct.

II. Heterodox Notions of Credibility.

(A) Pseudo-Supernaturalism.

• Early Protestants (Luther, Calvin) maintained that the faithful should discern the Word of God by the immediate testimony of the Holy Ghost alone.
• Fideists and Traditionalists (Bautain, Bonnetty, and others) appealed instead to the faith of humanity founded on tradition and a prior positive revelation, holding that human reason had been so injured by original sin as to be incapable of proving even the existence of God (Denz. 1622, 1627, 1650). Fideism, in effect, treats the Supernatural as though it were somehow due to nature.

(B) Naturalism and Semi-Naturalism lay down varying, insufficient bases for Faith: probable knowledge of Credibility (Denz. 2025), purely internal subjective experience (Denz. 1273), or private inspiration (Denz. 1812) — all of these are, singly, insufficient.

(C) Modernists rely on the “aspirations and exigencies of the religious sense” (Denz. 2032, 2101, 2103). Semi-Rationalists claim that there is, in human nature, a real exigency for the supernatural order, not merely a capacity and suitability for it (Denz. 2103).

(D) Hermes regarded the exigencies of practical reason as the basis of Faith, and held that the Divinity of the Church cannot be proved by miracles (Denz. 1812, 1790).

(E) Liberal Protestants (Schleiermacher and others), Semi-Immanentists (Blondel, Laberthonnière), and Rationalists generally, invoke internal motives to show only that Christian teaching corresponds to human aspirations. They deny the properly supernatural origin of Christianity, and give supernatural dogmas only a symbolic, rather than a real, sense. Liberal Protestants and Modernists likewise make use of internal motives; they regard Christianity as a higher form of natural religious evolution, and consequently changeable, and give even miracles only a symbolic value.

(F) The method of Immanence exaggerates the natural desire for supernatural life, seeing in human nature not merely a capacity and suitability for the supernatural order, but a real, positive exigency for it — thereby diminishing the true probative force of miracles, and effectively reducing Divine Faith to mere religious experience.

Article II: Necessity of Rational Credibility

I. Difficulty of the Question. How can reason reconcile the supernatural character of Faith with the fundamentally rational obedience it demands? If reason could prove outright that certain mysteries have been revealed by God, reason would thereby come to know the formal motive of Faith itself, which would then no longer be essentially supernatural. The answer is suggested in the following thesis: reason can know the fact of Revelation only so far as it is modally supernatural; Revelation, so far as it is essentially supernatural, belongs exclusively to Faith. Reason can recognise, through miracles, the fact of a Revelation understood as a miraculous intervention of God — that is, modally supernatural — but reason cannot grasp Divine Revelation so far as it is essentially supernatural; under that further aspect, Revelation is held by Faith alone. Hence such scriptural expressions as “the voice of our Heavenly Father,” “the voice of the Son,” “the testimony of the Holy Spirit,” and the like.

Can the object of Faith itself be something directly seen? No. St. Thomas the Apostle saw one thing — the risen Christ — and believed another, His Divinity: “vidit hominem et cicatrices, et ex hoc credidit divinitatem resurgentis,” “he saw the man and the wounds, and from this believed in the divinity of the risen One” (St. Thomas, In Joan., XX, 29, lect. VI, ad fin.).

Thesis. In order that the mysteries of Faith should be rationally credible, reason ought to know, with at least moral certitude, the fact of a Revelation so far as it is modally supernatural. Revelation as the uncreated and essentially supernatural action of God, is believed supernaturally and infallibly as the formal motive of Faith — that is, as that by which belief is secured, and at the same time that which is believed; nevertheless a rational, undoubting knowledge of the fact of Revelation is likewise necessary.

II. Testimony of Scripture and of the Doctors of the Church.

(A) John XX, 30–31: “Many other signs also did Jesus in the sight of His disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing, you may have life in His name.” 1 Cor. XV, 17: “If Christ be not risen, your faith is vain.” 2 Pet. I, 16: “For we have not, by following artificial fables, made known to you the power and presence of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eye-witnesses of His greatness.”

(B) St. Justin, St. Clement of Alexandria, Eusebius, St. Augustine, St. Chrysostom, St. Hilary, and St. Ambrose all teach that the supernatural certitude of Faith is higher and firmer than the merely rational certitude of Credibility that precedes it.

(C) Hugh of St. Victor, St. Bernard, Alexander of Hales, St. Albert the Great, St. Bonaventure, and St. Thomas hold that the formal motive of Faith is known under internal illumination and inspiration of the Holy Ghost, and Thomists and Suárez maintain that this formal motive of infused Faith can only be so known.

IV. Moral Certitude Is Sufficient. Although a strictly scientific proof of Credibility — a scientific proof of the Divine origin of Christianity — is most useful for the collective faith of the Church, it is not, strictly, required in any individual case; moral certitude suffices. 1° Scientific certitude, which presupposes leisure, mental ability, and specialised training, is not possible for all men; the certitude of natural reason, such as that which men generally have of the existence of God, is sufficient here. 2° Physical certitude — such as that possessed by those who directly witnessed, say, the resurrection of Lazarus — is likewise not possible for all. Just as metaphysical certitude is founded on the absolute necessity of what is asserted, and the strict impossibility of its contradictory, and physical certitude depends on the uniformity of the laws of nature, so moral certitude depends on human testimony — it is morally impossible, for instance, that such a witness should, in such circumstances, testify falsely. 3° Divine Faith does not, in fact, require a higher certitude of credibility than the moral. For ordinary moral action in the affairs of the natural order, moral certitude is universally regarded as sufficient; but Divine Faith requires a judgment of credibility that is at least certain in this same natural order — something which suffices to justify moral action generally. Hence Divine Faith requires only a judgment of credibility that is, at minimum, morally certain.

V. Moral certitude of credibility can be gained by all men, at least with the help of grace, though grace is not, strictly speaking, absolutely indispensable for the judgment of credibility as such; grace does not supply the external proposition of Credibility, but does supply an internal disposition of the hearer toward it. Why is internal grace not, then, absolutely necessary for the certain judgment of Credibility? Because it is most certain — as St. Thomas notes (De Veritate, q. 14, a. 11, ad 1) — that God, whose Providence extends to the pursuit of good and evil generally, will reveal by internal inspiration those truths which must necessarily be believed, or else will send some preacher of the Faith to any man who has not received it, just as He sent Peter to Cornelius.

Article III: The Function of the Judgment of Credibility in the Genesis of an Act of Faith

(This article develops the same schema of intention, choice, and execution treated fully in the preceding chapter on Divine Faith; the reader is referred there for the complete analysis.)

Article IV: Compatibility of the Reasonable Obedience of Faith with Its Obscurity, Freedom, and Supernaturality

(1) Probability of the fact of Revelation does not suffice for rational belief. (a) If it be alleged that a merely probable judgment of credibility is sufficient, the answer follows at once: not in a matter whose consequences are so grave (see Pascal, Pensées, art. X). (b) If it be alleged that ignorant men and children rely on the testimony of pastor or parent, which is itself only of probable value, the answer is again clear: the testimony of pastor or parent is here only the condition which makes known to them the deeper and universal testimony of the Church.

(2) The certitude of Credibility is compatible with the freedom of an Act of Faith. The proofs of Credibility are extrinsic to the mysteries themselves, not intrinsic to them, and are therefore fully compatible with freedom: “only that species of proof which makes the object of Faith intrinsically evident, or extrinsically visible, would exclude Faith altogether” (St. Thomas, IIa IIae, q. 5, a. 1). The certitude of Credibility does not, moreover, diminish the merit of Faith. When Our Lord said, “Unless you see signs and wonders, you do not believe,” He condemned the sceptical spirit that demands unnecessary signs, but He did not condemn the reasonable attitude of mind which requires the Mysteries of Faith to be, at least, rationally credible.

(3) The certitude of Credibility is compatible with the obscurity of Faith. Certitude of Credibility, founded on miracles, is a condition of Faith from the standpoint of the subject who aspires to it, but intrinsically the mystery itself remains a mystery.

(4) The certitude of Credibility is compatible with the supernatural character of Faith. The higher certainty of supernatural truth cannot be resolved, formally and intrinsically, into the lower certainty of Credibility — though it can be so resolved materially and extrinsically. Analogously, the metaphysical certitude of first principles presupposes, without being reducible to, the lower certainty of ordinary sensitive knowledge.

When it is said that Revelation is both that by which Faith is reached and that which is believed, Revelation must here be taken as Revelation intrinsically supernatural. Revelation only modally supernatural may be partly known naturally, insofar as it is a miraculous intervention on the part of God; the infallible proposition of the Church, from the standpoint of the individual believer, is a further condition of Faith, distinct from its formal motive.

Article V: Summary of Catholic Teaching

(This summary parallels closely the concluding sections of the previous chapter: an Act of Faith is believing precisely because God has said it; the equality of Faith across all believers, learned and unlearned alike, since the formal motive — God’s veracity — is identical for all; the reasonableness of Faith as the noblest use of reason, not its abdication; God’s twofold external and internal teaching, whereby motives of Credibility, relatively insufficient in themselves, become fully sufficient under the influence of grace; the further, distinct work of theological understanding which Faith itself makes possible without ever becoming dependent upon it — “Fides quaerens intellectum”; the essential inequality of this further theological labour among believers, contrasted with the essential equality of Faith itself; and finally, the genuinely prior work of reason, aided by grace, in establishing the motives of Credibility antecedent to Faith — “intellectus quaerens Fidem,” the intellect in search of Faith, which is the special work of Apologetics as a science, and which the following chapters, on the specific Motives of Credibility, will now take up in detail.)