What Is The Act of Faith?
When you read old theology manuals about a definition for an act of faith, you will typically see something like this:
The act of faith is the supernatural assent by which the mind, under the command of, the will moved by grace, believes revealed truths because of the authority of God’s revealing.
Explanation of Definition: Here is what that means in plain English. The act of faith is a supernatural kind of belief. It is a way of knowing things, but it is not a natural way of knowing things. This is because when we make an act of faith, we choose to believe something. The mind is not forced. We choose to believe it. And that choice to believe happens because God’s grace has “moved” or “prodded” our will to choose to believe it.
In other words, to put it in order, it would go like this. Imagine you are standing in front of Christ himself and He performs a miracle for you, say, turning water into wine. You see the external miracle, and that gives you evidence that He speaks for God Himself. At the same time, in your mind, God’s grace is prodding your will, “Believe this, choose to believe it”, and your will accepts – you believe it.
So the act of faith is when we choose to believe something because God’s grace moved us to believe it, and we believe it because of God’s authority.
How The Act Of Faith Is Different From Other Kinds Of Knowledge
When God reveals something to us, He gives us knowledge. So, we learn things and can come to believe things because of God’s revelation. In other words, faith is a form of knowing things. In fact, faith is a very unique form of knowing things.
- The Act Of Faith Is Different From Philosophical Knowledge, which is believing something of the natural order because we ourselves can intellectually understand the rational evidence for it.
- The Act Of Faith Is Different From Scientific Knowledge, typically scientific knowledge is based upon our own perception of the evidence done through experimentation. Faith is knowledge based on Divine authority.
- The Act Of Faith Is Different From Probable Knowledge (Opinion), which is believing something because of some probable motive, but with fears of the opposite being true.
- The Act Of Faith Is Different From Religious Feelings, which is something irrational based on feeling, emotion or imagination.
- The Act Of Faith Is Different From Historical Knowledge, which is based on historical human testimony, and not on divine testimony.
- The Act Of Faith Is Different From The Beatific Vision, which is clear perception of things we now see only obscurely by faith.
That The Act Of Faith Is Moved By The Will
Faith is produced by command of the will; because in faith we do not see the intrinsic value of things we believe. The will must come in and gently move the mind to assent.
What this means is an act of faith always involves a free choice. Faith is never forced; the evidence itself is never enough to make us believe it. We are always able to accept or reject it.
This freedom of an act of faith is what makes faith a moral act, one that can be worthy of praise or blame.
That The Act Of Faith Is Produced By Grace
Faith is produced or as we say in theology, “elicited”, under the influence of grace. When we make an act of faith, our minds are not working completely on their own, God is gently moving our wills to choose to believe.
In other words, God is actually “raising” our natural powers up to do something they would not be able to do on their own:
“No one comes to the Father by faith unless the father first draws him.” John 6:44
The Difference Between The Material And Formal Object Of Faith
In any act of faith, we can make a distinction between what we believe and why we believe it. In theology we call these the material and formal objects of faith:
- The material object of faith is what we are believing – We believe God’s revelation.
- The formal object of faith is why we believe it – We believe it because of God’s authority.
The Habit of Faith
When you have a habit of anything you have a tendency to do something. You may have a habit of drinking too much, eating junk food, or a habit of working out.
The thing is that when you have a habit of something, you aren’t always doing that thing. If I have a habit of working out, that doesn’t mean I am always working out, it just means that I have a tendency to work out and I frequently exercise that tendency.
When you have the habit of faith, you have a tendency to make acts of faith.
But the habit of faith is different from the habit of working out. We can create the habit of working out all on our own, but the habit of faith is a theological virtue and so comes from God.
In theology, we say that the habit of Faith is infused into our souls with sanctifying grace at our Baptism, and it does two things for us;
- First, it gives us the disposition or tendency to make an act of faith.
- By repeating these acts of faith we acquire a facility to elicit acts of faith. This principle is most important in Catholic education.
Definition Of The Habit Of Faith
The habit of Faith is defined as: The supernatural and theological virtue disposing the mind to assent firmly to all revealed truth, because of God’s authority.
Explanation of the definition:
The Habit Of Faith Is A Virtue: As a virtue, it is a habit, that is, it is a permanent quality that informs and transforms the intellect. This is different from an act of faith because an act of faith is just an act, it is not permanent in our souls. So we say that the act of faith is a transitory feature of our mind but the habit of faith is a permanent quality.
The Habit Of Faith Is Supernatural: It is supernatural and enables us to transcend our natural powers.
We say the habit of faith is supernatural because of its:
- Origin (Where faith comes from); The habit of faith comes to us as a gift from God as our mind is informed by the grace of inspiration and illumination.
- Object (What we believe by faith): The things we know by faith are supernatural, things that we could not know by our own reasoning power alone, e.g., supra-rational mysteries
- Motive (Why we believe by faith): The reason why we believe things by faith is supernatural, namely the authority of God revealing, something not due to human nature as such.
The Habit Of Faith Is A Theological Virtue. Because its material object is God Himself, and its formal object is one of the Divine attributes.
The Habit Of Faith Disposes The Whole Mind: Faith re-acts on the whole man, both intellect and will. In other words, faith not only gives us something to believe as true, but also gives us something to desire as good. Hence, any instruction moving only the intellect and not the will is very poor.
