Dist. 23, Art. 2, Q. 2
by St. Bonaventure
Source text: Public Domain Mark 1.0. English translation/apparatus/encoding: CC BY-NC 4.0, Wroot Press.
https://bonaventure.wrootpress.com/browse/3/d/23/q/bon-sent-III-d23-a2-q2
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### Question II. *Whether unformed faith is infused or acquired.*

Secondly, inquiry is made concerning unformed faith with respect to its origin, and the question is whether unformed faith is infused or acquired. And that it is infused seems to follow:

1. First to the Corinthians, chapter twelve: *To another is given faith in the same Spirit*, etc.; and it is agreed that the Apostle there speaks of the gifts of grace freely given: therefore he speaks of faith circumscribed apart from charity; and this is unformed faith: therefore unformed faith is from the Holy Spirit.

2. Likewise, First to the Corinthians, chapter thirteen: *If I should have faith, so that I might move mountains*; there the Gloss: « *Which faith can be called a gift of God, because in evil persons there are certain gifts of God* »: if therefore that is unformed faith: therefore unformed faith is from a gift of God.

3. Likewise, to the Romans, chapter eight: *You have not received the spirit of servitude again in fear*; the Gloss: « *There is a servile fear and a filial fear, and each is from the Holy Spirit* »: if therefore servile fear is a gift of the Holy Spirit, and servile fear arises from unformed faith: therefore unformed faith is a gift of the Holy Spirit.

4. Likewise, through no natural or acquired habit is the intellect elevated above itself; but through the habit of unformed faith the intellect is elevated above itself, so that it assents to the first Truth for its own sake and above all things: therefore the habit of unformed faith is not acquired, nor innate; and it is either acquired, or innate, or infused: therefore it is an infused habit.

5. Likewise, that which has power over things which are contrary to nature is neither from nature nor from acquisition; but the habit of unformed faith has power to work miracles, as is clear from the Gospels, that evil persons work miracles, and it is expressly said in Matthew, chapter seven, and First to the Corinthians, chapter thirteen: therefore unformed faith is neither innate nor acquired: it follows therefore that it is infused.

**On the contrary:**

1. To the Romans, chapter ten: *Faith is from hearing*; but the things we come to know by hearing from others we come to know by acquisition: therefore if we have faith through hearing, we have faith through acquisition.

2. Likewise, Augustine: « *What we believe, we owe to authority; what we understand, to reason* »; but a teaching which rests upon another's authority is acquired from another: if therefore the cognition of faith rests upon authority, it seems that it arises in us through acquisition.

3. Likewise, we can have other unformed virtues through acquisition, such as continence and justice: therefore by parity of reasoning it seems that we can likewise have unformed faith through acquisition.

4. Likewise, someone passing from unbelief to heresy believes some articles of faith, and this indeed without any infusion of a habit, since God does not infuse heresy, but only through the acquisition of teaching; but by the same reasoning by which he can know one article, by the same he can know another: therefore if through acquisition he can know some, by the same reasoning it seems that he can know all: therefore it seems that unformed faith concerning all the articles can be had through acquisition.

5. Likewise, if unformed faith is an infused habit,

since infused habits are infused into little ones just as into adults, so the habit of unformed faith will be in a baptized little one just as it is in a Christian already advanced; but in a Christian already advanced, if he sins mortally, nevertheless unformed faith remains in him, even though he learns nothing further: therefore by parity of reasoning a little one, if he sins, when he has reached adult age, will have unformed faith, if he is taught nothing by others; and this is manifestly false, because if such a one were set among the Saracens, before he had learned anything, he would have no more of faith than if he had never been baptized.

### Conclusion

> **Conclusion.** Unformed faith, as regards its formal element, and insofar as it is a virtue, is a divine gift and an infused habit.

**I respond:** For the understanding of what has been said, it must be noted that since to believe, as Augustine says, is « to think with assent », in order that the habit of faith be had fully and entirely, it is necessary that the intellect be instructed concerning the things to be believed, so that it can think upon them, and be inclined, so that it can assent to them; and the first of these is the material element in faith, while the second is the *formal* element, and both are found as much in unformed faith as in formed faith. For it is not called unformed because it lacks every form, but because it lacks the form of sanctifying grace.

When therefore it is asked whether faith is an acquired or an infused habit; the answer must be that if we speak of faith as regards that which is material in it, namely as regards that cognition by which we know which are the articles of faith, and know « *what it is that is signified by the name* »: thus it must be granted that faith is through hearing and through acquisition according to the common law. For no one knows which and how many are the articles of faith, unless he has learned them by reading or hearing, unless perhaps he has this by a special privilege.

But if we speak of faith as regards its *formal* element, namely as regards that which makes one assent; thus it must be said that some unformed faith is through acquisition, some through infusion. For some assent to a heard truth, *moved by human persuasion*, as on account of love and reverence for the one speaking, or on account of miracles, or on account of reasons and arguments; and such faith is simply acquired and is not to be said to have the character of a virtue, because it is of no vigor nor strength, once human reasoning itself is removed from the midst. — But some assent to the truth of faith *on account of divine illumination*, such as those who rely upon the first Truth above all things and for its own sake, like many Christians who do not have charity; and in such persons faith is *through infusion*. For they assent voluntarily, with divine illumination accompanying — illumination, I say, which elevates the reason in those things which are above it. — Whence, just as we say that the illumination for *foreknowing future things* is infused on account of this, that in it the soul is elevated above those things which are natural to it; so it must be understood also in this present matter. — It must therefore be granted that unformed faith, insofar as it is a virtue, is a gift divinely conferred and an infused habit. Whence the arguments which show this are also to be granted.

1. To that, then, which is first objected to the contrary, that faith is from hearing; it must be said that this is said of faith, not by reason of that which is formal and completive, but by reason of that which is material, namely by reason of that cognition by which is known « *what it is that is signified by the name* », which commonly is not had either in formed faith or in unformed faith except through acquisition. — Otherwise also it seems to some that it must be said that that word of the Apostle is understood of unformed faith, which rests upon human reason, which indeed does not have in itself the character of a virtue. But the first manner of speaking seems more reasonable, considering the Apostle's meaning.

2. To that which is objected, that to believe is owed to authority; it must be said that to believe, insofar as it is an act of faith-as-virtue, is owed to authority, not to any whatever, but to divine authority, to which authority indeed no one assents for its own sake and above all things, except through divine illumination; and thus such belief is not acquired, but infused. But that belief which rests principally upon created reason does not pertain to faith itself, insofar as faith is a virtue; and of this it is true that it can be through acquisition. — Whence it must be attended to that a person can rely upon sacred Scripture through his faith in two ways: either because he believes that sacred Scripture was inspired and set forth by the Holy Spirit, according to what is said in Second Peter, chapter one: *By the Holy Spi-*

*rit inspired, the holy men of God spoke*, and thus such belief pertains to faith-as-virtue; or because he believes sacred Scripture for the reason that his fathers believed, from whose paths he does not wish to depart, and in this manner he regards human reason, nor is such belief that of *faith-as-virtue*, but rather of a certain habituation.

3. To that which is objected, that the other unformed virtues are had through acquisition; it must be said that it is not alike, for the reason that the acts of the other virtues accord with reason itself according to the natural dictate. Whence natural justice directs toward the works of the political virtues; but it is not so concerning faith, which directs toward certain things to be believed which are *beside* and *contrary to* and *above* the judgment of reason; therefore it is not subject to our acquisition in the way that the other moral virtues are.

4. To that which is objected, that someone passing from unbelief to heresy acquires cognition of some articles; it must be said that it is not alike, because, just as the very same thing can be loved with a love divinely infused and also with an innate and libidinous love, and it matters greatly whether something is loved in this way or in that: so also it must be understood in cognition, that the very same thing can be believed in one way and another: either from persuasion of human truth, or from the illumination of eternal Truth. And heretics indeed, if they know some articles, this is from a certain persuasion of human reason, indeed of their own fabrication; and even if according to it they were to assent to all the articles of faith, still they would not have the virtue of faith, whose office is *to take captive the intellect unto obedience to Christ*. Therefore it is not alike concerning the cognition of the articles in a believing man and in an unbelieving man; and to that extent it does not follow that if that cognition in heretics is acquired, that on this account it is not infused in the faithful. — If, however, someone who is faithful and Catholic should become a heretic and there should remain to him the cognition of some article; he does not have it altogether through acquisition; nor yet is he to be said to have the virtue, because there the prior illumination is mixed in a certain way with the falsity of error, and therefore he does not have the perfection befitting a virtue.

5. To that which is objected concerning the little one who falls from grace before he acquires anything of faith; it must be said that the little one has the habit of faith as regards that which is formal in it; for he has something whereby he will be ready and easy to assent to all the articles of faith, if they are proposed to him, when he has reached adult age. He lacks, however, that cognition which is material with respect to faith, without which, even though that formal element can be infused into the soul of the little one, it nevertheless cannot be rooted and stabilized. And therefore, if, when he has reached adult age, an error is proposed to him under the aspect of something credible, the habit of faith is most easily expelled, and so he readily assents, as if he had never had the habit of faith, on account of this, that the free choice on account of disuse does not know how to use it, and that habit was not rooted in the power, although it was infused in it. But concerning this, in the fourth book, it is treated more sufficiently.

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