Dist. 23, Art. 2, Q. 3
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-q3
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### Question III. *Whether unformed faith is in the demons.*

Thirdly it is asked concerning the subject of unformed faith, and the question is whether unformed faith is in the demons. And that it is, seems [the case].

1. James 2: *The demons believe and tremble*: if therefore faith, which is the principle of fear, is this faith, which is an unformed virtue; it seems that faith, insofar as it is a virtue, is in the demons.

2. Likewise, on that text of Romans 1: *The justice of God is revealed from faith unto faith*; the Gloss [says]: « The faith of the demons exists, and that of Christians in name only »; but in Christians who are Christians in name only, unformed faith exists as in a subject: therefore [it exists] also in the demons.

3. Likewise, Mark 1: *What have we to do with thee, Jesus of Nazareth?* and often in the Gospel the demons cried out that Christ was the Son of God; but it is established that they could not behold his Divinity, and this is above reason, that God should become man: therefore it seems that they knew this only by the cognition of faith: therefore it seems that they had faith.

4. Likewise, the cognition of the Trinity and the Unity is above reason, as was shown in the first book; but the demons know that God is three and one;

and such a cognition, by which it is known that God is three and one, is either a cognition of faith, or a cognition of comprehension: since therefore the demons do not have a cognition of comprehension concerning the Trinity itself, they have therefore a cognition of faith.

**On the contrary:**
1. On that text of Second Corinthians 6: *What concord hath Christ with Belial?* the Gloss says: « As Christ [does] all things well, so the devil [does] all things ill »; but *to believe* belongs to unformed faith [as] an act of virtue and a good act: therefore if it belongs to a demon to do all things ill, it seems that *to believe* does not pertain to him, and therefore neither to have unformed faith.

2. Likewise, unformed faith is an infused habit and a gift of God: if therefore the demons have faith, either it was infused into them *before* the fall, or *after*; not *before* the fall, since then they were not in a state in which faith would be fitting for them; not *after* the fall, since they are obstinate, so that they cannot receive the gifts of God: therefore if they never had the infused habit of faith, and unformed faith is by infusion; they do not therefore have unformed faith.

3. Likewise, *to believe*, which is the act of unformed faith, is voluntary, since, « although a man can do other things *unwillingly*, he cannot believe except *willingly* »; but the demons, as far as is on the part of their will, are repugnant to all truth and all good: if therefore unformed faith itself causes one to believe voluntarily, it seems that the demons do not have it.

4. Likewise, unformed faith is the principle of servile fear, and servile fear causes one to flee sin: if therefore unformed faith were in the demons, there would be in them a fleeing of some sin: if therefore they flee no sin, it seems that the unformed habit is not found in them.

### Conclusion.

> In the demons there is some unformed faith, yet inasmuch as it lacks not only the form of gratuitous virtue, but also the form of a virtuous, infused, and voluntary habit.

**I respond:** It must be said that, as is clear from the foregoing, unformed faith is spoken of in two ways: one, which leans upon the First Truth for its own sake, although it does not tend toward it by loving; the other is unformed faith, which leans upon the truth of the articles themselves on account of some created reason. And the first indeed is called unformed faith, not because it lacks the form of faith insofar as it is a virtue, but only insofar as it is a gratuitous virtue; and of this it was said before that it is a virtuous habit and an infused habit. But in the second way faith is called unformed because it lacks the form of faith, both insofar as it is a virtue, and insofar as it is gratuitous. For that credulity by which someone assents to the articles principally on account of a created reason lacks not only the intention of a gratuitous habit, but also the intention of a virtuous habit. For *to believe* seems to belong to no virtue when someone believes by leaning upon a persuasion which he sees.

If therefore unformed faith be taken in this second way, then it can be granted that it is found in the demons. For they have some knowledge and credulity concerning the articles and the things to be believed, which indeed can be called *faith* or *credulity*, on account of the fact that there is not in them an open vision. — And that cognition was partly imparted to them from their first condition, [and] partly is from acquisition. For from their first condition they had some cognition concerning the articles pertaining to the Trinity, which, although then it did not deserve to be called *faith*, but rather *the cognition of contemplation*, on account of the absence of the enigma, yet, sin supervening and the enigma following, that cognition deserved to be called *faith*, since it is an enigmatic cognition concerning the things that pertain to the divine. — But as regards the articles pertaining to the humanity, there is in them a cognition *acquired* through many miracles and experiences and as it were wrung out by a certain necessity. For when the demons see openly that those who believe in Christ and are conformed to him cannot be damned; they are compelled by manifest reason to believe that the faith of believers in Christ is true; and through this, consequently, they believe that all things are true which Christians believe; and from this also they are terrified, on account of which the blessed James says that they *believe and tremble*.

But if we speak of unformed faith according as it is taken in the first way, namely insofar as it is a virtuous habit and an infused habit and also voluntary; in this way, although it be found in Christian wayfarers, it nevertheless cannot be found in the demons, both because they are not apt to receive infused habits, and because their will is more inclined to assail the truth as regards piety than to assent to it. — Hence the reasons which show this are to be granted.

**To the opposite:**

*To 1 and 2.* To that which is objected to the contrary from the authority of James, and from the Gloss, that the unformed quality is in the demons; it must be said that in both faith is found, but yet in one way and another, as was said before. For Christians in name believe voluntarily, and that faith can be for them a *way* to virtue, and in a certain manner *rectifies* their mind, though *not fully*; but it is not so in the demons, since they believe *under compulsion* and as it were with a certain murmuring.

*To 3.* To that which is objected, that they confessed Christ to be the Son of God; it must be said that, as Augustine says in the book *On the City of God*, « Christ himself became known to the demons not through that which is truth and light, but through certain effects of his power ». Hence, because they saw the wondrous power of Christ in its effects, which they could in no way resist; they knew him to be not a mere man, but also God. Yet that credulity was not unformed faith, according as unformed faith is a *virtue*, since they did not adhere to the First Truth itself for its own sake.

*To 4.* To that which is objected, that they knew God to be three and one; it must be said that that cognition in the demons was left over from the cognition which they had from their first condition. For, according as Dionysius says in the book *On the Divine Names*, chapter four: « We say that the gifts given to the demons were by no means themselves changed, but are entire and most splendid, although they themselves do not see, closing within themselves the powers that are inspective of the good ». And so it is not necessary to posit in the demons an infused habit of faith, since they had such knowledge from their first natural condition, although they have it in a certain way less perfectly on account of the blinding of their minds.

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