Monologion: Chapter 77/Chapter 78
MONOLOGION
Chapter 77 That one ought to believe equally in the Father, the Son, and their Spirit, both in each individually and in all three together
Therefore one ought to believe equally in the Father,the Son,and their Spirit, both in each individually and in all three together. For the Father, the Son, and their Spirit are each individually the supreme essence, and the Father and the Son along with their Spirit are together one and the same supreme essence, in whom alone every human being ought to believe, since he alone is the end at which they ought to aim through love in their every thought and action.
From this it is evident that just as no one can strive for him unless he believes him, so also it does no one any good to believe him unless he strives for him.
Chapter 78 What is a living and what a dead faith Therefore,with however great a certainty so great a thing is believed,that faith will be useless and like something dead unless through love it is strong and alive. For a faith that is accompanied and attended by love will by no means be idle when it has the opportunity to act; instead, it will exert itself to act quite frequently, which it could not do without love. That this is so can be proved by just this one fact: one who loves the supreme justice cannot disdain anything just or tolerate anything unjust.Therefore, since whatever acts, shows that it has life, without which it could not act, it is not absurd to say that an active faith is living, since it has the life of love without which it would not act, and that an idle faith is not living, since it lacks the life of love with which it would not be idle. Therefore, if not only one who has lost his sight is called blind, but also one who, though he ought to have it, does not, why cannot faith without love similarly be called dead,73 not because it has lost its life (that is, its love), but because it does not have what it ought always to have? So, just as a faith that through love is active74 is recognized as living, a faith that through disdain is idle is proved to be dead. And so it can quite appropriately be said that a living faith believes in what it ought to believe in,75 whereas a dead faith merely believes what it ought to believe.
73 Cf. James 2:26:"Faith without action is dead."
74 Cf. Galatians 5:6:"Faith, which through charity is active."
75 Because, as was argued in Chapter 76, believing in [in] God implies striving for [in] God.