NOTES

Chapter Two

Human Faith and Divine Faith

The primary purpose of this chapter is to examine Newman’s understanding of human faith and divine faith, and the relationship between the two. Newman clarifies his understanding of the relationship between the two as a result of his attempts, in his Catholic writings, to integrate his view of faith in the University Sermons with the Catholic notion of faith that was found in nineteenth-century Roman theology. Out of these reflections, Newman arrived at a clear distinction between human faith and divine faith and was able to more specifically delineate his Catholic understanding of faith. These reflections also enabled Newman to clearly distinguish between the question of the rational credibility of faith and the supernatural nature of the act of Catholic faith. Once this distinction was clarified, he was able to more effectively address the role that reason plays in each.

Newman’s early Catholic writings on the relationship between human faith and divine faith are shrouded with ambiguities. The difficulties and ambiguities found in Newman’s statements on human faith and divine faith have been pointed out by Newman scholars in the past.¹ Many of these works are papers that were not originally intended for publication. In these works, Newman often appears to be thinking out loud. He sometimes raises objections to the views presented, even his own, and, frequently, he leaves such objections unanswered. Newman also gives alternative readings and parenthetical citations. Consequently, there is a tentative nature to these writings; at times, he is so ambiguous, if not contradictory, that it is very difficult to find a consistent interpretation of his thought on the relationship between human faith and divine faith. This ambiguity shows the difficulties that Newman faced in trying to correlate the notion of faith in the University Sermons with the Catholic approach to faith found in Roman theology.

To understand Newman’s distinction between human faith and divine faith, it is necessary to understand the distinction between the formal and the material objects of faith. This distinction is part of the language that Newman adopts from Roman theology. The material object refers to the fides quae (faith that), that which is believed in the act of faith, the content or the object of faith. The formal object refers to the fides qua (faith through which), why one believes, the motive or the reason on which one’s belief in the object of faith is based. More precisely stated, this investigation will endeavor to determine whether Newman sees human and divine faith as having the same or different material objects and whether he sees them as having the same or different formal objects.

The writings of Newman that will be examined in this chapter are the “1847 Paper on the Certainty of Faith”;² a letter to Edward Healy Thompson dated October 11, 1853;³ the “Paper on the Certainty of Faith,” dated December 16, 1853; the “Papers in Preparation for A Grammar of Assent, 1865–1869”;⁴ and the Grammar of Assent, published in 1870. These works will be examined in chronological order. This will enable us to view Newman’s understanding of the relationship between human faith and divine faith in its context and to see how it developed.

The context of Newman’s writings is particularly important for understanding his thought. He has been called an occasional writer, one whose writings are motivated by some external cause or event, rather than simply by some theoretical desire to clarify a point. Consequently, any attempt to interpret his writings on the distinction between human faith and divine faith must consider the context that occasioned them. The first three works to be discussed were occasioned by Newman’s encounter with Roman theology. The last two works were written in the context of his dialogue with William Froude between 1860 and 1870. These two works also reflect his ongoing concern to find a way to justify the faith of ordinary Catholics.

ENCOUNTER WITH ROMAN THEOLOGY

“Paper on the Certainty of Faith,” 1847

The first of Newman’s writings to be examined will be the “Paper on the Certainty of Faith,” which is dated Rome, 1847.⁵ In this document Newman defines divine faith and distinguishes it from human faith. Divine faith is defined as a “firm assent to the Word of God obscurely revealed.”⁶ From the nature of the case, Newman asserts, the assent of divine faith is supernatural and a divine gift.⁷ He goes on to define divine faith explicitly in terms of its material and formal objects. The material object of divine faith is the “things revealed,” not truths that are held as “conclusions from premises.” The truths of divine faith are “independent of all previous knowledge except the veracity of God.”⁸ The formal object of faith is God, but God understood in two ways. The formal object quod is God as that whom faith directly contemplates and whose presence gives revealed things their place and meaning. The formal object quo is also God, but God as the medium by which faith is able to contemplate God. The formal object quo is also the reason (ratio formalis, formal reason) for the certainty of divine faith; “faith [divine faith] is certain, because God speaks who cannot lie.”⁹

On the other hand, human faith, which Newman speaks of using various terms such as “fides acquisita” (acquired faith), “humana, acquisita fides” (human acquired faith), and “acquisita fides” (acquired faith), is not as precisely defined. Human faith is described as being “prior to the act of divine faith itself,” “resolvable into its premises and depends on them,” “discursive and doubtful.”¹⁰ What seems to be clear is that human faith is an assent, without grace, to the credibility of revelation based on a rational analysis of the motives of credibility, motiva credibilitatis.¹¹ However, Newman does not explicitly define human faith in terms of its material and formal objects. In one place, he seems to suggest that the material object of human faith and divine faith are the same: “what divine faith receives as certain, acquisita or human faith has already received as not more than credible.”¹² In another place, the material object of human faith appears to be the fact of revelation, “that God has spoken.”¹³ The formal object of human faith is more clearly defined, although, again, Newman does not use this language. From his description of human faith, the basis of one’s acceptance of the credibility of revelation is that this judgment is derived through a process of human reason based on an analysis of arguments. As Newman has said, human faith is discursive; it is resolvable into its premises and depends on them. Added to this, he goes on to state that human faith depends “on the truth of certain premises and the cogency of a certain logical process.”¹⁴ The process of reasoning about which Newman is speaking here is not the logical syllogistic argumentation of formal reason but the more personal process of informal reason. The acceptance of the motives of credibility is based on a process of informal reasoning.¹⁵

In this work, Newman also discusses the relationship between divine faith and human faith in terms of the nature of the certitude that each possesses. Divine faith is described as being both certus (certain) and inevidens (not evident) at one and the same time. It is certus, because its assent is “without doubt or fear” and “inevidens, because its method of proof is imperfect.”¹⁶ On the other hand, the assent of human faith is not described as being certain but as being “not more than credible.”¹⁷ Newman gives the following definition of credible: “By ‘credible’ is not meant capable of belief, but morally certain (or practically), though not without doubt and fear; or highly probable, or prudent to believe, or sufficient in itself but not sufficient considering the great importance of the subject.”¹⁸ He clarifies his position by stating that although the reasons, or motiva, of faith cannot be more than credible, they must not be less.¹⁹ Yet, still at this point, not seemingly fully satisfied with his explanation, he makes some remarks that appear to be inconsistent with his previous comments. He states that not only must the motiva of faith be credible, but they must be “evidently credible.” Then, he expresses reservations about the inclusion of fear in human faith by stating that even the illiterate must have evidentia credibilitatis (evidences of credibility); that is, “they must have clear reason without any fear, to think themselves right.”²⁰

Part of the reason for Newman’s ambiguity on the nature of the certitude of human faith is his inability, at this stage of his development, to see clearly how human faith and divine faith are distinct acts, each possessing its own certitude. William Fey admits that Newman had this difficulty in his writings on faith before he became a Catholic and that it was his encounter with Roman theology that enabled him to make a clear distinction between the certitude of human faith and the certitude of divine faith. Fey suggests that Newman had arrived at this distinction in this work.²¹ Fey seems to interpret Newman’s statements on the “credible” nature of the assent of human faith as an attribution of an independent certitude to human faith.²² Yet, there is evidence in this work that Newman did not yet clearly see human faith and divine faith as two distinct acts with independent certitudes but that he saw them as two aspects of one complex act.

The act of divine faith, by which a man believes the word of God revealed through the Church is of course the immediate effect of divine grace, but it may be regarded in its human aspect—fides humana—[human faith] resulting from the motiva credibilitatis [motives of credibility]. When human reasonings have led to a moral certainty that God has spoken, and the will determines to accept [the] conclusion as absolutely true, the grace of God infuses a divine certainty—fides divina [divine faith]—which admits of no doubt at all. Thus the same complex act has two aspects.²³

Although there are ambiguities, what Newman has done in this work is to outhne the framework for his understanding of the distinction between human faith and divine faith. Human faith, which is prior to divine faith, is the rational process of arriving at the judgment of the credibility of revelation. On the other hand, divine faith is the act of accepting revealed truths as revealed through grace on the basis of the Word of God. Human faith and divine faith are also distinguished on the basis of the nature of the assent involved in each. The assent of human faith is described as being “not more than credible,” whereas the assent of divine faith is described as certain.

Letter to Edward Healy Thompson

In a letter to Edward Healy Thompson dated October 11, 1853, Newman attempts to clarify what he means when he describes the assent of human faith as credible. The conversation was initiated by Thompson who, in a letter written to Newman on October 8, 1853, had interpreted Newman as saying that human faith was merely probable, “grounded on probability.” Newman was responding to Thompson to correct what he saw as Thompson’s misinterpretation of his thought.²⁴ Newman begins by stating that he would be surprised if he had called the conclusion to which human faith comes probable or even implied that it was. Clarifying his position, he states, “What I have said is that it was credible.”²⁵ Credible means “dignum fide” (worthy of belief) “more than credendum” (believable), “consistent with a practical certainty,” “that which has sufficient grounds [motiva, or reasons] to be thoroughly believed.” Yet, credible does not mean being “proved true,” for, according to Newman, the will “does bid and gain the intellect to give assent beyond the force of the motiva.”²⁶

Newman next describes the process of faith but, as he states, does not discuss the role of divine grace, “where it comes in, or what it does.”²⁷ Yet, the very first point he makes is that the object of faith includes both its material and formal objects. He identifies the material object as the res revelata (the matter revealed), the revealed truths themselves, and the formal object as the revelatio, the truths as revealed. The combined object of faith he summarizes as the “Christian doctrines as revealed.”²⁸ Even though Newman says that he is not going to discuss the role of grace, when he brings in the formal object of faith, the acceptance of the truths because they are revealed, he is admitting that grace does play a role in the process of faith. But, since he doesn’t specifically discuss the operation of grace, his explanation of the process is ambiguous about what reason does and where grace comes in. As a result, the distinction between human faith and divine faith in terms of their formal objects is obscured.

In this work, the actual distinction between human faith and divine faith is based on how each responds to the combined object of faith. Through the use of arguments, the motiva (reasons), human faith proves “evidently, not that the revelation and the revealed doctrines are true, but are credible.” Consequently, the arguments for human faith are called “motiva credibilitatis” (motives of credibility), not “veritatis” (of truth).²⁹ On the other hand, divine faith, although Newman does not specifically use the expression divine faith here, assents to the revelation and the revealed doctrines, not as credible but as true. This seems to be the meaning of Newman’s description of the last stage of the process of faith.

Lastly when the mind is convinced that the Revelatio [truths as revealed] and the res revelata [the matter revealed] are digna fide [worthy of belief], credibilia [credible], the prudentia [prudent judgments] sees that the intellect must fittingly, naturally, conscientiously believe them, and the pia motio [devout movement of the will] draws the same way. Accordingly, the intellect does assent to that as true, which has been evidently proved to it to be credible. And, while it is about it (if I may use the term) it sees that if it believes at all, it cannot believe by halves—for to believe in God’s word, which by the hypothesis it is doing, is to believe in that which claims the firmest and most absolute assent, or certainty in its highest form.³⁰

Several other observations can be drawn from this statement. First, the language, although ambiguous, suggests that Newman sees the revelatio and the res revelata as the material object of both human faith and divine faith. The same suggestion was made in the “1847 Paper on Certainty,” although again somewhat ambiguously, for at one point in that work, Newman described the material object of human faith as the fact of revelation, without specifically mentioning the revealed truths themselves. Second, Newman appears to be maintaining that the assent of divine faith goes beyond the assent of human faith. What human faith accepts as credible, divine faith accepts as true. Furthermore, the certainty of divine faith is described as the firmest, most absolute assent, and the highest form of certitude. Third, this statement shows that, even though grace is not specifically discussed, it is evident that he sees the grace-inspired act of divine faith as the final step in the process of faith. As Newman states, faith is believing in God’s Word. Finally, this statement does not support the conclusion that Newman saw the whole process of faith as the exclusive result of a process of informal reasoning. Since Newman discusses the process without mentioning where grace comes in, the impression might be given that he assumes that the whole process can be arrived at through informal reason. Such an assumption is disproved by his consistent insistence, both in the “1847 Paper on Certainty” and in his later works, that grace is absolutely essential for making the assent of the act of divine faith. William Fey supports this position when he concludes that “while Newman came to stress the possibility of informal reasoning to certainty about the credibility of revelation, he never meant to adopt an informal rationalism where divine faith is simply an assent to the conclusion of such reasoning.”³¹

Newman spent the next two months of 1853 expanding his reply to Edward Healy Thompson into a longer paper entitled “Papers of 1853 on the Certainty of Faith.” In this work, Newman does explicitly set out to explain the role that grace plays in the process of faith.³²

“Papers of 1853 on the Certainty of Faith″

The work entitled the “Papers of 1853 on the Certainty of Faith” is a series of separate papers written at various times during 1853. The particular paper with which we are concerned here is “On the Certainty of Faith,” written on December 16, 1853. Toward the end of this paper, Newman states that he is going to explain the process of supernatural [divine] faith and the portion of it, which is supernatural.³³ Newman explains the process according to three steps: (1) the speculative judgment of credibility, (2) human faith, and (3) the act of divine faith itself.

The speculative judgment of credibility, the first step of the process, is an assent of the mind to the credibility of revelation. It is described both as an assent that does not exclude fear and as an assent of certitude.³⁴ Newman describes this step of the process as being purely natural. It may be “mastered by a mind destitute of the grace of Christ.”³⁵ The whole of this process is “within the powers of natural reason.” As Newman says, “An infidel may get as far as this.”³⁶ It is clear that this step is part of the process of coming to faith and is, therefore, distinct from the act of divine faith. “A mind which gets as far as this does not yet believe. It only sees that Revelation is credible.” ³⁷ What he is describing here is the process of informal reasoning (evidentia credibilitatis, evidences of credibility) by which the mind (through prudentia, the prudent judgments) arrives at the judgment of the credibility of revelation. The object of this assent is the credibility of revelation, the fact of revelation, that God has spoken, not both the revelatio (truths as revealed) and the res revelata (the matter revealed), as suggested in Newman’s earlier works. The formal object is informal reasoning; the assent to the credibility of revelation is made on the basis of the process of informal reasoning.³⁸ This speculative judgment of the credibility is what Newman called human faith, fides humana/fides acquisita, in his earlier works. So, it is rather puzzling when he calls the second step of this process human faith.

Human faith, the second step of the process, which is introduced almost as an afterthought, is not very precisely defined. Newman does, however, set the parameters for the human faith he is discussing here. It is an assent that goes further than the speculative judgment of the credibility of revelation, but it falls short of the assent of divine faith because it does not require grace. It is an act of the unaided mind. Also, human faith is described as an assent that does not exclude fear.³⁹ The material object of human faith is not specifically defined. In terms of its relationship to divine faith, human faith is described as differing from divine faith “not only in its quality” but also in that human faith “has something of vague sense” and “does not necessarily suppose a speaker.”⁴⁰ As such, human faith is said to be “applicable to belief in our experiential conclusions in science.”⁴¹

Divine faith, the third step of the process, is itself described according to three stages, all of which are said to be both supernatural, requiring grace, and rational, according to human reason.⁴² The first stage is the practical judgment of credibility, which is an assent to the proposition “that it is right and fitting and excellent to believe what is credible.”⁴³ Since it is said to accompany the speculative judgment of credibility, it would be reasonable to assume that the practical judgment has the credibility of the fact of revelation as its material object. It is important to note that the practical judgment is an assent to the fitness of believing and does not, in itself, lead immediately to divine faith.⁴⁴ In the second stage of divine faith, the will determines and moves the intellect to believe. Newman calls this stage the “pia affectio” (holy disposition) or the “voluntas credendi” (will to believe). He also refers to this stage as the “wish to believe.”⁴⁵ According to Newman, in this stage, the will exerts an imperium (command) that obliges the mind to believe without doubt or fear.⁴⁶

The third and final stage is the act of divine faith itself. In this stage, the intellect, commanded by the will, accepts (embraces and holds) the revelation and the res revelata as true. The material object of divine faith is both the revelation—namely, “that God has spoken” or “the fact of revelation”—and the res revelata, “that he has spoken thus” or “the things revealed.”⁴⁷ The formal object of divine faith is not explicitly defined, but it is implied in Newman’s statement that divine faith requires a speaker. This statement is compatible with his earlier descriptions of the formal object of divine faith as the Word of God revealing that, through grace, guarantees the truth of the revelation and the res revelata.

The main difficulty in this paper is Newman’s description of human faith. The speculative judgment of credibility, which was earlier called human faith, is distinguished from a human faith, which is said to go further than the speculative judgment. The nature of this “further” is not clearly specified. One possibility is that he is suggesting that the human mind, without grace, might be able to reach the practical judgment of credibility—namely, that it is fitting to believe a revelation that has been demonstrated (through informal reason) to be credible. If this is the case, then, he is saying that human reason, unaided by grace, can arrive at both the speculative judgment and the practical judgment of credibility. It is conceivable that what he intends is not to exclude the speculative judgment from human faith, since he has earlier called it human faith, but to extend the notion of human faith to include both the speculative and the practical judgments of credibility. Newman’s hesitation here seems to suggest that he is not certain if the practical judgment can be reached without grace. He appears to be saying that if the practical judgment can be reached without grace, then it is part of human faith. If it cannot, then it is part of divine faith.

Another problem here is that Newman seems to have reached a point where it is difficult for him to distinguish between nature and grace. Roman theology seemed to have been able, or at least thought that it could, more easily delineate where reason ends and grace takes over in the act of divine faith. Newman does not seem to be able, or even want, to make such a rigid distinction. For him, nature and grace more easily overlap. Grace is said to be a stimulus, which enables the intellect without superseding it.⁴⁸ Newman sees no difficulty in suggesting that, in many cases, grace is operative in the speculative judgment, even though it is possible to arrive at this judgment through reason alone.⁴⁹ At one point in this paper, he raises the possibility of a human faith aided by grace.⁵⁰

Certainly, some of the ambiguity in Newman’s treatment of the relationship between human faith and divine faith is due to his understanding of the relationship between the natural and the supernatural. His understanding of the relationship between the natural and the supernatural is partially grounded in his distinction between natural religion and revealed religion that he developed around 1830.⁵¹ Revealed religion is the Judeo-Christian revelation, which finds its fulfillment in Jesus Christ. It is thoroughly supernatural and always requires grace for its acceptance. Natural religion refers to that knowledge of God and divine things that has been acquired outside the Judeo-Christian revelation. This knowledge of God is not the result of unaided reason but of reason aided by grace, and so Newman speaks of natural religion as containing a revelation, even through it is an incomplete revelation. As a result, Newman’s distinction between the natural and the supernatural is not as precise as Roman theology, which speaks of the possibility of a purely natural rational knowledge of God distinct from a supernatural knowledge of God based on revelation. This explains why he is reluctant to set rigid boundaries between nature and grace in his discussion of human faith. Newman, however, is consistent on insisting that the act of divine faith cannot be made without the assistance of grace.

Yet, in spite of this ambiguity, Newman clearly sets forth the distinction between the material objects of human faith and divine faith in this paper. The material object of human faith, which includes the speculative judgment and perhaps the practical judgment, is the revelation, the fact of revelation, that God has spoken, and not the res revelata, the revealed truths as revealed. On the other hand, it is even clearer that the material object of divine faith is the revelation and the res revelata.⁵² Human faith can assent to the credibility of the fact of revelation, but it cannot assent to the truth of the revelation (the truths as revealed) and the res revelata (the matter revealed). Such an assent goes beyond the scope of human faith.

DIALOGUE WITH WILLIAM FROUDE

“Papers in Preparation for A Grammar of Assent 1865–1869”

Although the “Papers in Preparation for A Grammar of Assent 1865–1869” treat primarily the question of the nature of certitude, Newman does briefly discuss human faith and divine faith in this work, which, as the title suggests, is a series of papers.⁵³ In a paper dated July 7, 1867, Newman refines his understanding of divine faith by making a distinction between Divine Faith (Fides Divina) and Catholic Divine Faith (Fides Divina Catholica). Catholic Divine Faith is defined as the acceptance of public revelation (the revelation of Christ given to the apostles) on the basis of the authority of God revealing through the voice of the infallible Church. Divine Faith, on the other hand, is the acceptance of private divine revelations on the basis of the authority of God, but not on the basis of the infallible authority of the Catholic Church.⁵⁴ Newman says that Catholics can be secure that their faith meets the two conditions of divine faith: first, that its material object is true and, second, that its formal object is the authority of God revealing.⁵⁵ From this analysis it is clear that Catholic Divine Faith is the acceptance of revealed truths as revealed and that the act of Catholic Divine Faith depends on the grace of God.

In this paper, Newman makes perhaps his clearest statement on the distinction between human faith (the judgment of credibility) and divine faith in terms of their material objects.

Perhaps it is not a subtlety, to say, as Viva seems to do, that the conclusion drawn from the motiva or reasonings is the fact of the revelation or revelation as the subject of the proposition, “There is a revelation;” and the object of the assent of faith is not the mere fact that there is a revelation, [but] is the revelation itself with its contents.⁵⁶

The material object of human faith is the revelatio, the fact of revelation. The material object of divine faith is the revelatio, the fact of revelation, and the res revelata, the revealed truths with their content. This is consistent with our interpretation of the “1853 Paper on the Certainty of Faith.”

Newman is quite right in suspecting that this distinction is more than just a subtlety, for what it asserts is that revealed truths can only be the object of divine faith and can never be the object of a human faith. “Papers in Preparation for A Grammar of Assent 1865–1869” offers further indirect evidence that this was, indeed, Newman’s position on this matter. He raises a question about whether the doctrines found in the Allocutions of the Popes or in the Decreta and the like (as distinct from the anathematizing canons) of ecumenical councils are channels of revelation and, if they are, whether they are public or private revelations. Although he admits that some theologians see these doctrines as revealed truths, he himself does not think that they are. However, in reflecting on this question, Newman establishes a principle. If truths are truly revealed, then they can be objects of divine faith, either Divine Faith if private revelations, or Catholic Divine Faith if public revelations. If a truth is not revealed, then, it is an object of human faith, “fides humana.” ⁵⁷

An Essay in Aid of A Grammar of Assent

In A Grammar of Assent Newman does not explicitly treat the distinction between human faith and divine faith. However, he does make a reference to the distinction between the material and formal objects of faith. In the first part of A Grammar of Assent, Newman applies the results of his discussion of the relationship between assent and apprehension to two revealed truths of Catholic Divine Faith, “He [God] is One” and He [God] is Three.“⁵⁸ He qualifies this statement by stating that he is going to discuss these two revealed doctrines exclusively from the point of view of the material object of faith and omit any discussion of the formal object, that they are accepted because they are revealed by God.⁵⁹

However, nowhere in A Grammar of Assent does Newman explicitly treat human faith (fides humana/acquisita), the rational process of demonstrating the credibility of revelation or its relationship to divine faith in the way that he treated these topics in his earlier works.⁶⁰ Since what he has earlier defined as human faith is not even discussed in A Grammar of Assent, he does not attempt to distinguish human faith and divine faith in terms of their formal and material objects. If this interpretation is correct, and I believe it is, M. Jamie Ferreira’s reading of A Grammar of Assent on this matter will have to be reevaluated.

Ferreira maintains that in A Grammar of Assent, Newman distinguishes between what she calls a natural religious belief, which she identifies with Newman’s notion of human faith (fides humana/acquisita), and divine faith on the basis of their formal and material objects. According to Ferreira, both natural religious belief and divine faith have the same material object, namely, the religious doctrines and dogmas of Christian faith (i.e., the Trinity, the Incarnation, etc.). However, the two differ according to their formal objects. In natural religious belief, revealed doctrines are known and accepted on the basis of reason alone, and therefore, this adherence is purely natural. In divine faith, the same truths are accepted on the basis of the authority of God revealing, and, as such, this adherence is a gift of grace and therefore a supernatural act.⁶¹

Ferreira bases her position on a statement that Newman makes in Part I of A Grammar of Assent:

And secondly, I mean by belief, not precisely faith, because faith, in its theological sense, includes a belief, not only in the thing believed, but also in the ground of believing: that is, not only belief in certain doctrines, but belief in them expressly because God has revealed them; but here I am engaged only with what is called the material object of faith, with the thing believed, not with the formal.⁶²

Ferreira maintains that in this passage, Newman is distinguishing between a natural religious belief and divine faith. From Newman’s statement that he is only speaking of the material object of faith, she draws the conclusion that the material object of natural religious belief and divine faith are the same but that the two differ according to their formal objects. She also interprets this statement to mean that the discussion of divine faith is beyond the scope of A Grammar of Assent.⁶³

There are, however, some problems with this interpretation. Newman never actually uses the expression “natural religious belief,” and he never explicitly distinguishes between a natural religious belief and divine faith in A Grammar of Assent. Such an interpretation goes beyond the intent of the passage cited earlier. Newman simply makes a reference to the distinction between the material and formal objects of divine faith and states that in this section he is only concerned with the material object of divine faith. As for Ferreira’s suggestion that divine faith is beyond the scope of A Grammar of Assent, what Newman really seems to be saying is not that he is not going to talk about divine faith but that he is not going to talk about the formal object of divine faith. What he really is saying is that in A Grammar of Assent, he is not going to explicitly discuss the supernatural aspect of divine faith, where grace comes in and what it does. Although he does not discourse on grace in A Grammar of Assent, there is an implicit recognition of its essential role in the response of faith. Also, it must be remembered that the whole book was written to justify the certitude of Catholic faith, which is clearly a form of divine faith.

Finally, Ferreira’s interpretation is inconsistent with the position on the material and formal objects of human faith and divine faith that Newman arrived at in his earlier works. Ferreira’s interpretation is understandable given the ambiguous nature of Newman’s writings on this subject. In his earlier works, Newman does at times appear to identify the material and formal objects of human faith and divine faith. However, by 1853, he arrived at a position in which he saw human faith and divine faith as being distinguished in terms of both their material and formal objects. The material object of human faith is the revelatio, the fact of revelation. The formal object of human faith is the acceptance of the credibility of the fact of revelation as a conclusion of a process of informal reasoning. On the other hand, the material object of divine faith is the revealed truths themselves. The formal object of divine faith is the acceptance of the revealed truths as true through grace on the authority of the Word of God revealing.

Consequently, through his reflection on the distinction between human faith and divine faith, Newman arrived at a position in which he saw a clear, although subtle, distinction between the material objects of human faith and divine faith. Although Newman might have wavered on the relationship between reason and grace in human faith, he never once maintained that the objects of revelation could be accepted on the basis of human faith alone. Human faith alone cannot obtain the material object of divine faith, the revealed truths of Christianity. Human faith can only grasp human truths (truths that are theoretically available through reason) either alone or with the assistance of grace. It is for this reason that it is significant to point out that Newman distinguishes human faith and divine faith according to both their material and formal objects. This view, it is suggested here, represents Newman’s mature position. Although this interpretation does not remove all the ambiguities in his writings, it does help clarify his understanding of the distinction between human faith and divine faith in a way that, in this author’s mind, is consistent with his writings on this matter.

As a result of these reflections on the relationship between human faith and divine faith, Newman came to realize that the act of Catholic faith had its own distinctive processes that were different from those involved in human faith. Also, these reflections enabled him to delineate his specific Catholic understanding of faith, which he called Catholic Divine Faith. As a result, he was able to focus on the act of Catholic faith and investigate the processes by which a person arrives at the certitude of the act of Catholic faith. The framework for Newman’s mature understanding of Catholic faith is found in A Grammar of Assent. In this work, he defines human certitude and describes the process by which the human person arrives at certitude in concrete matters of truth. The next chapter examines Newman’s understanding of human certitude.

NOTES

Two notable examples are William R. Fey, Faith and Doubt: The Unfolding of Newman’s Thought on Certainty, preface by Charles Stephen Dessain (Shepherdstown, WV: Patmos, 1976), 38–49, 174–76; and M. Jamie Ferreira, Doubt and Religious Commitment: The Role of the Will in Newman’s Thought (Oxford: Clarendon, 1980), 131–38.

John Henry Newman, “1847 Paper on the Certainty of Faith,” unpublished, B.9.11.

LD, XV:464–67.

The last two works are published in John Henry Newman, The Theological Papers of John Henry Newman on Faith and Certainty, ed. Hugh M. de Achaval and J. Derek Holmes, introduction by Charles Stephen Dessain (Oxford: Clarendon, 1976).

Newman, “1847 Paper on Certainty.” This document includes a manuscript entitled “On the Nature of Faith,” as well as a rough draft of the material for the preface to the French translation of the University Sermons. David A. Pailin, in his book The Way to Faith: An Examination of Newman’s Grammar of Assent as a Response to the Search for Certainty in Faith (London: Epworth Press, 1969), 206–8, dates this manuscript 1848. Fey also dates this document as 1848 in Faith and Doubt, 49.

Newman, “1847 Paper on Certainty,” 1.

Newman, “1847 Paper on Certainty,” 1, 7.

Newman, “1847 Paper on Certainty,” 1.

Newman, “1847 Paper on Certainty,” 1, 3.

Newman, “1847 Paper on Certainty,” 3.

Newman, “1847 Paper on Certainty,” 5.

Fey, Faith and Doubt, 38–39.

Newman, “1847 Paper on Certainty,” 1.

Newman, “1847 Paper on Certainty,” 3.

Fey, Faith and Doubt, 38-41, 48–49.

Fey, Faith and Doubt, 49.

Newman, “1847 Paper on Certainty,” 5.

LD, XV:464–67.

LD, XV:465.

LD, XV:465. Newman says that if he had not maintained this, he would have fallen into a condemned proposition, and he quotes as evidence for this a thesis of Innocent XI which can be found in Denzinger, Enchiridion Symbolorum, 30th ed.,1169.

LD, XV:467.

LD, XV:466. Here Newman uses the term revelatio to refer to the formal object of faith. In his later works, revelatio designates the fact of revelation.

LD, XV:466. Newman states that what is made evident in the process of faith is that the revelation and the revealed doctrines are credible. But, in themselves, both the revelation and the revealed doctrines remain obscure and inevident.

LD, XV:466–67.

Fey, Faith and Doubt, 53–54.

Fey, Faith and Doubt, 53.

Newman, Theological Papers, 36. While some steps of the process are described as natural only and some are described as being both natural and supernatural, it is clear that, for Newman, the whole process of faith is influenced by grace.