149. How unbelief is a sin
149. HOW UNBELIEF IS A SIN
How can God punish anyone for honest, sincere error? How can unbelief be a sin?
Vice (and sin) is opposed to virtue. Now faith is a virtue, and unbelief is opposed to it. Therefore unbelief is a sin.
Unbelief may be taken in two ways: first, by way of pure negation, so that a man is called an unbeliever merely because he does not have the faith. Secondly, unbelief may be taken by way of opposition to the faith, in which sense a man refuses to hear the faith or despises it . . . and it is in this sense that unbelief is a sin.
If, however, we take it by way of pure negation, as we find it in those who have heard nothing about the faith, it bears the character not of sin. . . . [I]f such unbelievers are damned it is on account of other sins . . . but not on account of their sin of unbelief. Hence Our Lord said (Jn 15:22): If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have sin (II-II,10,1).
Dishonesty is a sin, whether this is dishonesty to another person in lying to him or dishonesty to yourself in lying to yourself, when you “by . . . wickedness suppress the truth” (Rom 1:18, where Paul accuses the whole human race of this sin).
Disbelief is a sin, but honest unbelief is not. But it is a temporary condition on the part of a person who is honestly seeking the truth. It is only temporary because Christ Himself promised that all who seek will eventually find (Mt 7:7-8). It may, however, take a long time—sometimes longer than one’s lifetime on earth. That is one reason why there has to be a Purgatory.
St. Thomas says that a pagan who has not heard the Faith does not sin for disbelieving it. You can’t believe what you don’t know. We can also extend this to those who have heard only a false, unfair, and misleading version of the Faith (e.g., “Catholicism is superstition” or “Christianity is the fairy tale that God is Super Santa”). They are right to reject this. This is rejection of false gods, not the true God.
But when someone is exposed to the true divine revelation and confronts the claims of Christ, and turns away by refusing to hear it, or despises it, hates it, wants the Good News of the gospel to be false—this is serious sin. Wanting the bad news of silly superstitions to be false is a virtue; wanting the good news—that God, Ultimate Reality, is also ultimate goodness and love—to be false is mortal sin because it is refusing the nature of ultimate reality, refusing The Way Things Are. If one dies in this state he cannot go to Heaven because he would hate Heaven. He wills that Heaven be not Heaven and God be not God.
Religious belief is needed for salvation because religious belief means something much more than an intellectual opinion. Remember, “even the demons believe (in this merely intellectual sense), and shudder” (Jas 2:19). “Religious belief” means “faith”, and “faith” means “fidelity”, and “fidelity” means “faithfulness”, the faithfulness of one person to another person, not just the acceptance of a mind toward an idea. Thus St. Thomas elsewhere (ST II-II 1,1) says that the primary object of faith is not just truths but the First Truth, the Person of God; the secondary object of faith is the truths God has revealed. The old Baltimore Catechism defined faith as “an act of the intellect, prompted by the will, by which we believe everything God has revealed on the authority of Him Who has revealed it.” Faith is belief in a Person first of all, and only because of that, in what the Person says. This is why we believe the Christian faith: because it is God’s mind, not man’s.
Faith is trust. Banks are called “trust companies” because you actually put your money into them. Insurance companies are often called “fidelity” companies for the same reason. Faith is a real transaction. Something really happens between you and the other person, human or divine. It’s not just an attitude. You give something, you invest something, in another person. That something is always at least a part of your very self. This is why faith is necessary for salvation: because that’s what Heaven’s life is: the gift of self in trust and love.