150. The good done by unbelievers; and “implicit faith”
150. THE GOOD DONE BY UNBELIEVERS; AND “IMPLICIT FAITH”
Calvin believed that all the good deeds of unbelievers were worthless to God. Even St. Augustine said that the virtues of the pagans were only “splendid vices.” Is that true?
Can unbelievers be saved? There is a serious problem here, for if the answer is yes, then it seems that to be saved you don’t need faith, or the gospel, or even Christ, as long as you do good deeds. But if the answer is no, because you do need faith to be saved, then God seems unfair to condemn to Hell pagans who never had the chance to hear the gospel and believe it. Can unbelievers have implicit faith?
It is said of Cornelius, while yet an unbeliever (Acts 10:4,31), that his alms were acceptable to God. Therefore not every action of an unbeliever is a sin, but some of his actions are good. . . .
Unbelief does not wholly destroy natural reason in unbelievers, but some knowledge of the truth remains in them, whereby they are able to do deeds that are generically good. With regard, however, to Cornelius, it is to be observed that he was not an unbeliever, else his works would not have been acceptable to God, Whom none can please without faith. Now he had implicit faith, as the truth of the Gospel was not yet made manifest (II-II, I0,4).
St. Thomas assumes in this answer the distinction he made above (#148) between living faith and dead faith. Only living faith can save us. But even implicit faith can be living faith.
Pagans like Cornelius (or Socrates) can be saved because they can have implicit living faith. He was a God-seeker; God was in his heart even though He was not in his head explicitly. We are not saved by how much we know (intellectually) but by the One Whom we know (personally). God does not give us a theology exam at the Last Judgment, with those who get a 60 going to Heaven and those who get a 59 going to Hell.
This only-implicit but still-living faith produces the good works of the righteous pagan like Cornelius, or (probably) Socrates, and these might be called the implicit works of love (agape, charity) even in the absence of the explicit knowledge of the divine love revealed to the Jews and fulfilled by Christ. Thus a living faith and its product, love, can exist among pagans. God does not refuse to enter their souls when they seek Him, even confusedly.
The answer to the “serious problem” above is that Christ as the Logos, the Word or Mind or Reason of God, “the true light that enlightens every man who comes into the world” (Jn 1:9), enlightens pagans too, though not as explicitly as Christians because they do not know Him in His Incarnation. Paul makes the same point in Romans 1:19-21. Christ the Logos was known not only by the few thousand Jews He met during the three years of His public ministry in Israel, but by “every man who comes into the world”. Thus all have a chance of salvation because all know the Savior, the Logos, the second Person of the Trinity, even if they do not know His Incarnation as Jesus. For the divine Logos and the human Jesus are not two Persons but one and the same Person.
Thus the quintessentially “conservative” dogma of Christ’s divinity as the pre-incarnate eternal Logos is the basis for the quintessentially “liberal” hope that good pagans can go to Heaven. He is indeed the one and only Way, Truth, and Life, the only Savior. But when Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, or even honest agnostics give their heart to truth and goodness; when they make the ultimate value and point and purpose and meaning and end of their lives that which God is, absolute truth and absolute goodness, they are in fact giving their heart to Jesus even though they do not know it. And He will claim their hearts at the Last Judgment.
So when you find truth and goodness among non-Christians, praise Christ for His gracious, humble, anonymous presence there. And thank Him for revealing Himself more clearly to you, for the more clearly we know the Way, the more likely it is that we will walk in it.