Q. What is belief? A. It is an assent to that which is credible, as credible. Q. What do you mean by assent? A. It is the act, or habit of the understanding, by which it receives, acknowledges, and embraces any thing as a truth. Q. Is this assent, or judgment as to truth, a general act of the understanding, and so, applicable to other habits thereof, as well as faith? A. Yes. Q. How then do you express the object of faith? A. By that which is credible." Q. Then all belief, though an assent to "that which is credible," is not properly faith? A. No. Q. How then do you distinguish between faith and mere assent? A. By that which is actually seen, and that which is only heard. Q. What do you call the former ? A. Assent to truth, as the result of evident knowledge." Q. What the latter? A. Assent to that which is credible, as the object of faith. Q. Is this, then, what you mean by the term "as credible?" A. Yes; for by this, we add to the material object, or thing believed, the formal object, or that whereby it is properly believed; and which we express by the term as credible." 66 66 Q. To understand the term "credible," or credibility," explain what is properly credible? A. That which is not apparent of itself, nor can be collected, either antecedently by its cause, or reversely by its effect, yet hath the attestation of a truth, is credible. Q. What then is that called, which is apparent of itself? A. That which is apparent to sense, is said to be evident to sense; that which is apparent to the understanding, evident to the understanding. Q. If things thus apparent are not said to be believed-what are they? Q. What do you call that which, though not immediately apparent in itself, may be collected from an immediate and necessary connexion with something formerly known; as, for instance, the connexion between cause and effect? A. This is scientifical; and the comprehension of such, is not faith, but science. Q. May not things, not evident of themselves, nor known by any necessary connexion between cause and effect, yet appear as true, by some external relations to other truths? A. Yes. Q. What then do you call such? A. If they depend upon real arguments, they are probable; and assent to such, is opinion. Q. If a thing be neither apparent in and of itself, nor can be collected from the connexion between cause and effect, nor can be taken up on any real argument, or reference to other acknowledged truths, how does it appear true? A. By attestation of the truth. Q. Then you assent not to the thing of itself? A. No; but in virtue of the testimony given to it. Q. Is then a thing thus propounded said to be credible? A. Yes; and assent to this, upon such credibility, is in the proper notion, "faith," or "belief." Q. But may there not be several kinds of belief or faith? A. Yes; diversity of credibility in the object will cause a distinction of assent in the understanding, and hence several kinds of faith. Q. What causes this diversity of credibility? A. The different authority of the testimony on which it depends. Q. On what do the strength and validity of testimony depend? A. On the authority of the testifier. Q. And on what is the authority of the testifier founded? A. On his ability and integrity; his abilitu to secure him from error-his integrity, to shield us from deceit. Q. How is testimony divided? A. It is that of man to man Q. What divine? A. That of God to man. Q. These two kinds of testimony are, then, the grounds of two kinds of credibility? A. Yes; human and divine. Q. Then there is also a twofold faith? Q. Give a definition of human faith. A. It is an assent to any thing credible, upon the testimony of man. Q. Since all human knowledge is imperfect, must not human testimony be imperfect? A. Yes; it is fallible. Q. Define divine faith. A. It is an assent to something as credible, upon the testimony of God. Q. Since the knowledge and holiness of God are infinite, as also his ability and integrity, must not divine testimony be perfect? A. Yes; it is infallible. Q. What is the credibility of truth attested by God? A. It is divine credibility. Q. And what is assent to it, as so credible? Divine faith. Q. What is the material object of divine faith? A. The doctrine which God delivers. Q. What the formal object? A. The credibility founded on his authority. Q. What is revelation? A. It is of two kinds-immediate and mediate. Q. What is immediate revelation? A. That delivered by God himself, without the intervention of man. Q. What is mediate revelation? A. It is the counsel of God, conveyed to man by man. Q. Give an instance of immediate revelation. A. God speaking to the prophets-his command to Abraham to slay his son. Q. Give an instance of mediate revelation. A. God speaking by the prophets to us: as when God addressed the Israelites by Moses. Q. What then was the faith of the Israelites in Canaan ? A. An assent unto the truths of the law, as credible, upon the testimony of God, delivered unto them in the writings of Moses and the prophets. |