Josef Pieper, On Faith: A Philosophical Treatise, in Faith, Hope, Love, trans. Richard and Clara Winston (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1997), 50-54.

This curious coexistence of certainty and uncertainty, which not only describes but actually constitutes the psychological situation of the believer, must be considered more closely. Thomas Aquinas has coined a terse formulation for the duality of the matter [De Veritate 14, 1, ad 5]: in belief, he says, there is “aliquid perfectionis et aliquid imperfectionis”, an element of perfection and an element of imperfection. The perfection inheres in the firmness of the assent, the imperfection in the fact that no vision operates--with the result that the believer is troubled by a lingering “mental unrest” [De Veritate 14, 1, ad 5].

The Latin word that we here translate as “mental unrest” is cogitatio. It is worthwhile to consider for a moment the meaning of this word, which we may think we are quite familiar with. So central is this term to the whole issue that tradition has included it in the briefest formula for the concept of “belief” we have; to wit: “cum assensione cogitare” [This formulation is first found in St. Augustine (De praedestinatione Sanctorum, cap. 2, 5). Thomas explicitly builds his analysis of the act of belief upon it; cf. STh. II-II, q. 2, a. 1]. If we wished to translate this into English as: to “think” with assent, the phrase would be not only far too vague and colorless but would obviously fail to embrace the meaning of this precise formulation. Thomas himself explicitly intends it as a definitive characterization of the structure of the act of belief [STh. II-II, q. 2, a. 1; In Sent. 3, d. 23, 2, 2, 1]. It is therefore vital to see just what is meant here by cogitare and cogitatio. What is meant is searching investigation, probing consideration, conferring with oneself before deciding, being on the track of, a mental reaching out for something not yet finally found [see STh. II-II, q. 2, a. 1 and I, q. 34, a. 1, ad 2]. All of these processes, taken together, may be subsumed within the term “mental unrest”. 

It is therefore the linking of final assent with a residual cogitatio, that is, the association of rest and unrest, that distinctively characterizes the believer. . . .

It is astonishing to see with what outspoken candor a theologian such as Thomas Aquinas describes this element of uncertainty in the act of belief. In contrast to insight and knowledge, he says, it is part of the nature of belief to leave doubts possible [De Veritate, 14, 1]. This possibility is based on the fact that the believer’s intellect is not really satisfied; rather, the mind, insofar as it believes, is operating not on its own but on alien soil.

“Doubt” and cogitatio are, of course, not the same thing. Doubt restricts the unconditionality of assent; but what we have here called “mental unrest” is set in motion precisely because the assent of belief is unconditional and without reservation. We must discuss this matter in more precise and concrete terms.

Before the returned prisoner of war brought me news about the brother I had thought dead, no unrest really existed; instead, my mind had come to terms with the finality of resignation. But my peace is suddenly shattered by these tidings. I am first and foremost confronted with the question of whether or not I should believe it. But this is a different kind of unrest from the sort we have just been discussing. For this unrest is abolished as soon as I come to my decision to regard the news as true; such unrest is cast off at the instant that I “believe”. (Incidentally, it would also be eliminated by the decision not to believe.) Only now, however, along with the assent of belief itself, a new sort of unrest is aroused, is indeed caused by the assent. Once I regard the news as unconditionally true, I am tormented by the need to form a picture of the reality that is both revealed and concealed by the news. And at the same time I know that I shall never succeed in doing that. Precisely this is the “mental unrest” that the conviction of the truth of what is believed in itself evokes and that is therefore an inescapable accompaniment of the act of belief. There is no alternative; the believer is bound to be restive in this sense. “The cognition of belief does not quiet the craving but rather kindles it” [Summa Contra Gentiles 3, 40]. But once again we must recall to mind . . . that the firmness of the believer’s assent to the truth of what he believes is neither affected nor restricted in the slightest by that “mental unrest”--insofar as real belief is involved. By this firmness we mean not only that “willed” adherence to a decision once taken which is dependent purely upon volition but also the calm sense of contemplating that reality which is both concealed and revealed in the testimony of the witness. For what the act of belief truly aims at is reality and not a message or a report; “it [the act of belief] does not stop at something that is said but at something that is” [STh. II-II, q. 1, a. 2, ad 2]. The believer partakes truly of this reality; he touches it, and it becomes present to him--all the more so he is capable, by loving identification with the witness, of seeing with the latter’s eyes and from his position.

Thus the great teachers have had no scruples, on occasion, about breaking down the linguistic barriers they themsleves have set up and calling belief “cognition”, “insight”, and “knowledge” [De Veritate 14, 2, ad 15], or even speaking of the “light of belief”, by which “one sees what one believes” [STh. II-II, q. 1, a. 4, ad 3].

To be sure, the certainty of the believer cannot possibly stretch farther than the insight and reliability of the witness on whom he depends. If, therefore, we read again and again in the old theory of belief that the certainty of belief transcends the certainty of knowledge and insight by an infinite amount [In Sent. 3, d. 23, 2, 2, 3], we must consider what grounds there are for this statement. The reason for that transcendent certainty does not lie in the fact that certainty of belief is involved but rather that the believer has to do with a witness whose insight and truthfulness infinitely exceed all human measures. Belief is more certain than any imaginable human insight--not insofar as it is belief, but insofar as it properly rests upon divine speech.

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Return to Lesson 22: Faith as Contact with God