155 In faith, the human intellect and will co—operate with divine grace: ‘Believing is an act of the intellect assenting to the divine truth by command of the will moved by God through grace.’27

Faith and understanding 2008


i~6 What moves us to believe is not the fact that revealed truths appear as true and intelligible in the light of our natural reason: we believe ‘because of the authority of God himself who reveals them, 1063 who can neither deceive nor be deceived~.28 So ‘that the submission of our faith might nevertheless be in accordance with reason, 2465 God willed that external proofs of his Revelation should be joined to the internal helps of the Holy Spirit.’29 Thus the miracles of 548 Christ and the saints, prophecies, the Church’s growth and holiness, and her fruitfulness and stability ‘are the most certain signs of 812 divine Revelation, adapted to the intelligence of all’; they are ‘motives of credibility’ (motiva credibilitatis), which show that the assent of faith is ‘by no means a blind impulse of the mind’.30
157 Faith is certain. It is more certain than all human knowledge because it is founded on the very word of God who cannot lie. To be sure, revealed truths can seem obscure to human reason and experience, but ‘the certainty that the divine light gives is greater than that which the light of natural reason gives.’3’ ‘Ten thousand difficulties do not make one doubt.’32 i~8 ‘Faith seeks understanding’:33 it is intrinsic to faith that a believer desires to know better the One in whom he has put his

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aith, and to understand better what He has revealed; a more 2705 netrating knowledge will in turn call forth a greater faith, creasingly set afire by love. The grace of faith opens ‘the eyes of 1827 ur hearts’34 to a lively understanding of the contents of Revel n: that is, of the totality of God’s plan and the mysteries of ~h, of their connection with each other and with Christ, the 90 tre of the revealed mystery. ‘The same Holy Spirit constantly ects faith by his gifts, so that Revelation may be more and ‘~ profoundly understood.’35 In the words of St Augustine, ‘I