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Virtues

Faith

Theological Virtues

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Origin 54 to 1272 CE

Faith is one of the three Theological Virtues, named with Hope and Charity by St Paul in 1 Corinthians 13. Unlike the cardinal virtues, which the classical world already knew, the theological virtues are held to be infused by God and to have God himself as their direct object. Faith is the firm belief and trust in God and in all that he has revealed.

Facts
Origins
Origin Period
54 to 1272 CE 1Tradition: The three theological virtues of 1 Corinthians 13
Place of Origin
The Greek east: the triad is stated by Paul in the first letter to the Corinthians 2
Origin of the Name
Called theological because God is their direct object and because the tradition holds them to be infused rather than acquired by practice, unlike the cardinal four, which pagan philosophy recognised 1
Attributed Author / Compiler
Paul, at 1 Corinthians 13 2
Language
Koine Greek 2
Language
Latin 3
Status
Status Within the Tradition
Standard teaching, not formally defined 4Tradition: Roman Catholicism
Sourced to the subject's own accountOne of the three theological virtues as the Catechism enumerates them: faith, hope and charity, held to be infused by God and to have God as their direct object. Taught, and not formally defined
Doctrinal Status Detail
One of the three theological virtues, held by standard scholastic teaching to be infused by God rather than acquired through habituation, unlike the four cardinal virtues pagan philosophy already recognized; this classification has never itself been the subject of a formal conciliar definition. 3Tradition: Aquinas, Summa Theologiae
Disputed
Origin Period
Stated by Paul at 1 Corinthians 13, a letter most scholars date to the mid 50s CE during his Ephesus ministry, though the precise year is not fixed. Unlike the cardinal virtues, already current in pagan Greek philosophy centuries earlier, faith's status as a named theological virtue begins with this Pauline text. 2
Attestation
Meaning in the Attesting Source
An act of the intellect assenting to divine truth at the command of the will moved by grace. This locates faith between knowledge and opinion: more certain than opinion because of what it rests on, less evident than knowledge because it does not see 3Tradition: Aquinas, Summa Theologiae
Meaning in the Attesting Source
Faith as fiducia, trust, rather than as assent to propositions. The Reformation gave the word a different weight from the scholastic one, and the difference between fides as assent and fides as trust is one of the substantive divisions between the traditions rather than a difference of emphasis 1Tradition: Lutheranism
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Faith, the First Theological Virtue

Faith, fides, is the first of the three theological virtues named with hope and charity by Paul at 1 Corinthians 13:13. The tradition distinguishes them sharply from the cardinal virtues: the cardinal four can be acquired by practice and are recognised by pagan philosophy, whereas the theological three are held to be infused, given rather than earned, and to have God as their direct object. Aquinas defines faith as an act of the intellect assenting to divine truth at the command of the will moved by grace, which locates it between knowledge and opinion; it is more certain than opinion because of what it rests on and less evident than knowledge because it does not see. Protestant theology from the Reformation onward gave faith a different weight, as trust rather than as assent to propositions, and the difference between fides as assent and as fiducia, trust, is one of the substantive divisions between the traditions.

Picturing Faith: The Cross and the Chalice

Faith is drawn with a cross and a chalice, and the pair is precise rather than decorative. The cross is the content of what is believed. The chalice is the means by which it is received, the sacrament rather than the argument, and the two together render the tradition's insistence that faith is not the conclusion of a proof. Where the cardinal virtues can be acquired by practice, the theological three are held to be given, and an emblem that showed faith reasoning would misstate the doctrine.

Other attributes attach to her in particular programmes. A lighted candle appears, and a baptismal font, and a scroll or a book for the creed. Giotto's faith at Padua holds a cross staff and a scroll and stands on a broken idol, with the keys hanging at her waist. Ripa's Iconologia of 1593 gives the chalice and the cross as the core.

Faith is also the virtue with the longest continuous combat record, since she opens the Psychomachia: Prudentius sets Fides against the worship of the old gods and lets her strike the first blow of the poem. That placement is deliberate. In a battle poem about the Christian soul, the first thing that has to be settled is whom the soul belongs to.

The atlas draws the cross with the chalice, both as thin outlines, following the house convention that a cross is never rendered as a solid form.

Cross-Tradition Connections

Belongs to Tradition

Christianity, Religions
Source The Holy BibleAnonymous (multiple authors)

Element Of

African Initiated Churches, Religious Movements
Source The Century of the Holy Spirit: 100 Years of Pentecostal and Charismatic Renewal, 1901-2001Vinson Synan (ed.)
Charismatic Movement, Religious Movements
Source The Century of the Holy Spirit: 100 Years of Pentecostal and Charismatic Renewal, 1901-2001Vinson Synan (ed.)
Roman Catholicism, Denominations

Rome holds faith as an infused theological virtue that must be formed by charity if it is to justify, so faith without love is called dead faith rather than saving faith.

Source Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2nd editionHoly Seethe holders' own account

Held Differently

Anglicanism, Denominations

The Articles of Religion state that we are accounted righteous before God only for the merit of Christ by faith, and not for our own works, which is a different account of what faith does from the one Rome teaches.

Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)
Baptist, Denominations

Baptist confessions hold justification by faith alone, faith read as reliance on Christ rather than as an infused virtue perfected by charity.

Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)
Calvinism (Reformed), Denominations

Reformed teaching holds faith as the instrument by which the righteousness of Christ is received, not as a quality in the believer that merits anything, and it is itself named a gift.

Source The Westminster Confession of FaithWestminster Assemblythe holders' own account
Eastern Orthodoxy, Denominations

Orthodoxy does not order the Christian life by the Latin scheme of three theological and four cardinal virtues; faith is spoken of within an ascetic tradition of participation in the divine life rather than as an infused habit of the soul.

Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)
Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, Denominations

The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America confesses justification by faith alone in the Lutheran sense, faith as trust rather than as a virtue completed by charity.

Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)
Lutheranism, Denominations

Lutheran teaching holds faith not as one infused habit among three but as the trust by which a sinner is justified apart from works, so that love follows justification instead of forming the faith that justifies.

Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)
Presbyterianism, Denominations

Presbyterian standards hold faith as the instrument of justification, receiving and resting on Christ, rather than as a virtue whose worth justifies.

Source The Westminster Confession of FaithWestminster Assemblythe holders' own account

Originates in Language

Koine Greek, Languages
Source The Holy BibleAnonymous (multiple authors)
Latin, Languages
Source Summa TheologiaeThomas Aquinas
Sources
1. The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised edition
F. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.), Oxford University Press, 2005s.v. FaithView the Source
2. The Holy Bible
Anonymous (multiple authors), Robert Barker, 16111 Corinthians 13:13View the Source
3. Summa Theologiae
Thomas Aquinas, 1274II-II q.4, on faithView the Source
4. Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2nd edition
Holy See, Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1997paragraphs 1812-1829, the theological virtuesthe holders' own accountView the Source
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