Chapter V: The Two Lights

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Chapter V
The Two Lights

It is the general law of the supernatural order that grace does not destroy nature, but perfects it. In its application to faith, this means that the grace of faith, traditionally called the "light" of faith does not destroy, nor dispense with, but perfects the operation of natural intelligence, known universally to philosophers as the "light" of reason. However, the intimate nature of this "perfecting" is highly mysterious. In the present chapter I take up Scheeben's views on the relations between the two lights. There are naturally two chief points of investigation: what is the point of insertion of the light of faith into the light of reason? and what are the functions and effects of the light of faith?

We have seen already that Scheeben describes the genesis of faith in two interesting metaphors. It is "eine Erzeugung göttlicher, d.h. göttahnlicher Erkenntnis in der Seele aus göttlichem Lichte"(1), and "eine Ueberpflanzung der göttlichen Erkenntnis in die Seele"(2). And in terms of these two metaphors he gives a synthetic view of the cooperation of nature with grace in the production of the act of faith.

First of all, the genesis of faith is not a purely mechanical process, nor is it a sheerly divine creation. Analogously to natural generation, it supposes both "receptivity and cooperation" on the part of the human soul. Secondly, it supposes a soul proximately disposed by its own operations, — that is, it supposes a rational knowledge of credibility and credendity, whereby the formal motive of faith is to some extent "presented" to the soul, and its material object to

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some extent apprehended. Informed by this double judgment, the soul is in a state of "proximate, passive receptivity for faith"; and this stage of the process is the "material conception of faith itself(3)". Then, into the soul thus "passively disposed" enters grace to induce "active receptivity", to achieve the "formal conception of faith". This active receptivity implies a double element: first, intellectual, namely the supernatural judgment of credibility, and secondly, voluntary, namely the corresponding attitude of the will in virtue of which the proper light of faith is to be actually received. The grace in question "completes and vivifies the apprehension and presentation (Vergegenwärtigung) of the divine motive, already introduced in the natural judgment of the credibility, and makes it the living matrix of faith"(4). In this matrix faith is contained "as virtus and habitus", and out of it the act will be born through the free action of the will cooperating with grace.

Hence the action of natural intelligence has been the preparation of the "bosom in which faith is to be planted", and for this reason faith is reasonable. "But the "Einpflanzung" itself, and consequently the substance of faith, its root, its soul and its fruit, is the work of grace"(5), in such a way however that it is conditioned by human cooperation in two respects: both the effective acceptance of the light of faith and its actual employment in the act of faith suppose the free action of the will.

From this statement of the case, it is clear that in the genesis of faith the action of the natural "light" as such is in the purely dispositive order. As we saw before, for Scheeben faith is a "new beginning", not causally joined to the preambles(6). Secondly, it

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is clear that the action of reason culminates in the eliciting of the rational judgment of credibility and credendity. The prime function of this judgment is to effect a certain "presentation" or "realization" of the formal motive of faith, and by so doing to prevent the assent from being "blind"(7).

I would remark here that Scheeben definitely maintains the necessity of this previous judgment of credibility, and vindicates to reason the power of fashioning it(8). Though grace may indeed assist in its production, still the action of grace is not thereunto absolutely necessary(9). Similarly, although in its genesis it is not independent of the subjective dispositions of the individual, and will always remain the object of a free assent(10), still even as the product of reason it possesses not merely a "simple, so-called moral or practical certitude"(11), but a certitude of a genuinely strict and objective order.

But here attention must be called to the fact that Scheeben has not well integrated his various statements concerning the motivation and object of this rational judgment of credibility. When discussing the rationality of faith, he speaks of it having as its motive "the fact of revelation", and as its object the establishing of the "inward credibility" of the object of faith(12). (One must remember what was said in the last chapter, — that for Scheeben the fact of revelation was not a partial motive of faith, but a condition of the application of the motive.) Later however in the same section, he insists that the fact of revelation must itself be an "object of faith, and of the certitude proper to faith, grasped or embraced in one act together with the formal object of faith"(13). In this latter theory the previous rational judgment of

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credibility has as its object the fact of revelation, and as its motive the divine signs which certify it. Thus he seems to "double" the rational assent to the fact of revelation (an assent of free rational certitude), with a supernatural act of faith in it. In this supposition, I do not see what happens to the rational judgment of credibility, motivated by the rational knowledge of the fact of revelation, and bearing upon the credibility of the revealed object. After making an act of faith in the fact of revelation, does one revert to a rational knowledge of it, and base thereon a second judgment of credibility? Moreover, when he comes to discuss the supernaturality of the judgment of credibility, he certainly seems continually to regard it as bearing upon the revealed object, and resting on the "demand for faith that is put to us in the external revelation"(14), — motivated therefore by the fact of revelation. The difficulty is at least one of schematization, — with which Scheeben was not greatly concerned.

At all events it is clear that Scheeben posits antecedently to faith an objectively evident, though freely certain rational judgment of credibility. Moreover, he posits it as actually and formally necessary for the proper genesis of faith, — "ordinarily speaking there is no going on without it"(15).

However, one cannot go from it immediately into the supernatural act of faith. A second, and supernatural judgment of credibility must intervene(16). For this he gives two reasons. The first is of the theological order: were the judgment of credibility itself not supernatural, "it could not excite and direct a supernatural act of the will"(17), such as the "die gläubige Gesinnung" must be. The second reason is rather of the

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psychological order, and is suggested by the functions that he ascribes to the grace that supernaturalizes the rational judgment of credibility. Its function namely is to "complete", "transform", "repeat", "deepen", — or as he most consistently says, to "vivify"(18) the rational apprehension of credibility and the demand for faith that it includes. The nature of this "vivification" is explained by the comparison he draws between the two judgments: the rational judgment is a "speculative" one (though it also implies a vision of the "credendum"), while the supernatural judgment is "effectively practical, i.e. one that actually excites to supernatural faith"(19). Moreover the effectively practical character of the supernatural judgment is explained further by the effect of the "supernatural illumination" whereby the "vivification" is accomplished. This illumination falls on the motiva credibilitatis on which the judgment rests, — "grasps and presents them more profoundly and from a loftier angle and hence in more living fashion"(20). It penetrates behind the external phenomena to their "inner meaning as guarantees and instruments of the authority and veracity of God"(21); and it also presents the authority and veracity of God "in more living fashion and under a new aspect, namely as belonging to "God as the auctor ordinis supernaturalis in His paternal relation to His creature"(22).

This then is the reason why I said that Scheeben's second reason for the supernatural judgment of credibility is of the psychological order, — grace has namely a definitely psychological effect in its production; it does not merely elevate the act, but alters its relations to its motive, and imparts to it a new psychological qualification. In a word, now the thing works.

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The same point comes clearer from the analogy that Scheeben adduces, — that of the relations between sensitive and intellectual cognition as regards the motivation of the rational appetite(23).

The next point to be noted is that Scheeben formally distinguishes the grace which supernaturalizes the judgment of credibility from the lumen fidei proper. He calls the former the "vocatio ad fidem", the "tractio" of John 6, 44, the "opening of the heart"(24), or the "lumen inspirationis"(25). The difference between them is this: "The former illuminates immediately to seeing that one must believe, and hence only mediately to faith itself; the latter illustrates, i.e. empowers, strengthens and impels the mind to faith itself, hence to the perfect apprehension of the motive of faith and its content"(26). However, he admits that the two divine actions are most intimately related, as the dawn is to the light of day, or as the "gratia praeveniens actualis" to the "gratia habitualis justificationis"(27). Hence he also admits that the former illumination can be ascribed to the light of faith itself, — so, he says, St. Thomas in II–II q. 1, a. 4 ad 2m, et a. 5 ad 1m (the celebrated "per lumen fidei vident esse credendo" text).

From this, Scheeben's point of insertion for the specific operation of the lumen fidei is clear, — namely after the grace of vocatio ad fidem has "vivified" and "transformed" the rational judgment of credibility, and set the apprehension of the motive of faith (the authority and veracity of God), already contained in it, under a higher light. However, here again there is some discrepancy in his thought. For in beginning the discussion of the mode of operation of the lumen fidei, he says that in his theory of faith (in which

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the assent of faith is to be conceived as an immediate judgment, based on an apprehension by faith of its formal motive), "the specific activity of the light of faith needs first to insert itself at the point where reason concludes its rational operation in the judicium credibilitatis and credenditatis"(28). Obviously, to be consistent with himself he must here be using the term "light of faith" in its broader meaning, — though in this supposition he certainly should not have spoken of its "specific activity". I bring up the point, not with the intention of cavilling, but because in this delicate matter the utmost exactitude and consistency is to be desired; it is vastly important to know whether the supernatural judgment of credibility is a "specific activity" of the light of faith as such, and hence whether it is distinguished, really or formally from the assent of faith itself. At all events, it seems that Scheeben wished to put a real distinction between them, and to exclude the supernatural judgment of credibility from the specific activities of the light of faith.

The point now is: how did he conceive the purpose and functions of this light of faith? Consistently with his theory, that there is in faith a new affirmation and hence apprehension of its formal object, he assigns in general as the purpose of the light of faith "to vivify and complete the presentation ("Vergegenwärtigung" i.e. the bringing home to the mind of) that object, which presentation has been prepared for by the judicium credibilitatis"(29). In this new "Vergegenwärtigung" (he repeats the word four times) of the motive of faith, Scheeben sees the prime function of the light of faith. By means of it the light of faith accomplishes the adhesion to the object characteristic

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of faith. Of the way in which the new presentation is itself accomplished Scheeben gives only a brief description. The initial point is that the light of faith is "itself an emanation and an image of the divine cognitive power". Being such, it "generates in the intellect a supernatural assimilation and kinship with the same". And this supernatural kinship has a double effect: "on the one hand the intellect is enabled and inclined to attach itself immediately and simply to the truth of the divine knowledge, and on the other hand this truth presents itself immediately to the mind in supernatural, mysterious fashion, and invites to its own acceptance, — or rather, renders the mind sympathetic to it"(30).

Scheeben then illustrates the process by the analogy between the lumen gloriae and the lumen fidei. There is a certain sameness in the object they illuminate: the Prima Veritas. However, while the lumen gloriae effects the clear "vision" of the Prima Veritas in essendo, the lumen fidei can only effect an obscure "presentation" of the Prima Veritas in cognoscendo, as the object of a "grasp" or "embrace". Hence the former is independent of the human spirit's activity; of itself it determines the vision of the divine essence. On the contrary, "the latter, in order to accomplish the actual grasp of the divine truth, must be set in movement by the will, and must be joined to a rational apprehension of the term whereunto the movement is directed"(31). Consequently, it has only a "relatively independent action". The point however upon which Scheeben insists, against Lugo, is that the light of faith is to some extent "independent" of the action of, the reason in the genesis of faith, — it does not operate merely "in the form of a transformation and

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elevation of the natural power of thought and conclusion proper to reason"(32). Rather, it implies a "mysterious contact and union with the Eternal Truth"(33).

Such is the concept of the nature and operation of the light of faith in its relations to the light of reason that Scheeben presents in the Dogmatik. I might remark incidentally that the essential characteristics of the description appear also in the Natur und Gnade(34). There he insists that the light of faith does not dispense with but rather presupposes the rational knowledge of the fact of revelation; but the new light enables one to grasp the revelation "in the right spirit". Its actual functions he describes in Scriptural terms. It is "auditus et revelatio interna", whereby God conveys to the soul the realization that it is really He Who is speaking. It is "tractio Patris", whereby He raises the soul to rest in Him alone. It is finally "illuminatio cordis", in virtue of which the mind is made "capable of understanding the supernatural", and the revelation itself is made "intelligible and graspable in a higher fashion", inasmuch as there exists now a definite connaturality between it and the mind. The description is very short, but the "illuministic" element is definitely marked. However, of that in a moment.

It is already obvious that in his description of the nature and workings of the light of faith Scheeben maintains a considerable consistency with his fundamental ideas, as we have seen them. Underlying the whole description is the notion of grace as a "divinizing" principle: the characteristic feature of the light of faith is that it is "selbst Ausfluss und Abbild der göttlichen Erkenntniskraft", which operates in the soul an "assimilation" to itself. Hence there arises

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between the mind and the motive of faith a "kinship"; here, as before, the notion of connaturality is brought into connection with the notion of divinization. And to illustrate the former notion a new analogy enters: "the mind of the believer is in similar fashion motivated or attracted by the eternal truth through the light that streams from it, as one body is attracted by another body in virtue of the fact that it is electrified or magnetized by the latter". Hence, secondly, Scheeben is consistent with himself in attributing to the light of faith an effect in the psychological order; it does more than merely elevate the act, it confers a definitely intellectual power that alters the mind's tendency to its object.

Scheeben's third consistency is in the sources he uses for his doctrine. He emphatically rejects Lugo's explanation of the workings of the light of faith, because it denies to the light of faith any independent action "above and beyond the thought-activity of the mind". Moreover in his own treatment of the judgment of credibility he apparently seeks to do no more than give back th evia media of Suarez(36). A merely natural judgment of credibility will suffice neither theologically nor psychologically, on the other hand it neither needs to be nor can be supernatural quoad substantiam in the Suarezian sense; that is to say, the necessity of grace for its eliciting is not founded on the "substantia actus", i.e. on the judgment of credibility precisely as an assent, based on the divine signs etc. This assent is quite within the power of reason. However, apart from an "illuminatio divina, quae elevet intellectum ad concipiendum illud objectum altiori et supernaturali modo", the bare judgment would remain inefficacious "ad excitandum et obtinendum actum voluntatis"(37).

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This is substantially also Scheeben's opinion. However, he follows Suarez in denying that the supernatural judgment of credibility is elicited by the light of faith(38), — though I do not think that he felt as keenly as Suarez the difficulty and the necessity of determining just what "grace" it did proceed from(39). The determination would have led him into some very sticky metaphysics that did not interest him. Suarez' opinion was good enough for him, though at that he does not follow it to its last details, namely the curious reduction of this preliminary grace to the "donum intellectus"(40), — for Scheeben it was simply "vocatio ad fidem". I might also add, as of some significance, that he accepts without difficulty Suarez' exegesis of St. Thomas (II–II, q. 2 a. 9 ad 3m), that the "interior instinctus Dei moventis" is not the lumen fidei as such, but a previous grace for the intellect, elicitive of the supernatural judgment of credibility(41).

However, though Scheeben's account of the supernatural judgment of credibility is undoubtedly Suarezian, he maintains that his description of the lumen fidei as such "is nothing else but the Thomistic theory of Capreolus, Bañez, Valentia et al., properly understood"(42). First of all, it is a bit startling to see those three names, and the significant "u.s.w.", all lumped together so airily. It was precisely such statements that made Scheeben's writing the despair of Kleutgen, always so exact in estimating individual opinions. With Capreolus and Valentia (not to speak of certain of the nameless "u.s.w." people) Scheeben would have some exegetical difficulties. However, for at least one marked detail of his opinion he may rightly appeal to Bañez. P. Schlagenhaufen(43) sums up the latter's doctrine on the light of faith thus:

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Es erhebt nicht bloss den Verstand zur übernatülichen Ordnung, wodurch erbefähigt wirdzur Bejahung einer übernatürlichen Wahrheit (elevatio potentiae), es verleiht ihm auch eine Hinneigung (inclinatio) zu Glaubensbejahung. Bañez sagt in geradezu klassischer Prägnanz: Das Zeugnis des Hl. Geistes macht durch des Glaubenslicht geneigt zur Bejahung des Glaubensgutes.... Da er mit Vorliebe die Funktion des Glaubenslichtes als ein Geneigt machen bezeichnet, können wir mit aller Wahrscheinlichkeit seine Lehre dahin umschreiben: Gott treibt uns durch das Glaubenslicht an zu einer Glaubens bejahung, die jeden Zweifel ausschliesst.

Certainly this notion of the "inclination to assent" that is given by the light of faith is essential to Scheeben's view. But it would seem to be only one part of the action of the light of faith. The other part is a definite "illumination". That is to say, the light of faith not merely impels the will to assent to an object already proposed to it, but also "completes and animates" the proposition of the object. The object in question is of course the formal object of faith; Scheeben by no means wishes the light of faith to confer some new intelligence of its material object. But essential to his theory is the idea that the proposition of the formal object of faith which is accomplished even by the supernatural judgment of credibility is somehow incomplete and as it were lifeless. And the "relatively independent action" which he attributes to the light of faith consists precisely in achieving a new and efficacious presentation of this formal object. The effect of this new presentation is to make the subsequent affirmation of the formal object (in the act of faith itself) a new affirmation.

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Moreover, as regards the actual nature of this new presentation, this seems to lie in Scheeben's thought: it is identified with the new inclination to the object. Or perhaps more exactly, both inclination and presentation (illumination) have their common root in the new kinship with the divine truth that is the effect of grace. In this sense his analogy is understandable: the object presents itself newly to the magnetized body precisely in that it magnetizes it, i.e. confers a new inclination to itself. And in the same sense is to be understood also his warning that the light of faith is not be to considered as "causa objectiva motiva" but as "causa efficiens" of faith. It does not, as does natural light, fall upon the eye and make the object visible; rather it is "a living light which makes the spiritual eye itself luminous, and makes its cognitive power homogeneous and akin to the divine; it is generated by a communicatio vitae from its living object, the veritas prima in cognoscendo, as its ideal and generative principle"(44). By this last precision, Scheeben expressly wishes to remove from his own doctrine the obscurity that he finds in that of Bañez and the Thomists.

It is of the highest importance to note that for Scheeben the seat of the light of faith is definitely the intellect; it is infused by God directly into the intellect, and to the intellect it "immediately gives the power and the inclination for the accomplishment of the assent of faith, or for the supernatural apprehension of the ground and content of faith"(45). On the other hand, he insists that the light of faith does not perform its work "quite independently"; it must be directed by a previous perception of credibility, and it must be "accepted" freely by the will, itself under

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the impulse of grace, — it must be "set in motion" by the will. However for Scheeben the light of faith as such does not touch or affect the will.

These are his assertions. But he vouchsafes no explanation of how this "accepting" and "setting in motion" is to take place. Certainly his general position suggests that of St. Thomas, for whom the light of faith "non est in intellectu speculativo absolute, sed secundum quod subditur imperio voluntatis; . . . ad hoc quod intellectus prompte sequatur imperium voluntatis, oportet quod sit aliquis habitus in eo" (De Ver. q. 14, a. 4 c). Nevertheless the difficulty remains — and it is, I think, the chief difficulty in this whole question of the light of faith: How does the will "set in motion" the light of faith? This is really the same question that was posited in the third chapter: How does the assent of faith, elicited by the light of faith, depend upon the action of the will? There it was directly a question of the motive of the will's action, and of the organic unity between this motive and that of the intellect; here it is a question rather of the grace that evokes and supports the decisive action of the will. Obviously, this grace effects the will's adhesion to its motive (presented to it by the supernatural judgment of credibility), provides the ultimate impulse that determines the intellect to a corresponding assent, and thus "sets in motion" the light of faith.

But it is extremely difficult to explain the intimate nature and workings of this grace. In fact, just at this juncture, we come up against the intimate and ultimate problem of the act of faith, which St. Thomas phrases thus laconically: "Intellectus obtemperat voluntati Deo inhaerenti" (De Ver. q. 14, a. 4 ad 2m).

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One might perhaps more satisfactorily explain the intellect's "obtemperatio voluntati", if one could first explain the will's "inhaesio Deo"; and one might explain this latter if one could only determine the nature of God's seizure of the human will, which "corrects" it and turns it to Himself, and unites it with Himself. Really, the absolutely ultimate mystery of the faith is not situated in any "illumination", but rather in a "drawing" ("tractio Patris", John 6, 44). And this latter metaphor is not intellectual in its connotations, but must rather be referred to the will.

In this connection I would signalize what must be considered one of the most interesting details of Scheeben's doctrine on the light of faith. With his usual sure tact, he selects two genuinely Thomistic metaphors to describe the workings of the light of faith: it confers an "inclination", and an "invitation" (in Boet. de Trin. 8. 3, a. 1 ad 4; in 3 Sent. d. 23, q. 3, a. 3; II–II, q. 2, a. 9 ad 3m). In these two metaphors Scheeben felt that the mysterious reality of God's action on the mind was shrouded: the Prima Veritas "presents" itself by "inclining" and "inviting" the soul to its acceptance, — (as I said above, Scheeben apparently identifies the new presentation of the formal object by the light of faith, with an inclination to it). There is a most valuable truth contained in that idea, which did not escape Scheeben's keen theological sense. The only difficulty is about his development of the idea. He himself posits the inclination solely in the intellect, and thus he raises the question as to whether such a concept of it actually exhausts the virtualities of the light of faith. For St. Thomas, it did not: "hic tamen habitus non movet per viam intellectus, sed magis per viam

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voluntatis: unde non facit videre ea quae creduntur, sed facit voluntarie assentiri" (in Boet. de Trin. q. 3, a. 1 ad 4m). The curious thing is that Scheeben himself seems to be reaching for a similar idea, that would more adequately solve the problem of the light of faith, when he insists that the light of faith must be "set in motion" by the will, i.e. it must "operate" per viam voluntatis, though it is actually in the intellect. In other words, Scheeben was closer to St. Thomas than he realized. I would suggest that the necessary step toward the completion of his doctrine, — and the explanation of that of St. Thomas, — is to make the will's motion also, and antecedently, a specific operation of the light of faith: "facit voluntarie assentiri". Or, to alter somewhat Scheeben's terminology, one might perhaps say that the light of faith sets itself in motion, through the will.

At all events, even though Scheeben does not achieve a completely satisfactory explanation of what the light of faith actually does (an impossible task, no doubt), nevertheless it would be unfair to conclude without a word of tribute to his fine formulation of what the light of faith is: "Ausfluss und Abbild der göttlichen Erkenntniskraft". As is clear, this is the fundamental idea about which he builds his whole theory, and it harmonizes admirably with the rest of his system. Just as faith itself is a participation in the divine knowledge, so naturally the prime function of the light of faith is to effect that assimilation to the divine knowing power, which will make possible a participation in the divine knowledge. And thus we are led back once more to the basic idea which underlies all Scheeben's thought, namely, that faith is the divinization of the human intellect.