The Definition that Puzzled Saint Thomas Aquinas

Saint Paul's Unexpected Interpretation of Faith

Rembrandt van Rijn (1606 - 1669 ), The Apostle Paul (c. 1657) (source)

An Obscure Definition?

In the sacred texts of the New Testament, there is a definition of faith that always gives us food for thought. It belongs to the Holy Apostle Paul and is found in the first verse of the 11th chapter of his Epistle to the Hebrews:

Now faith is the substance of things to be hoped for, the evidence of things that appear not.” (Latin: Est autem fides sperandarum substantia rerum, argumentum non apparentium.)

In his commentary, Saint Thomas Aquinas states that the apostle to the Gentiles “gives a definition of faith which is complete but obscure.”¹ So, we are dealing with a definition of faith that is difficult to understand. But why is a definition of faith considered obscure? We might immediately think that there are difficult—hence, obscure—passages in the Holy Scriptures. This could be one of them. On the other hand, the answer to this question may be related to the terrible and almost incomprehensible (i.e., “obscure”) situation in which humanity finds itself after the original sin committed by Adam and Eve.

I believe we will all recognize that there is nothing stranger in the entire history of the world than the following fact: although He is the almighty Creator of us, humans, and the entire cosmos, God is not visible. It is as if I were to tell you that, although the Sun exists and constantly shines in the sky above us, we never see it. We can develop the proposition regarding the direct inaccessibility of God in many other ways. However, its essence remains just as paradoxical: although we learn from sacred texts that God is omnipresent, that there is no place—not a single one!—where He is absent, we still do not see Him.

There is nothing more tragic than this situation. It is as if, although you know you have parents, for unknown reasons, you cannot see them: what other more disturbing experience could any person on Earth have? Now, within the limits of this article, I will briefly remind you of the explanation proposed by Saint Hildegard of Bingen for this situation:

The first parents had spiritual eyes before the original sin, for then the soul had mastery over the body through innocence. But after the sin, when their eyes were deprived of spiritual vision and they were made mortal through the condition of sin, their carnal eyes were opened.²

So, we are blind. We lost the “eyes” with which we could see God. This happened after the commission of the original sin in Eden: all descendants of Adam and Eve are born blind to the spiritual world, where spiritual beings—angels and saints—exist, and, above all, God Himself, the eternal King. And we, though surrounded everywhere by that world, never see it directly, immediately, throughout this life. Only a very few Christians receive—like the apostle Paul, who was “caught up to the third heaven” (II Corinthians 12:2)—those mystical gifts that allow them, for very brief glimpses of time, to contemplate it.

Our Tragic Human Condition

However, our common condition is that of being spiritually blind: although the Sun of the entire creation, God, shines eternally upon everything that exists, we do not see Him directly during this passing life. This is the tragic condition of all humanity after the commission of original sin. Considering the deplorable situation in which we find ourselves, God has provided us with two means to know that He exists. The first is within the reach of every person: “the natural light of reason.”

This, when used wisely, can allow us—as Saint Paul shows in the first chapter of the Epistle to the Romans—to deduce from the complexity and beauty of creatures the existence of a supreme Creator. However, alas!, as we all too well know, gravely affected by the consequences of original sin,³ reason is hesitant and strongly influenced by passions and vices. Recognizing this deplorable state of our fallen nature, God offers us a second, much more powerful means than reason through which we can learn about His eternal existence: supernatural Revelation given to the world, first through Moses and the prophets, and then through the Gospel that He Himself transmitted to us while on earth.

All that has been said so far implicitly assumes that the most important thing in anyone’s life is the knowledge of God.

This knowledge, as Saint Thomas Aquinas points out, brings us the greatest happiness. It—the knowledge of the supreme Truth, God—has an extraordinary transformative power. However, the difference between how we know God here on earth and how the beings in heaven know Him is enormous. Here on earth, we know God—to put it this way—blindly: like when a voice tells a blind person, “This is your father.” We must trust the voice we hear. This trust is represented, at the level of our spiritual and religious life, by this adherence of the intellect to the revealed truths called faith.⁴ However, this is necessary only here, below, on earth, as it is suitable only for our “fallen” condition. In the Kingdom of heaven, there will be no need for faith—for then we will see God as we see the sun on a beautiful day here.

With his characteristic precision, Saint Thomas emphasizes the difference between how we know God now and how we will know Him in the life to come:

The object of faith is the first truth, in which the end of the will consists, namely, happiness. But it is present one way on earth, and another way in heaven, because on earth the first truth is not possessed and, consequently, not seen.⁵

Seekers of the Greatest Treasure

In other words, the way we know “the first truth” now is like that of an explorer who has set out in search of the legendary City of Gold – El Dorado. We may have the map, we may have certain clues, but even though we dream day and night of the fabulous city, we are not there yet. And yet, we could be...

Hope is what animates us, what keeps us tense and oriented toward our goal: the great treasure. However, what is very interesting, nonetheless, is the fact that the Holy Apostle Paul speaks of faith as “the evidence of things that appear not.” How can something we do not see be evidence? Using the same metaphor of the map and the golden city we can say that, unlike any other treasure, in the case of faith, we have the certainty that the “map” we possess truly leads to the much-dreamed-of treasure. So, to the extent that we have firmly embraced the vow of Holy Baptism and the supernatural faith on which it is based, we have the certainty that, indeed, at the end of the journey of this life, the City of Gold awaits us: the heavenly Jerusalem whose streets are made of the purest gold, and gates of precious stones, the beauty of which is indescribable (Revelation 21:10-14).

Not at all coincidentally, the Savior Himself uses the symbols of treasure and pearl to describe both the most precious content of ours, supernatural faith, and the attitude we must have to succeed. However, undoubtedly, hope cannot be absent from the equation: for the most terrible temptation for any treasure hunter can only be the loss of the conviction that, indeed, the City of Gold can be found.

But where is the Kingdom of God?

Seeking to delve into the meanings of the definition of the Holy Apostle Paul, Saint Maximus the Confessor sheds light on another saying of Jesus Christ, one that seems as obscure as Saint Paul's definition:

The kingdom of God is within you (Luke 17:21).

The commentary of the famous holy theologian of Constantinople is as simple as it is astonishing:

Thus faith in God is identical with the kingdom of God, the two being separated only on the level of thought. For faith is the kingdom of God without visible form, while the kingdom is faith given a form in a manner befitting God. For this reason, faith is not outside of us, and when it is actualized through the keeping of the divine commandments it becomes the kingdom of God, known only to those who possess it. If, then, the kingdom of God is actualized faith, and if the kingdom of God brings about an unmediated union of God and those in His kingdom, faith is clearly demonstrated to be a relational power, or a relationship that effectively realizes in a manner beyond nature the unmediated union of the faithful with the God in whom they have faith.⁶

Here, then, is the explanation of the statement that the Kingdom of God is within us! The very content of our faith is identical to the heavenly realm, whose sun, God, shines eternally. If you recall, Saint Thomas defined faith as an act of the intellect’s adherence to supernatural truths revealed through the sacred texts of the Holy Scriptures.⁷

By receiving these truths, we receive within ourselves the icon of the heavenly world, of the heavenly Jerusalem. By practicing virtues—that is, by following the commandments of the Decalogue—our lives, and ultimately even the world around us, begin to change. Think of the impact that saints like Ambrose, Basil the Great, Maximus the Confessor, Benedict, Philip Neri, or Alphonsus Maria de Liguori had on the world and society (to name just a few). What could hinder us, even in such dark times, from following their example?

1. Saint Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews, Translated by Fabian R. Larcher, O.P., Html-formatted by Joseph Kenny, O.P. Link: https://isidore.co/aquinas/english/SSHebrews.htm#111 [Accessed: 17 January 2024].

2. Saint Hildegard of Bingen, Solutions to Thirty-Eight Questions, Translated by Beverly Mayne Kienzle with Jenny C. Bledsoe and Stephen H. Behnke, Cistercian Publications, 2014, p. 47.

3. Our Savior and Lord, Jesus Christ, affirms that the light in us is darkness: “If then the light that is in thee, be darkness: the darkness itself how great shall it be!” (Matthew 6:23).

4.

5. Saint Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews, op. cit.

6. Saint Maximus the Confessor, On Difficulties in Sacred Scripture: The Responses to Thalassios, Translated by Father Maximos Constas, The Catholic University of America Press, 2018, pp. 207-208.

7. This is the complete definition:

The act of believing is an act of the intellect adhering to the Divine truth at the command of the will moved by the grace of God (Latin: Credere est actus intellectus assentientis veritati divinae ex imperio voluntatis a Deo motae per gratiam—in Summa Theologiae, II-II, Quaestio 2, Articulus 9.)