J.H. Heidegger's Corpus of Christian Theology: Theology in General: Reason and Revelation, Part 6

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44.  Their contrary arguments are weighed.

Indeed, faith is by hearing, and hearing by the word of God, Romans 10:17, but that hearing is not only the perception of the ears (as God is no longer able to be heard; and unbelievers also have heard, and will hear, the voice of God and of Christ), but also some sort of perception of the truth, whether expressed out of the word of God, or elicited from that which is virtually contained in the same, and thence through consideration and understanding of terms, comparison of spiritual things, and attendance upon the Divine wisdom, which is in the things said, with God speaking to the heard, and inscribing His words on the heart.  Neither is formal revelation made only to the ears and to the eyes, but especially to the mind and its eyes and ears, when in that it is brought to pass, that one has the mind of Christ,[1] in whatever manner that happens, provided that it is evidently from the mind of Christ.  God shines in our hearts, for the illumination of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, 2 Corinthians 4:6.  Moreover, Scripture is, not the partial, but the whole cause of the conclusion deduced by consequence, with ratiocination intervening, because this depends completely on a proposition that belongs to Scripture, not on that which belongs to reason.  For thus in the Syllogism of Christ:  God is the God of the living, not of the dead:  God is the God of Abraham, etc.  Therefore, Abraham lives, and to the extent that he is dead, he will not remain in death:  The major proposition, naturally evident, is nothing other than the unpacking of that term, to be the God of someone.  For it indicates the condition and state of him, who belongs to God, namely, that he ought to live, or to be vivified, in this very thing, that for God to be made God to someone signifies, that He vivifies and delights him.  But on this Proposition the conclusion in no way depends.  For it does not follow that Abraham lives, and is to be vivified, because God is the God of the living, not of the dead.  For God is able most truly to be the God of the living, and not of the dead, even if God deigned not to be made the God of Abraham.  But, because He is the God of Abraham; therefore, it is true that Abraham lives and is going to rise again.  The conjunction of the two terms, God and to be the God of Abraham, is the cause of the conjunction of the terms, Abraham and is going to live and rise again.  Moreover, the major Proposition, without known revelation, is also virtually contained in the predicate of the minor proposition.  Whence it is manifest, that the whole conclusion depends upon the minor, which is of Scripture, considered with the full power of its signification; and so it depends, not on reason, but on revelation.  And the account of all consequences is the same.  The conclusion is indeed ἕτερόν τι, something other, than the things posited or the premises, but is distinct in λόγῳ/ word, the conception of man, but not in substance.  Thus a Syllogism concludes another thing by definition.  And yet the definition and thing defined are the same.  For, according to Aristotle himself, Posterior Analytics, book 2, chapters 2, 3, τὸ αὐτὸ ἐστι τὸ τί, καὶ διὰ τί ἐστι, what it is, and why it is, are the same.  Neither does a conclusion by consequence depend upon the Syllogistic form, since it bears no necessity to things, but is only a means for understanding the connection of things.  Whence the form is able to be good, where the matter is bad, and vice versa.  The very truth of the connections, as Augustine knowingly speaks, de Doctrina Christiana, book II, chapter 32, is not instituted by men, but is observed and known, so that they are able either to learn or to teach it.  For it is Divinely instituted in the everlasting reason of things.  Finally, revelation, Scripture, is not able rightly be to desired as the authority and judge of the consequence.  For Revelation and Scripture is itself the very virtue and power of the letter, in which the consequence is contained, which God does not therefore not reveal, not write, because He does not unpack what the force of the individual words might be.  It is enough, that He, revealing those things, speaks what are words apt for the one attending and prudently considering, designed to instill the contemplation of those things that on occasion of His words God wanted to be contemplated.  And infallible is the authority of God speaking, revealing through express words, and through all that what is contained in them; who is to us certainly the first author of believing and receiving all that, which He speaks and reveals.  For one is our Teacher, even Christ, that Apostle of our profession, Hebrews 3:1, whose disciples are all the sons of the Church, taught and anointed by God, so that they need no other anointing, no other Teacher.  God is the supreme Judge, who is ultimately going to judge τὰ κρυπτὰ τῶν ἀνθρώπων, the secrets of men, according to His word and Gospel preached to the world by the Apostles, Romans 2:16; 1 Corinthians 4:5; the subordinate Judge is the same, suppose a man that is certain in his understanding of the sense and interpretation of Scripture, and so also of the express letter, who must ἐν ἰδίῳ νοῒ πληροφορεῖσθαι, be fully persuaded in his own mind, be certain, be assured, in his sense or understanding, and thus approve himself to God as the judge, Romans 14:5.  Whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto God, or not, κρίνατε, judge Ye, Acts 4:19.  Therefore, we ourselves, that is, our soul, our conscience direct by the Holy Spirit, to which manifestation is made, 2 Corinthians 4:2, and not the conscience of another, are obliged to judge.  For, just one’s own eye, and not that of another, to every attentive person is the witness of that which it sees:  so one’s own soul and conscience, and not that of another, is witness of that which it understands.  At this point, therefore, the revelation, authority, and judgment of the Church or multitude of men thinking the same thing avails nothing αὐθεντικῶς/authentically.

45.  The distinction between the certainty of faith and of Theology, of conclusions express and deduced, is rejected.

But, for the same reason, falls the distinction between Faith and Theology, the certainty of Faith and of Theology, of the conclusions of Faith and of Theology, Express and Deduced; about which todays’s Sophists, following Scotus,[2] Ordinatione 3, distinction 24, question 1, note 14, and others, babble noisily, both to disguise the Babel-like confusion of parties disagreeing, and harassing each other with mutual antipathies concerning those things that the Church, that is, the Papal Church, has not defined; as if those things alone, that that Church says, are of Faith, while the rest are to be relegated to Theology, that is, the free disputation of dueling Theologians:  and to convict Protestants of Schism, because they seceded from the Church because of doctrine generally proven by consequences alone, and so over questions of Theology, not of Faith:  and, finally, to relieve the Church of that intolerable burden of seeking (through demonstration, rather than by definition of the Church) the truth:  as Valerianus Magnus, making no other rule of believing than that which is to be believed because of the definition of the Church, speak.  For, since whatever either is expressly written in the Word of God, or is demonstrated from the express Word of God by legitimate consequence to the conscience, which they send away to Theology; equally obliges to faith as if it were expressly written, whether the Church proposes it, or not; it follows that the certainty of faith and the certainty of Theology are the same, the conclusions of faith and of Theology the same.  Those that distinguish these likewise make as if they, distinguishing between faith incipient and proficient, would deny that the latter is faith, because the former is faith.  Who, what the Apostle attributes to faith, namely, νόησιν/perception, σύνεσιν/understanding, certainly deny that to be of faith.  Hence the older Doctors of the School, by no means a few, judge that consequences are of faith, and that the certainty of faith and of Theology is the same; with the Walenburgii admitting it, but making an exception of this one thing, that they condemn not those thinking otherwise.  That is, as if those that establish that such assent is faith, are able to absolve them from contumacy and rebellion as σκληροτραχήλους/stiff-necked, who thus repudiate known truth, and contradict it.

46.  The danger of those that because of the intolerable burden of searching out truth are commanded to believe nothing other than what the Church sets forth.

But those that, because of that intolerable burden of searching out truth, establish this as the only rule of faith, so that by faith is held nothing other than what the Church sets forth, or defines, so that neither the Divinity of revelation, nor the sense of the express letter, nor the necessity of consequences, nor any demonstration, except what the Church dictates, sets forth, and defines, is received; those, I say, teach, not to believe in God, but to stand stupefied in the Oracles of men, and ultimately it follows, that they pine away, being destitute of the παρακλήσει τῶν γραφῶν, comfort of the Scriptures, Romans 15:4, or in their ignorance, stupidity, and torpor, since they do not believe God, as they ought, not knowing in whom or what they should believe, and believing what they do not know; or in their zeal to oppose the truth and to daub over falsehood they feel a worm and a fire in their soul that will not let them rest, until they have both hardened themselves by their reasonings, and have overthrown those that retain the truth of Scripture, as also by their silence reproving themselves for sloth and error, while either by their μεθοδείας/ methods they seek to kill their spirits, or by physical force to slaughter their bodies.  This is the face of the Papacy, deceiving and raging, which in addition lay that as a charge against the Evangelical Church, that it makes God unmerciful, since He imposes on men that intolerable burden of searching out truth.  As if Christ had not commanded to search the Scriptures; nor had blamed those that have not the Word of God abiding in them, which Moses and the other servants of God spoke, John 5:38, 39; nor had commended the εὐγένειαν/ nobility of the searching Bereans, Acts 17:11, περισσοτέρως προσέχοντας, giving the more earnest heed, to the things which they had heard, Hebrews 2:1.

[1] 1 Corinthians 2:16.

[2] John Duns Scotus (1266-1308), known as the Subtle Doctor, was a Scottish Franciscan theologian and philosopher.  He lectured and wrote on Lombard’s Sentences, and is remembered for his highly influential form of philosophical Realism.