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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 January 2024
The sensus fidei is a crucial concept which has assumed growing importance during recent years of theological enquiry, however, it is not so easily defined. This article examines a section of the document. Sensus Fidei in the Life of the Church. (ITC, 2014, Chapter 2, no. 48-65) and explores the underlying anthropological-epistemological assumptions which seem to be inherently shaping the idea of the sensus fidei fidelis (the sense of faith of the individual believer). What is the site of such a sense of faith in the personal life of the believer? Is there an adequate theological anthropological framework for imagining the operation of this special ‘faculty’? After commenting on the various definitions of the concept, I focus on the four classical theological key elements the document draws on in articulating a modern account: the Thomistic understanding of faith, virtue, connaturality and instinct. The third section of the article highlights inherent tensions between the traditional Thomistic scheme and a post-Enlightenment, anti-rationalist agenda which call for a more systematic elaboration of an adequate current anthropology of the human person.
1 ‘Glaubenssinn’, in Vorgrimler, Herbert, Neues Theologisches Wörterbuch (Freiburg/Basel/Wien: Herder, 2000), p. 238Google Scholar.
2 Narcisse, Gilbert, ‘Sensus Fidei’, in Lacoste, Jean-Yves, ed., Dictionnaire critique de théologie (Paris: PUF/Quadrige, 2002), pp. 1103–1104Google Scholar.
3 Beinert, Wolfgang, ‘Sensus Fidelium’, in Beinert, Wolfgang and Fiorenza, Francis Schüessler, eds., Handbook of Catholic Theology (New York: Crossroad, 1995), pp. 655-57Google Scholar. For a more recent edition of this entry see Boettigheimer, Christoph, ‘Glaubenssinn der Gläubigen’, in Beinert, Wolfgang and Stubenrauch, Bertram, eds., Neues Lexikon der katolischen Dogmatik (Freiburg im Bresgau, Herder, 2012), pp. 272-74Google Scholar.
4 On the various meanings the word ‘sensus’ may have, and on the eightfold dimensions of the sensus fidei as it functions in the individual believer, see Ormond Rush's seminal essay ‘Sensus Fidei: Faith “Making Sense” of Revelation’, Theological Studies 62 (2001), pp. 231–61CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
5 International Theological Commission, Sensus Fidei in the Life of the Church, 2014, https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/cti_documents/rc_cti_20140610_sensus-fidei_en.html (accessed: 01.06.2022.). Hereinafter: SF.
6 For a recent philosophical approach, see, for example, Snell, R. J., ‘Connaturality in Aquinas: The Ground of Wisdom’, Quodlibet 5:4 (October 2003), pp. 1–7Google Scholar. As Snell explains, connaturality is a clue in Aquinas's theology for the understanding of wisdom, which is either attained by the a posteriori working of the intellect from experience concerning ultimate causes, or through a connaturality with the object of judgment. Wisdom attained through connaturality has the characteristics of habitual action which is able to function without the deliberation and inquiry of reason. Connaturality is at the same time a gift of grace and as such, is receptive. It is also a result of charity rooted in the will and not the intellect. Snell suggests that with regard to God, it can be characterised as ‘sympathy for the Divine’.
For an insightful (moral) theological treatment see Ryan, Thomas, ‘Revisiting Affective Knowledge and Connaturality in Aquinas’, Theological Studies 66 (2005), pp. 49–68CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Ryan notes that in Aquinas's usage connaturalitas is employed in the same analogous manner as the concept of knowledge and that the common element in the various usages is the idea that the object and the knowing subject are ‘naturally fitted together’. Such fittingness or attunement is seen by Aquinas as manifesting itself in several fields of human existence, and is especially important for the operation of the virtues. When God becomes the object of virtues, their mode of operation displays the highest level of connaturality by coming under the influence of grace. As Snell points out, Aquinas describes such an influence as an ‘instinct, a “taste” for the things of God that draws one to perceive, choose and respond in a manner that is “second nature”, namely, as if it is natural and normal for us to know, feel, love, and act as God does. For Aquinas, this is appropriately described as wisdom, an immediate knowing that comes from loving’. (p. 60.)
7 See Thomas Ryan, ‘Revisiting Affective Knowledge and Connaturality in Aquinas’, p. 58.; see also R. J. Snell, ‘Connaturality in Aquinas: The Ground of Wisdom’, p. 2.
8 Summa Theologiae, IIa-IIae, q.1; q.2; q.9; q.45; The Commentary on the Sentences of Peter Lombard, III, d.23; d.25; Commentary on the Gospel of John (c. 14, lect.4); Disputed Questions on Truth, q.14.
9 Aquinas, ST q. 45. a. 2.
10 See, for example, the main thrust of the argument in Lombardo, Nicholas E., The Logic of Desire: Aquinas on Emotion (Washington: The Catholic University of America Press, 2011)Google Scholar.
11 Thomas Ryan, ‘Revisiting Affective Knowledge and Connaturality in Aquinas’, esp. pp. 54–62.
12 Ibid., p. 60.
13 See O'Brian, T. C., Summa Theologiae, vol. 31: Faith (2a 2ae. 1–7), (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1974), pp. 98–99, note 1Google Scholar.
14 Thomas Ryan, ‘Revisiting Affective Knowledge and Connaturality in Aquinas’, pp. 60–61, esp. note 46.
15 Aquinas, Thomas, In Ioann. 6, lect. 5. Quoted by T. C. O'Brian, Summa Theologiae, vol. 31, 99, note 1Google Scholar.
16 O'Brian, T. C., Summa Theologiae, vol. 31, 99, note 1Google Scholar.
17 I thank the anonymous reviewer of my manuscript for pointing out the connection with Marín-Solas's work in this context and for drawing my attention to John J. Burkhard's recently published seminal book on the history of the sensus fidei. See the section on Marín-Sola's contribution in Burkhard, John J. OFM Conv, The ‘Sense of Faith’ in History: Its Sources, Reception, and Theology (Collegeville, Minnesota: Liturgical Press, 2022), pp. 134-43Google Scholar. In my account of Marín-Sola's approach I also rely on the article of Basas, Allan A.: ‘A Man of Vision and Faithful Sentinel of Catholic Theology: Fr. Francisco Marin-Sola, O.P.’, Philippiniana Sacra LVI: 171 (Special Issue – Part 2, 2021), pp. 1327-57Google Scholar, https://philsacra.ust.edu.ph/admin/downloadarticle?id=82343C4A937CB0DE247A174F66FB6A79 (accessed: 22.09.2022.)
18 An expanded version of the original Spanish text (La evolución homogenéa del dogma católico, 1923) was translated into French: L’Évolution homogène du dogme catholique, 2 vols., trans. Cambou, Basile (Fribourg, CH: Imprimerie et Librairie de L'Oeuvre de Saint-Paul, 1924)Google Scholar; an English translation: The Homogeneous Evolution of Catholic Dogma, trans. Piñon, Antonio T. O.P. (Manila, Philippines: Santo Tomas University Press, 1988)Google Scholar.
19 Interestingly, as John J. Burkhard notes, in his account of the ‘sense of the faith’ Marín-Sola does not make mention of Newman's, Möhler's, or Scheeben's ideas. See Burkhard, The ‘Sense of Faith’ in History, p. 136, note 7.
20 Burkhard notes that Marín-Sola quotes twenty-seven passages from the writings of Aquinas to substantiate his claim that Aquinas presupposes an alternative ‘affective way’ of coming to knowledge. See Burkhard, The ‘Sense of Faith’ in History, pp. 136-37. Burkhard quotes the following passage from Marín-Sola's book (in his own translation based on the French edition): ‘In the matter of how the implicit truths of the revealed deposit of faith are penetrated, what differentiates the speculative way from the mystical is that the former only has study and reasoning at its disposal, whereas the latter also possesses grace and the gifts of the Holy Spirit that permit the believer to grasp in an experiential way a number of truths that are hidden from, or even completely ignored by, speculation or that are attained only after hard intellectual work’. Burkhard, The ‘Sense of Faith’ in History, p. 140.
21 Notably, the Sensus Fidei document makes no mention of Marín-Sola's account.
22 SF 54. The document quotes the following idea from Möhler: ‘Der göttliche Geist, welchem die Leitung und Belebung der Kirche anvertraut ist, wird in seiner Vereinigung mit dem menschlichen ein eigenthümlich christlicher Tact, ein tiefes, sicher führendes Gefühl, das, wie er in der Wahrheit steht, auch aller Wahrheit entgegenleitet’. C. J. A. Möhlen, Symbolik, §38.
23 The document refers to Möhler, Newman, and Perrone previous to this section, in the part treating the development of the concept sensus fidei during the nineteenth century, and it characterises Möhler's project as one directed to defend the Catholic faith against rationalism. SF 35.
24 On the dissociation between reason and sensibility, see Tóth, Beáta, ‘“Our Most Serious Deficiency-Disease”: Reason, Faith and the Rediscovery of Sensibility’, New Blackfriars 90 (2009), pp. 718–37CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
25 Pascal, Blaise, Pensées, tr. F. W. Trotter (New York: Collier & Son, 1909)Google Scholar, (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Christian Classics Ethereal Library) fr. 277. http://www.ccel.org/ccel/pascal/pensees.pdf (accessed 10.06.2022.)
26 In his comprehensive study of various conceptions of the ‘sense of the faith’, John J. Burkhard outlines the contours of a possible future epistemology which views knowledge as a continuum of phases of cognition in a multifaceted manner where each phase is part of a ‘continuing series of complementary acts’, and none of them attains to the entirety of truth. Within this scheme there are ‘objective’ and ‘participatory’ forms of knowledge, and the ‘sense of the faith’ belongs to the latter since it is knowledge obtained through trust and the acceptance of a religious reality and through participation in the experience of Christian practice. See Burkhard, The ‘Sense of Faith’ in History, pp. 377-79.
