Perspectief 2019-45

Perspectief 52 Gewone Catechismus the content of the words of another person … by reason of his credibility. This credibility determines in a given case the particular authority of the person – the authority of truth. So then by saying ‘I believe’, we express at the same time a double reference: to the person and to the truth; to the truth in consideration of the person who enjoys special claims to credulity.” In other words, we are justified in trusting another’s testimony that something is the case because he possesses the relevant credentials for stating that something is true. Therefore, faith does not involve merely believing a proposition, i.e., believing that p is true, but rather believing a person that what he says about p is true. Faith necessarily involves both a propositional attitude and an attitude toward a person. This, too, is Aquinas’s view: “Whoever believes, assents to someone’s words; hence in every form of belief, the person to whose words assent is given seems to hold the principal place and to be the end, as it were, while the things by holding which one assents to that person hold a secondary place.” Hence, for Aquinas, “it belongs to faith to believe something and in someone.” Thus, there are cases of belief where one is justified in assenting to something, not because one sees it to be true, but because one is rational in taking the word of another that it is true, that something is the case. Indeed, throughout the history of Christian epistemolog- ical reflection a positive case has been made for testimonial knowledge by Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, Thomas Reid, John Henry Newman, Abraham Kuyper, Herman Bavinck, Elizabeth Anscombe, Josef Pieper, John Paul II, Joseph Ratzinger, William Alston, and Re- formed epistemologists, such as Alvin Plantinga and Nicholas Wolterstorff. Unfortunately, the authors of GC downplay “ fides quae ” and highlight “ fides qua .” And this is a lop-sided understanding of faith. The Apostle Paul calls us to believe with one’s heart and to confess what one believes (Rom 10: 9). This is a twofold Christian imperative – the creedal and confessional imperative – that is at the root of creeds and confessions of faith. Faith involves both the fides qua creditur – the faith with which one believes – and the fides quae creditur – the faith which one believes. Maximally, a biblical account of faith involves knowledge ( notitia ), assent ( assensus ), and trust ( fiducia ); indeed, these are three elements of a single act of faith involving the whole person who commits himself to God.