Where does faith come from?

Started by Joseph_3, June 29, 2024, 09:00:34 AM

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Joseph_3

I have always suggested that faith comes from two places. It is in infancy upon Baptism and matures by acts of conscious virtue. It is by good deeds, done in faith, that faith itself develops. If good deeds are not committed, then faith will wither and eventually die, damning the soul. Hence the parable of the mustard seed: it begins as the smallest of seeds and will apparently erupt into great tree. Then "if you had faith as the grain of mustard seed..."

I am incessantly informed that this is absolutely incorrect and that I have "made up" my own definition or am under the influence of some blasphemy. I have constantly been accused of being faithless which has worn deeply on my soul. The definition "you have it or you don't" does not suffice, however, these people always insist that they are Heaven bound. Do they know something I don't? Perhaps I am under the influence of some wretched "works alone" blasphemy.

What do you all have to say about this? How has the Church traditionally defined faith? Where does faith originate?


james03

#1
I've witnessed this first hand in helping to convert a godless heathen.  He told me he agreed intellectually that God existed, and that the Catholic Church was His Church.  However he said he still couldn't believe.

He made one small reach towards God, and he said he received Faith.  He then got baptized and he said he was flooded out with Faith.  He died a few days later.  That's why I think heathens should at least say a simple prayer after they have found belief in God reasonable: "I honor the True, the Beautiful, and the Good.".  That little reach towards God may be all it takes.

QuotePerhaps I am under the influence of some wretched "works alone" blasphemy.

The "alone" part would be a problem.  It's both, and the two work together.  I noticed Prots try to take a scalpel to an act, trying to separate out the "Faith" part and the "Work" part.  Waste of time.

QuoteIt is by good deeds, done in faith, that faith itself develops. If good deeds are not committed, then faith will wither and eventually die, damning the soul.

That's a good way to look at it.  Faith needs to grow.  However I think Faith dying is the end of a long process.  It takes a lot to kill Faith.  Charity, love of God dies first.  Soon the sinner resents the "restrictions" of God, but that only shows he believes that God exists.  And in fact at some point your main focus should shift from strengthening Faith to strengthening Charity.

"But he that doth not believe, is already judged: because he believeth not in the name of the only begotten Son of God (Jn 3:18)."

"All sorrow leads to the foot of the Cross.  Weep for your sins."

"Although He should kill me, I will trust in Him"

KreKre

Faith is a gift from God. All glory and honor belong to Him and Him alone, He is the source of all virtue and goodness. We don't deserve God's gifts, but nevertheless we receive them every time we pray, because He loves us much more than we could imagine.
Christus vincit! Christus regnat! Christus imperat!

TradGranny

Quote from: KreKre on June 30, 2024, 12:40:28 PMFaith is a gift from God. All glory and honor belong to Him and Him alone, He is the source of all virtue and goodness. We don't deserve God's gifts, but nevertheless we receive them every time we pray, because He loves us much more than we could imagine.

Yes He does. He loved us when we were yet sinners.
To have courage for whatever comes in life - everything lies in that.
Saint Teresa of Avila

james03

QuoteWe don't deserve God's gifts,

Depends if you are talking about condign merit or congruent merit.  We merit Grace inside of the New Covenant.  The First Cause is God through the New Covenant.  The efficient cause is our prayer or act.  This merit is called congruent merit and we "deserve" it according to the New Covenant.

Quote from: Trent Sess. 6CANON XXXII.-If any one saith, that the good works of one that is justified are in such manner the gifts of God, as that they are not also the good merits of him that is justified; or, that the said justified, by the good works which he performs through the grace of God and the merit of Jesus Christ, whose living member he is, does not truly merit increase of grace, eternal life, and the attainment of that eternal life,-if so be, however, that he depart in grace,-and also an increase of glory; let him be anathema.
"But he that doth not believe, is already judged: because he believeth not in the name of the only begotten Son of God (Jn 3:18)."

"All sorrow leads to the foot of the Cross.  Weep for your sins."

"Although He should kill me, I will trust in Him"

Stubborn

Faith comes to us by hearing.....
Faith then cometh by hearing; and hearing by the word of Christ.
[Romans 10:17]
Even after a long life of sin, if the Christian receives the Sacrament of the dying with the appropriate dispositions, he will go straight to heaven without having to go to purgatory. - Fr. M. Philipon; This sacrament prepares man for glory immediately, since it is given to those who are departing from this life. - St. Thomas Aquinas; It washes away the sins that remain to be atoned, and the vestiges of sin; it comforts and strengthens the soul of the sick person, arousing in him a great trust and confidence in the divine mercy. Thus strengthened, he bears the hardships and struggles of his illness more easily and resists the temptation of the devil and the heel of the deceiver more readily; and if it be advantageous to the welfare of his soul, he sometimes regains his bodily health. - Council of Trent

Michael Wilson

All the above posts are true. For infants Faith is infused into their souls by the Sacrament of Baptism; it grows through the exercise of the faith, by making acts of faith and practicing one's faith; receiving the sacraments; praying; doing good works; reading books that nourish our faith.
For an adult, the process begins by hearing about the Faith, either by a sermon or reading from Sacred Scripture etc. etc. Then the person cooperates with God's grace and becomes a Catholic by Baptism etc. etc.
"Faith alone" is only found in one place in Sacred Scripture, the Epistle of St. James Ch.2:
Quote24 Do you see that by works a man is justified; and not by faith only
It is the Protestants that invented the doctrine of "Faith alone".
"The World Must Conform to Our Lord and not He to it." Rev. Dennis Fahey CSSP

"My brothers, all of you, if you are condemned to see the triumph of evil, never applaud it. Never say to evil: you are good; to decadence: you are progess; to death: you are life. Sanctify yourselves in the times wherein God has placed you; bewail the evils and the disorders which God tolerates; oppose them with the energy of your works and your efforts, your life uncontaminated by error, free from being led astray, in such a way that having lived here below, united with the Spirit of the Lord, you will be admitted to be made but one with Him forever and ever: But he who is joined to the Lord is one in spirit." Cardinal Pie of Potiers