Annotation CCXVII

”When it was late that same day, the first of the sabbaths.” — John 20:19

Whether the mysteries of faith are to be proved by human reasons.

Pope Gregory, in the beginning of the twenty-seventh homily on the gospels: “FAITH,” he says, “has no merit, for which human reason furnishes proof.” This proposition — usurped by those who denied that human reasons are to be brought in for the confirmation of divine [things] — St. Thomas, in the Secunda Secundae, elucidates with these words: “GREGORY, saying this, speaks in that case when a man has not the will to believe those [things] which are of faith except on account of a reason adduced. But when a man has the will to believe those [things] which are of faith from the divine authority alone, [and] if he has a demonstrative reason for some of them — as, for instance, for this, that God exists — the merit of faith is not on that account taken away, or diminished.”