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Objection 1: It would seem that lifeless faith is not a gift of
God. For it is written (Dt. 32:4) that "the works of God
are perfect." Now lifeless faith is something imperfect. Therefore
it is not the work of God.
Objection 2: Further, just as an act is said to be deformed through
lacking its due form, so too is faith called lifeless [informis] when
it lacks the form due to it. Now the deformed act of sin is not from
God, as stated above (FS, Question 79, Article 2, ad 2).
Therefore neither is lifeless faith from God.
Objection 3: Further, whomsoever God heals, He heals wholly:
for it is written (Jn. 7:23): "If a man receive circumcision
on the sabbath-day, that the law of Moses may not be broken; are you
angry at Me because I have healed the whole man on the
sabbath-day?" Now faith heals man from unbelief. Therefore whoever
receives from God the gift of faith, is at the same time healed from
all his sins. But this is not done except by living faith. Therefore
living faith alone is a gift of God: and consequently lifeless faith
is not from God.
On the contrary, A gloss on 1 Cor. 13:2 says that "the faith
which lacks charity is a gift of God." Now this is lifeless faith.
Therefore lifeless faith is a gift of God.
I answer that, Lifelessness is a privation. Now it must be noted
that privation is sometimes essential to the species, whereas sometimes
it is not, but supervenes in a thing already possessed of its proper
species: thus privation of the due equilibrium of the humors is
essential to the species of sickness, while darkness is not essential
to a diaphanous body, but supervenes in it. Since, therefore, when
we assign the cause of a thing, we intend to assign the cause of that
thing as existing in its proper species, it follows that what is not
the cause of privation, cannot be assigned as the cause of the thing to
which that privation belongs as being essential to its species. For we
cannot assign as the cause of a sickness, something which is not the
cause of a disturbance in the humors: though we can assign as cause of
a diaphanous body, something which is not the cause of the darkness,
which is not essential to the diaphanous body.
Now the lifelessness of faith is not essential to the species of
faith, since faith is said to be lifeless through lack of an extrinsic
form, as stated above (Question 4, Article 4). Consequently
the cause of lifeless faith is that which is the cause of faith strictly
so called: and this is God, as stated above (Article 1). It
follows, therefore, that lifeless faith is a gift of God.
Reply to Objection 1: Lifeless faith, though it is not simply
perfect with the perfection of a virtue, is, nevertheless, perfect
with a perfection that suffices for the essential notion of faith.
Reply to Objection 2: The deformity of an act is essential to the
act's species, considered as a moral act, as stated above (FP,
Question 48, Article 1, ad 2; FS, Question 18, Article
5): for an act is said to be deformed through being deprived of an
intrinsic form, viz. the due commensuration of the act's
circumstances. Hence we cannot say that God is the cause of a
deformed act, for He is not the cause of its deformity, though He is
the cause of the act as such.
We may also reply that deformity denotes not only privation of a due
form, but also a contrary disposition, wherefore deformity is compared
to the act, as falsehood is to faith. Hence, just as the deformed
act is not from God, so neither is a false faith; and as lifeless
faith is from God, so too, acts that are good generically, though
not quickened by charity, as is frequently the case in sinners, are
from God.
Reply to Objection 3: He who receives faith from God without
charity, is healed from unbelief, not entirely (because the sin of
his previous unbelief is not removed) but in part, namely, in the
point of ceasing from committing such and such a sin. Thus it happens
frequently that a man desists from one act of sin, through God causing
him thus to desist, without desisting from another act of sin, through
the instigation of his own malice. And in this way sometimes it is
granted by God to a man to believe, and yet he is not granted the gift
of charity: even so the gift of prophecy, or the like, is given to
some without charity.
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