Beyond the World of Nature

The Gift of Faith

Today marks the 199th anniversary of the death of Alessandro Volta, an Italian scientist known primarily for his work on electricity (so much so that the standard unit for electric potential—the volt—is named in his honor). However, another aspect of this man’s life was his faith. Apparently, a canon by the name of Giacomo Cierci sought to convert an unbeliever who was adamant that religion was for the unintelligent. Thus, the canon referred to Volta, the believer scientist, who provided a profession of his own faith. I was able to track down this story and an Italian text of this profession in Christianity and the Leaders of Modern Science (London: Herder, 1911), by the German Jesuit priest, Karl Alois Kneller, but I couldn’t come up with anything when searching through the collected works of Volta that I have access to. So perhaps the story is merely anecdotal. (Though if anyone has intel as to the story’s authenticity, please let me know!)

However, whether or not the profession is authentically Volta’s, it does highlight for me a special aspect of belief, for it refers to faith as “a pure gift of God, a supernatural grace.” The gratuitous aspect of faith can sometimes be misunderstood. So now, like the canon in our story, I’ll take my turn in referring you to a person exemplifying the union of faith and reason. Enter Saint Thomas Aquinas.

When discussing how faith is given to man (Summa Theologiae, II-II, q. 6, a. 1), Aquinas takes as his guiding light the words of Paul: “Faith is the gift of God” (Eph 2:8). Yet Aquinas distinguishes. Faith isn’t simply a gift in the sense that the truths to be believed are beyond man’s power to grasp (though many such truths of faith indeed are above man’s grasp). Rather, the gratuity of faith is found even on the side of man’s assent, since man can’t believe unless God interiorly moves the human will. (Otherwise, as Aquinas notes, we would be Pelagians.)

The assent of faith isn’t merely thinking about this or that thing. It’s not knowing in the sense that a religious studies student might “know” the truths of faith by taking a course on Christianity. If such a student isn’t a believer, he might say, “Jesus Christ is God,” without really taking the statement to be the truth. It’s different with faith. The assent of faith entails a kind of firm one-sidedness or stable adhering (Saint Thomas uses terms like “declinare” and “adhaesio”) such that a person holds the statement to be true and its contradictory to be false. The believer says, “Jesus Christ is God,” and could even bet his life on it (as in the case of the martyrs). Thus, on account of the believer’s alignment toward the truths of faith, the Angelic Doctor, though careful not to call faith certainty (otherwise it wouldn’t be faith), does note that it’s much closer to knowledge than to an ambivalent uncertainty (Summa Theologiae, II-II, q. 2, a. 1).

Thus, even if Volta never actually described faith as a gift, it’s fitting that such a description should be ascribed to a scientist, an investigator of nature. For the faith touches on truths that science never could. Faith gives us insight into a reality beyond the realm of nature. It elevates us to a whole new dimension. It’s the gift of peering (although dimly, as if in a glass) into the life of God himself.