Encyclopedia of sacred theology - pagina 290

ECTYPAL THEOLOGY

[Diy. Ill

But the form which anything has received

as a consequence

266

§ 60.

of sin can never be its proper or original

form

equally absurd to look upon saving faith as a sense implanted for the

first

and

;

new

time by regeneration.

it

is

spiritual

Nothing

can ever be added to man by regeneration which does not essentially belong to human nature. Hence regeneration cannot put anything around us as a cloak, or place anj^thing on our head as a crown. If faith is to be a human reality in the regen-

must be an attitude (habitus) of our human nature consequently it must have been present in the first as such man and it must still be discernible in the sinner. To prove the latter is not difficult, provided it is acknowledged that ethical powers (sensu neutro) operate in the sinner also, even though in him they appear exclusively in the privative, i.e. sinful form. Taken this way, the pistic element is present in all erate, it

;

;

that

is

called

man

;

only in the sinner this pistic element as-

sumes the privative form, and becomes unfaith (ainarLa). If sin is not merely the absence of good (carentia boni), but posiis not only the but the positive privation of

tive privation (actuosa privatio), airiaria also

absence of faith (absentia

fidei),

faith (actuosa fidei privatio),

and as such

sin.

By

overlook-

ing this distinction our earlier theologians came to speak of God (cognitio Dei innata) which properly invited criticism. Cognitio can be no habitus. But while they expressed themselves incorrectly, they were not mistaken in the matter itself; they simply failed to distinguish between concreate theology (concreata), and faith which is inseparable from of

innate

the

knowledge

as an attitude (habitus),

human

nature.

Faith indeed

is

in our

human

consciousness

the deepest fundamental law that governs every form of distinction,

by which alone

all

higher "Differentiation" becomes

established in our consciousness.

It

is

the daring break-

ing of our unity into a duality; placing of another ego

over against our

own

distinction because our

ego; and the courage to face that

own ego

finds its point of support

and of rest only in that other ego. This general better knowledge of faith renders it possible to speak of faith in every domain; and also shows that faith originates primor-

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