Encyclopedia of sacred theology - pagina 155

Chap.

II]

§46.

FAITH

131

cannot progress a single step. Nothing but faith can ever give you certainty in your consciousness of the existence of

your ego; and every proof to the sum^ which you might endeavor to furnish by the exhibition of your will, or if need be by the revelation of your ill will, etc., will have no force of demonstration, except before all things else, on the ground of faith, the knowledge of your ego is established In the cogito ergo sum the logical fault has for yourself. The ego, which is to be indeed long since been shown. proved in the sum, is already assumed in the premise by the cogito.

But the indispensableness it

may

of faith goes

much

farther,

and

safely be said that with the so-called exact sciences

is no investigation, nor any conclusion conceivable except in so far as the observation in the investigation and

there

the reasoning in the conclusion are grounded in faith. play is intended here on the word " faith." Faith is taken

No by

most real sense. By faith you are sure of all those things of which you have a firm conviction, but which conviction is not the outcome of observation or demonstration. This may result from indolence by which you apply the much easier and ever ready faith, where the more arduous duty of observation and demonstration is demanded. But this is the abuse of faith, which should ever be reproved. In this abuse, however, the formal character of faith remains inviolate. Properly used or misused, faith is and always will be a means of becoming firmly convinced of a thing, and of making this conviction the starting-point of conduct, while for this conviction no empirical or demonstrative proof is offered or found. Faith can never be anything else but an immediate act of our consciousness, by Avhich certainty is established in that consciousness on any point outside of " The ground on which your observation or demonstration. faith rests," and "the ulterior ground of your faith," are often spoken of, but in all such expressions faith itself is not meant, but only its content, and this does not concern us now. Faith here is taken merely as the means or instrument by which to possess certainty, and as such it not only needs us in

its

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