The following article was published in Saint Joseph Magazine, (Oregon), Vol. 65, 1964, no. 10, pp.

16-19

Our Awesome Creed

The Faith is no excuse for bigotry
By Charles De Koninck
Charles De Koninck, Catholic layman and dean of philosophy at Laval University, Quebec, Canada, was chosen by
Archbishop Maurice Roy of Quebec as his personal theologian for the third session of the Second Vatican Council
Bigotry is an ugly thing. As Catholics we have endured so much of it, and find it so detestable, that we scarcely think
ourselves capable of falling into the same sin. And I think it is true that, without self-righteousness, we may say that we are
rarely guilty of bigotry in the ordinary sense. We do not hate and fear other men for their religious beliefs, as we have been
hated and feared for ours. We are not ready to attribute to another man’s religion all sorts of evil or perverted doctrines,
which a little fair-minded investigation would show to be gross calumnies, although we ourselves have often had to endure
such accusations and suspicions.

No, we are not intolerant of the sincere convictions of our fellowmen in matters of religion and morality. We are ready to
respect and admire loyalty to a creed wherever we find it. And yet, unpalatable as this may sound, we have our own way of
being bigots. The truth is that, while ready enough to tolerate another man’s creed, we are not so ready to tolerate his lack
of one. And our crime is often a little subtler. Even at our broad-minded best. Even when we are disposed to endure the
unbeliever, and to sympathize with the believer whose belief differs from ours, we are still inclined to pass a harsh judgment
on both when they come to an awareness of the Faith and still reject it.

I call this bigotry, and am obliged to declare as well that, when we fall into this crime, it is for the reason that our own faith is
wanting. If we truly appreciated the mysteriousness of the truths that faith enables us to accept, and how inscrutable is this
power to accept them, we could never show anything but understanding towards those who cannot join us, a humble
gratitude for the light in which they do not share and which we ourselves have in no way deserved — ever mindful that this
gift does not confirm us in the good.

It is a Catholic upbringing, taken for granted, accepted as normal, which explains why all too many of us fail to realize how
utterly incredible, how utterly beyond the reach of human mind, are the loftier truths of our holy Faith. The utter
impenetrability of mysteries like the Trinity, the Incarnation, the Eucharist, the authority of the visible Church, the primacy of
Peter and of his successors, is so great that the gap between them and man’s ordinary powers of understanding may truly
be called infinite. Yet, is it not a fact that we are quite capable of wondering why people find such difficulty in them?
Capable, too, of judging it matter for astonishment that, after due instruction, they cannot receive these truths as we do?
And able to marvel that what is so easy and ordinary for us should be found insuperably difficult by them?

Well, the Faith should not be easy and ordinary to anybody. The attitude that has just been described is not a healthy one.
It supposes a familiarity with the Faith, to be sure, but not the right sort of familiarity. When we have been Catholics from
childhood, it is only natural that the great doctrines, repeated to us when our minds were tender, should become so much a
part of life as to begin to appear self-evident. But after we have grown up, after we have attained a mature grasp of our
Creed, we ought to know better and recognize that it is truly awesome in its grand and humanly incredible content.

It should help us to realize how unreasonable we are if we appreciate that everything we are saying for the entire Creed
holds good, to a considerable extent, for mere belief in existence of God, a thing which need not be taken on faith alone, but
which in principle can actually be proved. Some people, it is true, stand at the strange extreme of believing that the
existence of God does not even need proof, that it is self-evident. But St. Thomas teaches that though the existence of a
Deity can be demonstrated, the task of doing so is extremely difficult: so difficult as actually to serve as one reason why it
was right that God should make even His very existence the substance of a special revelation. What the Angelic Doctor is
maintaining, then, is that, if God had not told man of His own existence, only a very few human beings could have come to
know Him, and these only after a long time, and at the conclusion of researches and reasonings which would be sure to be
mingled with many mistakes.

Scripture insists, of course, that the invisible things of God can become known through the visible works of His hands. The
first Vatican Council has even made this truth the subject of a definition, declaring that the Principle of all things and their
purpose can be attained by reason alone, and attained with certitude. But let us notice two things about this article of our
Faith: first, that it holds no proof for what it proposes, no vestige of a proof; secondly, that it does not imply that you, or I, or
anybody in particular, should be able to work out the proof which it declares to exist. If the Father of the Council had meant,
not only that the existence of God could be proved, but that a man could not qualify as a believer until he had worked out the
proof, it would follow that only the greatest thinkers could possess faith; and great thinkers are scarce and may feel no need
to believe.

So far beyond the reach of our minds, and so wondrous, are the truths that we hold by divine faith, that the first effect of
acknowledging them is simply fear: first, servile fear, declares St. Thomas, terror at the thought of what will befall us if we do
not hold to the Faith and live by the Faith. His is speaking of a faith still “unformed,” of course, a faith not yet given genuine
direction and vitality by charity. For it is not enough to believe God, we must believe in Him. Nevertheless, even when our
faith is perfected by love, we still stand before God in a certain fear and trembling, as what we now believe comes home to
us. If none of this awe filled our minds, at the thought of the stupendous mysteries which God has laid bare to man, our faith
could amount to little. Because such is the gulf between the majesty of God and the wretchedness of our earthly existence
that, like the blessed Spirits at any glimpse of what God must be like, the creature must tremble to its depths — tremunt
Potestates,” “the Powers tremble.”
The things which we Christians embrace by divine faith, and which are not to be received except by that faith, are humanly
incredible. They are incredible for two reasons, two reasons paradoxically opposed: first, because they are so far above us,
because they make it so plain that God is remote, infinite and mysterious beyond all imagining; second, because they bring
that inaccessible Being so close, involve the two of us in each other, show us how much we mean to Him who is above all,
how each of us is the preoccupation of Wisdom Itself, as much as if God had no other one to care for. In fact one of our
stupendous truths is that God is so concerned about us that He became one of us, was born as we are born, spoke to us as
a brother, and even suffered and died in our place. As for the Eucharist, it is the mystery of faith par excellence, the hardest
of all things to believe: it makes God something that we actually eat — and “this is a hard saying.”
Thus it is not only God’s infinity, His unimaginable timelessness, His limitless power, His unsearchable wisdom, His
unsurpassable goodness and beauty that are awesome; it is also the fact that He will not leave us alone, that He is resolved
to be part of our life, indeed, to be our very life; to hold us within His very grasp, more present to us, more one with us, more
us than we are ourselves.

It is primarily by faith that I know this; I know that God knows me, knows me through and through, moves me irresistibly. I
believe it all. I will hold it to the death, not principally because great thinkers have convinced me, but because I have been
taught by His authority that not a sparrow falls to the ground without the will of the heavenly Father, not a hair of my head
escapes His count.

Our Faith is assuredly no easy matter and can move us to protest. Not only because it tells of mysteries which eye hath not
seen, nor ear heard, nor mind conceived; but also because it penetrates every corner of life, because it will leave no part of
our day untouched. That this is indeed a great reason for the difficulty of the Faith was proved by the reaction of so many
good Catholics to the prospect of the solemn definition of the Assumption. When Pius XII proclaimed this truth, there were
murmurs. Why? Oh, of course, because of the unnecessary stumbling-block again set in the way of the non-Catholic. And
when John XXIII inserted the name of St. Joseph in the Canon of the Mass, there were similar stirrings of uneasiness.
Nothing could be more natural than such feelings. We all hold the instinctive attitude that there ought to be some blessed
limit to what we are asked to take on faith, some acceptable frontier.

But where are such bounds to be set? Shall we confine our assent to the Incarnation, for example, with no reference to the
Child’s mother or foster father? If we could manage these matters to suit ourselves, we would all feel inclined to suppress
facts such as that God was hungry, tired, thirsty, that He perspired, that He rode on a donkey, that He died. Yes, let divine
truth be as lofty as you please; let it be glorious, sublime, awful, but let it not become human, pedestrian, ordinary, just like
me and my dull little life, for then it shocks the intellect.

If God would only turn to us for counsel, we would advise Him very earnestly to remain in His celestial abode, remote from
the household of man, while we, who know our way about in matters of this sort, decide for Him what it will be politic for Him
to say and do, if He is to exert the most beneficent influence possible upon our race. He must not use too familiar a voice,
nor draw too near, for then it will be hard for men to believe that it is truly He.

It must also be pointed out that the Faith is not easy to receive because, while it solves problems, it also makes them, and
makes bad ones worse. The problem of evil is terrible for the unbeliever. It is more terrible still for the man of genuine faith.
For the Christian must penetrate evil, comprehend it, appreciate its enormity, sorrow over it, as the non-Christian can never
do. He is far more deeply aware of the evil of which he himself is capable, so much so that he would fall into utter despair, if
it were not for the very faith which has granted him this vision, and the divinely granted virtue of hope. Because by faith he
knows that no evil whatever would be tolerated by the infinite Good, if He could not turn it to greater glory.

Let us now consider separately some of the astounding doctrines which we hold, and how astounding they are. For
instance, I maintain that there are three Persons in one God. I am sure of this, not because I see it to be true, but because
the Church proposes it to me as a truth of revelation, indeed as the most basic of these truths. Similarly, I hold for the
original sin, not because of the present evils of this unhappy world, nor because of the inordinate impulses active in my own
person, but simply because the Church tells me that this is what happened.

In some quarters it is now being suggested that the story of how the sin was committed, the tale of primal mutiny, is only a
myth. If biblical scholars were in their own right the first and final authority, I might be inclined to accept this interpretation —
which of course leaves traditional doctrine unaltered. But biblical scholars, as we all know, in a sense rank no whit higher
than Homeric or Shakespearian scholars. They may earn our respect, but can never win from us the kind of assent which
the Church may demand.

Again, nobody will ever supply me with acceptable proof that man has been redeemed from the great fault. Indeed, never in
this life may I hope to comprehend why he needed to be redeemed at all, for how can it ever appear intelligible to me that
anybody should be charged with responsibility for a crime committed by another person, long since dead and gone.
However, once I do believe the doctrine, I can find acceptable certain reasons which help to explain this strange
transmission of guilt, although these will never become grounds for my believing it.

Or again, how can the human mind acknowledge the truth that God suffered, died, was buried? Or that the Church, in the
beginning so insignificant and tiny a flock, is invested with the charism of divinely infallible authority in faith and morals? That
organization now presided over by an elderly Italian gentleman in Rome? And that this amiable gentleman should wield
such power? Why are we sure of this? Can we expect others to share our certitude merely because we tell them it is so? If
we think this, we need better instruction in our own faith.
 It should be clear by now that everything we have been
discussing has an intimate relation with the question of religious freedom — sometimes unhappily termed religious toleration.
If we are true Christians, we shall never treat others as if only obtuseness, dullness, or even ill-will, would prevent them from
joining us. And we shall understand that what we believe only obliges us all the more strictly to respect their conscientious
disbelief.
Here it will be helpful to recall the old distinction between the gift of faith, and the Faith that comes by hearing, between faith
and ‘the Faith.’ The gift is the power to believe, a grace, a thing neither acquired nor deserved. It is not the effect of hearing.
When given in Baptism, it must be freely accepted, either by the person baptized, or by those who speak in his name. This
explains why it is never right to baptize a child against the wish of its parents. No one can be forced to accept the faith,
forced to receive certain propositions as true and to confess them against his own conscience. Each man must follow his
own conscience; were he forbidden to do so, he would not be able to act with responsibility. This is the Christian
understanding of freedom of religion, and shows us how the very word ‘toleration’ with its implication that another man’s
sincere conviction may legitimately be judged offensive, is an attack on human dignity.

Now, as to the Faith that comes by hearing, by it is meant the ensemble of truths to which, by the gift of faith, we must cling.
And here again, we must make a distinction between those which are natural, though supernaturally revealed, and those
supernatural in themselves and in the manner of their knowing. Now, if it be true that something like the mere existence of
God, though attainable by reason alone, is yet so difficult of attainment that few minds could reach it, and these only after a
long time and many mistakes, what are we to think of truths essentially supernatural? Of incredible mysteries like the Trinity,
the Fall, the Redemption, the Passion, Resurrection and Ascension?

These are things which we say we believe every time we recite the Creed. They are everyday matters. But they must not
become so familiar, so ordinary, that they suffer degeneration, and we come to look upon them as comparable to
propositions like that which states that the world is round, and which anybody ought to be able to accept. We know them to
be true because God has revealed them. But it is by the gift of faith that we know this, by faith and only by faith. And let it
be noted that only by the same miraculous power granted to our minds do we know, not merely what God has revealed, but
that it is God who has revealed it; for there is no possibility of rational proof that the prophets, apostles, or Christ Himself,
spoke with the voice of God.

Thus it should make us sad to encounter Catholics who are offended at the unbelief of their neighbors, who cannot
understand why the Faith, so ordinary a matter for them, cannot be welcomed by everybody. Well, it should not have
become an ordinary matter for them. And it is they who are “stiff-necked of heart and mind” if they insist that the gift of faith,
the actual power to believe, could ever come from mere hearing. Or if they fail to see that even the Faith, the truths to which
we give assent by virtue of the gift, is bound to be a folly and a stumbling-block to natural man. It is inevitable that what we
believe as Christians shall become the occasion of intellectual scandal to intellectuals. The truths we hold cannot be truly
divine if they appear natural and reasonable to human reason. How dare we, then, look down on our unbelieving brother?

Yet that is exactly what we would be doing if, for instance, we made profession of the Faith a condition of citizenship; if we
proclaimed, as Catholics sometimes have done, that “error has no rights,” This phrase, “error has no rights,” is worth
pausing over. Of course error has no rights, and neither has ignorance. How could they possess rights, when they are not
even persons? In using such language, we are resorting to a literary device, a trope, or perhaps even a synecdoche. Now
there is no harm in tropes or synecdoches, so long as we bear in mind that it is tropes and synecdoches they are and no
more. What must be respected is the person. He alone has rights, and always retains certain basic ones, no matter how
great his ignorance or errors regarding what we believe to be true.

It ought to be clear that, in respecting freedom of conscience, the state is not encouraging unbelief, but is merely admitting
that it has no right to use force in things which are not Caesar’s. To recognize freedom of conscience is to respect truth, and
to respect the manner in which truth is made known.

Cardinal Lercaro has lately insisted on this last distinction, the distinction between the truth and how we get hold of it. How
did we Christians, for example, reach our knowledge of truth? Was any of it our doing? Can we claim credit for some sort
of preliminary research or reasoning? And when we act as if anybody ought to be able to secure what we have secured, do
not our attitude and behavior become obstacles which will make our neighbor unwilling so much as to listen? There is no
charity without benignity, and no benignity without the ability to put oneself into the other fellow’s skin.

We have a grave duty of trying to see ourselves and our neighbor under the eye of God, to realize that our as yet unbelieving
brothers are in His care as are they who already believe. Our belief is not of our deserving.

Are we to thank God that we are not as the rest of men, and dismiss our neighbor for his lack of faith as if it were comparable
to a lack of culture? Are we to tolerate his opinions, as if this were a great favor to him? As if it lay within our right to grant
him the privilege of following his own conscience? No, it is our God who must tolerate us all, and some of His Christian
children may perhaps be putting a special strain on His infinite patience.

When we take as evident, or as proved, the beliefs to which we have become so accustomed; when we fail in sympathy
toward those whose eyes have not yet been opened by divine mercy, we are merely showing that we do not realize what it is
to believe, nor how inscrutable are the mysteries in which we believe. A humble gratitude for the faith should be our lasting
attitude, and this humble gratitude should determine how we treat those whom God has not yet blessed as He has blessed
others.