Excerpts from the 2014 Vatican Document on the Sensus Fidei . . .
52. Every virtue has a double effect: first, it naturally inclines the person who possesses it towards an object (a certain kind of action), and second, it spontaneously distances him or her from whatever is contrary to that object. For example, a person who has developed the virtue of chastity possesses a sort of ‘sixth sense’, ‘a kind of spiritual instinct’,[64] which enables him or her to discern the right way to behave even in the most complex situations, spontaneously perceiving what it is appropriate to do and what to avoid. A chaste person thereby instinctively adopts the right attitude, where the conceptual reasoning of the moralist might lead to perplexity and indecision.[65]
53. The sensus fidei is the form that the instinct which accompanies every virtue takes in the case of the virtue of faith. ‘Just as, by the habits of the other virtues, one sees what is becoming in respect of that habit, so, by the habit of faith, the human mind is directed to assent to such things as are becoming to a right faith, and not to assent to others.’[66] Faith, as a theological virtue, enables the believer to participate in the knowledge that God has of himself and of all things. In the believer, it takes the form of a ‘second nature’.[67] By means of grace and the theological virtues, believers become ‘participants of the divine nature’ (2Pet 1:4), and are in a way connaturalised to God. As a result, they react spontaneously on the basis of that participated divine nature, in the same way that living beings react instinctively to what does or does not suit their nature.
60. Three principal manifestations of the sensus fidei fidelis in the personal life of the believer can be highlighted. The sensus fidei fidelis enables individual believers: 1) to discern whether or not a particular teaching or practice that they actually encounter in the Church is coherent with the true faith by which they live in the communion of the Church (see below, §§61-63); 2) to distinguish in what is preached between the essential and the secondary (§64); and 3) to determine and put into practice the witness to Jesus Christ that they should give in the particular historical and cultural context in which they live (§65).
61. ‘Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God ; for many false prophets have gone out into the world’ (1Jn 4:1). The sensus fidei fidelis confers on the believer the capacity to discern whether or not a teaching or practice is coherent with the true faith by which he or she already lives. If individual believers perceive or ‘sense’ that coherence, they spontaneously give their interior adherence to those teachings or engage personally in the practices, whether it is a matter of truths already explicitly taught or of truths not yet explicitly taught.
62. The sensus fidei fidelis also enables individual believers to perceive any disharmony, incoherence, or contradiction between a teaching or practice and the authentic Christian faith by which they live. They react as a music lover does to false notes in the performance of a piece of music. In such cases, believers interiorly resist the teachings or practices concerned and do not accept them or participate in them. ‘The habitus of faith possesses a capacity whereby, thanks to it, the believer is prevented from giving assent to what is contrary to the faith, just as chastity gives protection with regard to whatever is contrary to chastity.’[77]
74. In matters of faith the baptised cannot be passive. They have received the Spirit and are endowed as members of the body of the Lord with gifts and charisms ‘for the renewal and building up of the Church’,[89] so the magisterium has to be attentive to the sensus fidelium, the living voice of the people of God. Not only do they have the right to be heard, but their reaction to what is proposed as belonging to the faith of the Apostles must be taken very seriously, because it is by the Church as a whole that the apostolic faith is borne in the power of the Spirit. The magisterium does not have sole responsibility for it. The magisterium should therefore refer to the sense of faith of the Church as a whole. The sensus fidelium can be an important factor in the development of doctrine, and it follows that the magisterium needs means by which to consult the faithful.
75. The connection between the sensus fidelium and the magisterium is particularly to be found in the liturgy. The faithful are baptised into a royal priesthood, exercised principally in the Eucharist,[90] and the bishops are the ‘high priests’ who preside at the Eucharist,[91] regularly exercising there their teaching office, also. The Eucharist is the source and summit of the life of the Church;[92] it is there especially that the faithful and their pastors interact, as one body for one purpose, namely to give praise and glory to God. The Eucharist shapes and forms the sensus fidelium and contributes greatly to the formulation and refinement of verbal expressions of the faith, because it is there that the teaching of bishops and councils is ultimately ‘received’ by the faithful. From early Christian times, the Eucharist underpinned the formulation of the Church’s doctrine because there most of all was the mystery of faith encountered and celebrated, and the bishops who presided at the Eucharist of their local churches among their faithful people were those who gathered in councils to determine how best to express the faith in words and formulas: lex orandi, lex credendi.[93]
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Notes:
[64] Vatican II, PC 12.
[65] Cf. Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, IIa-IIae, q.45, a.2.
[66] Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, IIa-IIae, q.1, a.4, ad 3. Cf. IIa-IIae, q.2, a.3, ad 2.
[67] Cf. Thomas Aquinas, Scriptum, III, d.23, q.3, a.3, qla 2, ad 2: ‘Habitus fidei cum non rationi innitatur, inclinat per modum naturae, sicut et habitus moralium virtutum, et sicut habitus principiorum; et ideo quamdiu manet, nihil contra fidem credit.’
[77] Thomas Aquinas, Quaestiones disputatae de veritate, q.14, a.10, ad 10; cf. Scriptum, III, d.25, q.2, a.1, qla 2, ad 3.
[78] Thomas Aquinas, Scriptum, III, d.25, q.2, a.1, qla 4, ad 3: ‘[The believer] must not give assent to a prelate who preaches against the faith…. The subordinate is not totally excused by his ignorance. In fact, the habitus of faith inclines him against such preaching because that habitus necessarily teaches whatever leads to salvation. Also, because one must not give credence too easily to every spirit, one should not give assent to strange preaching but should seek further information or simply entrust oneself to God without seeking to venture into the secrets of God beyond one’s capacities.’
[79] Cf. Thomas Aquinas, Scriptum, III, d.25, q.2, a.1, qla 2, ad 3; Quaestiones disputatae de veritate, q.14, a.11, ad 2.
[89] LG 12.
[93] CCC 1124. Cf. Irenaeus, Adv.Haer., IV, 18, 5 (Sources chrétiennes, vol.100, p.610): ‘Our way of thinking is attuned to the Eucharist, and the Eucharist in turn confirms our way of thinking’ (see also CCC, n.1327).