What Pope Francis Misses About the Nature of Faith

The Apostle Paul calls us to believe with one’s heart and to confess what one believes (Romans 10:9). This is a twofold Christian imperative—the creedal and confessional imperative—that is at the root of creeds and confessions of faith. Faith involves both the fides qua creditur (“the faith with which one believes”) and the fides quae creditur “the faith which one believes”).¹ 

What is the nature of faith, according to Pope Francis?² If I understand Francis correctly, his emphasis is on the former: faith as it is experienced, encountered, and lived. Of course, this emphasis is necessary and important. Still, Francis’ manner of expression leaves not only unclear but also unanswered—and he does so consistently—the question how both asserted truth and lived truth (the fides quae creditur, which is the faith which one believes, the conceptual content, the beliefs which one holds to be true, affirms, and asserts, and the fides qua creditur) belong to faith as a whole. In short, he leaves in the dark the Church’s teaching that faith is both a personal and cognitive-propositional encounter with the divine revelation of God’s Word in the authoritative sources of the Faith: Scripture and Tradition. The International Theological Commission makes this point:

There can be no subjective understanding of faith alone (fides qua), which is not linked to the authentic truth of God (fides quae), handed down in revelation and preserved in the Church. There is therefore “a profound unity between the act by which we believe and the content to which we give our assent. The apostle Paul helps us to enter into this reality when he writes: ‘one believes with the heart and confesses with the mouth’ (cf. Romans 10:10). The heart indicates that the first act by which one comes to faith is God’s gift and the action of grace which acts and transforms the person deep within.”³

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Francis misses this profound unity. For example, his 2019 Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation Christus Vivit bears out once again very clearly that he does not give an integral place to the fides quae creditur in his understanding of the life of faith. Francis says, 

In the words of a saint, “Christianity is not a collection of truths to be believed, rules to be followed, or prohibitions. Seen that way, it puts us off. Christianity is a person who loved me immensely, who demands and asks for my love. Christianity is Christ.” (no. 156) 

For another example, Francis states, “Being a Christian is not adhering to a doctrine…. Being Christian is about an encounter.”⁴ Again, in Francis’ Apostolic Constitution Veritatis Gaudium, the first part of the second sentence states, “For truth is not an abstract idea, but is Jesus himself.” In a homily that raised eyebrows, Francis urged us to “be careful not to fall into the temptation of making idols of certain abstract truths.”⁵ In this connection, Francis regularly cites in support of his emphasis on the fide qua creditur, Benedict XVI’s Deus Caritas Est: “Being Christian is not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty idea, but the encounter with an event, a person, which gives life a new horizon and a decisive direction” (no. 1). Respectfully, I will argue below, Francis misunderstands Benedict’s point.

Now, we might think that Francis is rightly insisting that truth itself must be authenticated existentially—that is, lived out, practiced, carried out, as I said above—and hence cannot be reduced to propositional truth—to being merely believed, asserted, and claimed. Perhaps he is merely saying, as John Paul II once said, “No, we shall not be saved by a formula but by a Person, and the assurance which he gives us: I am with you!”⁶ Some years earlier, in an interview book with André Frossard, “Be Not Afraid!” John Paul drew a similar distinction, 

I have already drawn your attention to the difference between the catechism formula, “accepting as true all that God reveals,” and surrender to God. In the first definition, faith is primarily intellectual, in so far as it is the welcoming and assimilation of revealed fact. On the other hand, when the constitution Dei Verbum tells us that man entrust himself to God “by the obedience of faith,” we are confronted with the whole ontological and existential dimension and, so to speak, the drama of existence proper to man.⁷ 

But the contrast in Francis’ opening sentence of Veritatis Gaudium is between abstract truth and reality rather than between two complementary ways of understanding truth, propositional truth and existential truth, as John Paul states. 

Indeed, Francis’ opening statement on truth versus abstract ideas reminds me of Aquinas’ consideration of the question whether the object of faith is a proposition or God. Francis seems implicitly to be putting us before a similar choice. Nevertheless, Aquinas argues that this choice is a specious one. Our faith is in both propositions and in the reality of the divine Word, Jesus Christ. Indeed, this is the context in which to understand Benedict’s point: the ultimate object of the primary act of faith is a concrete reality and not a proposition, an abstract idea.

Furthermore, one wonders whether Francis’ understanding of revelation has room for propositional revelation given his claim that “God has revealed himself as history, not as a compendium of abstract truths.” Who thinks that divine revelation is a “compendium of abstract truths”?⁸ This is a straw man. In my judgment, Francis is unclear about the mediating role of propositions both from God’s self-revelation to man and from man’s faith in God. 

What is, then, an abstract idea? Francis does not say so, but I think we must say that abstract ideas are propositions that we assert to be true, and the context does not determine the truth-status of the proposition. Therefore, abstract ideas are abstract truths. For example, “The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1:14). “Christ is risen from the dead” (1 Corinthians 15:20). Other examples of abstract truths that are asserted may be taken from the Pastoral Letter of First Timothy: “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners” (1:15). “God our Savior…desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” (2:3-4). “For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus” (2:5). “For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving” (4:4).

In this view, the truth-status of these propositions are, if true, such that they will be true always and everywhere. It is not the context that determines the truth-status of their conceptual content. A doctrinal proposition is true if and only if what that proposition asserts is in fact the case about objective reality; otherwise, the proposition is false. It is not the context that determines the truth of the proposition that is judged to be the case about objective reality; rather, reality itself determines the truth or falsity of a proposition. Abstract truths, such as the ones from First Timothy, are part of the content of faith. Therefore, our faith, then, consists of both propositions and in the objective reality of the Person of Christ.

In what sense then is faith a way of knowing divine reality, and how, as Romanus Cessario, O.P., asks, “can propositions serve as true objects of faith, even though the act of faith finds its ultimate term in the divine reality?” Cessario adds, “For Catholic theology, the act of faith reaches beyond the formal content of doctrines and attains the very referent—‘res ipsa’—of theological faith.”⁹ In Aquinas’ account of faith, he argues, 

the object of faith may be considered in two ways. First, as regards the thing itself which is believed, and thus the object of faith is something simple, namely, the thing itself about which we have faith; secondly, on the part of the believer, and in this respect the object of faith is something complex, such as a proposition.

Aquinas understood this matter well. Yes, realities are in the knower according to the mode of the knower—according to Aquinas—but in the knower knowledge of the truth in man is propositional.

Still, Aquinas does say, “Actus autem credentis non terminatur ad enuntiabile sed ad rem” [The believer’s act (of faith) does not terminate in the propositions, but in the realities which they express].¹⁰ This is the key point that is presupposed in Benedict’s often-quoted statement by Francis. While it is true to say that the ultimate term of faith is not a set of theological formulas that we confess but rather God Himself, it is also the case that for Aquinas articles of faith are necessary for knowing God. Aquinas explains: “We do not form statements except so that we may have apprehension of things through them. As it is in knowledge, so also in faith.”¹¹ In other words, one primarily knows God Himself only to the extent as mediated in and through determinate propositions.

Propositions are, then, an authentic mediation of God’s self-revelation because faith involves belief, and to have a belief means that one is intellectually committed, or has mentally assented, to the truth of some proposition or other. Faith involves belief, continues Aquinas, and “belief is called assent, and it can only be about a proposition, in which truth or falsity is found.”¹² In short, propositions of faith are true because they correspond to reality; they are as true judgments an “adaequatio intellectus et rei,” corresponding to what is and, hence, “a claim to the possession in knowledge of what is.”¹³ Given this knowledge of the content of faith (fides quae creditur), we have the essential basis, as Benedict XVI puts it, “for giving one’s own assent, that is to say for adhering fully with intellect and will to what the Church proposes.” 

He adds, 

Knowledge of faith opens a door into the fullness of the saving mystery revealed by God. The giving of assent implies that, when we believe, we freely accept the whole mystery of faith, because the guarantor of its truth is God who reveals himself and allows us to know his mystery of love. ¹⁴

Respectfully, all of this basic epistemology of faith is missing in Francis’ thought.

Unlike Francis, however, Benedict does not leave unanswered the question about the mutual interdependence between the fides qua creditur (“the faith with which one believes”) and the fides quae creditur (“the faith which one believes”). In the 2013 Encyclical Letter Lumen Fidei—Benedict XVI completed a first draft of this encyclical—Francis says that he “added a few contributions of [his] own” (no. 7). But it is evident that whatever his contributions to this encyclical, Francis cannot claim ownership of the account of the epistemology of faith in Lumen Fidei, nos. 18, 23-29.

The distinction between “belief in” and “believing that” was first made by the Welsh theologian and philosopher H.D. Lewis (1910-1992), in his 1965 article “Belief ‘In’ and Belief ‘That.’”¹⁵ There is no reference in Benedict’s encyclical to Lewis. Nevertheless, this distinction is integral to Benedict’s account of the nature of faith.

Saint John brings out the importance of a personal relationship with Jesus for our faith by using various forms of the verb “to believe.” In addition to “believing that” what Jesus tells us is true, John also speaks of “believing” Jesus and “believing in” Jesus. We “believe” Jesus when we accept his word, his testimony, because he is truthful. We “believe in” Jesus when we personally welcome him into our lives and journey towards him, clinging to him in love and following in his footsteps along the way.

Thus, the distinction between “belief in” and “believing that” corresponds to the fides qua creditur (“the faith with which one believes”) and the fides quae creditur (“the faith which one believes”). Put differently, the personal and the propositional are interconnected and highlight two aspects of the one act of faith. There is a double reference here to the person and to the truth. What is, then, the meaning of “belief-that?” John Paul II says, “‘To believe [that]’ means to accept and to acknowledge as true and corresponding to reality the content of what is said, that is, the content of the words of another person.” 

Furthermore, to believe-in, explains John Paul, “involves an interpersonal relationship and brings into play not only a person’s capacity to know [the truth] but also the deeper capacity to entrust oneself to others, to enter into a relationship with them which is intimate and enduring.”¹⁶ According to Lumen Fidei, “the knowledge of truth [is] central to faith” (no. 23). Faith’s knowledge of God needs truth, a standing in the Truth, because “faith without truth does not save, it does not provide a sure footing” (no. 24). Lumen Fidei adds, “Today more than ever, we need to be reminded of this bond between faith and truth, given the crisis of truth in our age” (no. 25). 

Lumen Fidei also reflects on the kind of knowledge involved in faith. Ratzinger’s epistemology of faith elevates hearing in distinction to sight and develops a corresponding epistemology of testimony. Knowledge comes from hearing rather than sight in the acquisition of justified true belief about a whole range of matters: scientific, historical, moral, theological, and many others. There is a priority here. Thomas Aquinas states, 

Other things being equal, sight is more certain than hearing; but if [the authority] of the person from whom we hear greatly surpasses that of the seer’s sight, hearing is more certain than sight…and much more is a man certain about what he hears from God who cannot be deceived, than about what he sees with his own reason which can be mistaken. (Summa Theologiae, IIa, IIae, q. iv, a. 8, ad 2)

There is, however, no antithesis here between hearing and sight. The biblical perspective integrates both kinds of knowledge. “Hearing God’s Word is accompanied by the desire to see his face” (no. 29). How, then, does one come to faith? Fides ex auditu, “Faith comes from what is heard,” says St. Paul (Romans 10:17); and, he adds, “what is heard comes by the preaching of Christ.” 

States Lumen Fidei, “Knowledge linked to a word is always personal knowledge; it recognizes the voice of the one speaking, opens us to that person in freedom and follows him or her in obedience” (no. 29). Divine revelation may be understood as a species of testimony. Its testimonial authority is such that it is both the independent ground of assent, epistemologically speaking, as well as the means of faith’s knowledge of God, giving us testimonial knowledge. In short, the practice of human testimony involves an acceptance of statements that something is the case; in other words, “believing that” something is the case because what is believed must be something that is objectively true or false.¹⁷ 

Minimizing the fides quae creditur, as Pope Francis does, raises the issue regarding the truth-status of dogmatic formulations, such as Nicaea, Trent, Chalcedon, Vatican I and II, and so forth. Are the truths of faith expressed in the creedal statements of Nicaea and Chalcedon, more particularly, orthodoxy, mere “theory,” just “ideas,” mere thoughts or mere sets of words, altogether separate from God, not conveying or grasping divine reality itself, the truth about that reality, fulfilling the truth-attaining capacity of the human mind to lay hold of divine reality? Francis says that divinely revealed truth is “not easy to grasp.” Furthermore, he adds, “it is even more difficult to express it.” Francis stresses, then, the inadequacy of expressing truths about God and hence sometimes he sounds as if he thinks that inadequacy of expression means inexpressibility of divine truth. Minimizing the fides quae creditur, as Pope Francis does, raises the issue regarding the truth-status of dogmatic formulations, such as Nicaea, Trent, Chalcedon, Vatican I and II, and so forth.Tweet This

These claims of Francis raise many questions. For example, with Francis’ stress on the inadequacy of expression, in what sense do such doctrinal formulations have a truth-conveying status, meaning thereby that what is asserted in them is objectively true. Is he suggesting that doctrinally correct formulations or expressions of revealed truth do not completely or adequately express such truth without however denying that—in the words of John Paul II—“human language is capable of expressing divine and transcendent reality in a universal way—analogically, it is true, but no less meaningfully for that[?]” (Fides et Ratio, no. 84). 

Alternatively, is he suggesting that inadequacy of expression means that divine truth itself is inexpressible? Furthermore, are these different ways of expressing doctrinal truth commensurable or incommensurable? If the latter, in what sense do such doctrinal formulations have a truth-conveying status, meaning thereby that what is asserted in them is objectively true. For dogmatic formulations “must bear some determinative relationship to truth itself…unless one has a view that language has no proper referencing function to reality.”¹⁸  

In conclusion, although propositional truth is an indispensable dimension of truth itself, how truth is authenticated existentially—that is, lived out, practiced, carried out—cannot be reduced to it—to being merely believed, asserted, and claimed because “what is communicated in catechesis is not [merely] a body of conceptual truths, but the mystery of the living God” (Fides et Ratio, no. 99).¹⁹ In other words, says John Paul, 

The intellectus fidei expounds [these] truth[s], not only in grasping the logical and conceptual structure of the propositions in which the Church’s teaching is framed, but also, indeed primarily, in bringing to light the salvific meaning of these propositions for the individual and for humanity. From the sum of these propositions, the believer comes to know the history of salvation, which culminates in the person of Jesus Christ and in his Paschal Mystery. Believers thus share in this mystery by their assent of faith. (Fides et Ratio, no. 66)

Regarding, then, the fundamental question of how truth is authenticated as existential truth, including moral truth, John Paul correctly notes that it is not merely about propositional truth but rather how truth is borne out in life. He writes:

It is urgent to rediscover and to set forth once more the authentic reality of the Christian faith, which is not simply a set of propositions to be accepted with intellectual assent. Rather, faith is a lived knowledge of Christ, a living remembrance of his commandments, and a truth to be lived out. A word, in any event, is not truly received until it passes into action, until it is put into practice. Faith is a decision involving one’s whole existence. It is an encounter, a dialogue, a communion of love and of life between the believer and Jesus Christ, the Way, and the Truth, and the Life (cf. John 14:6). It entails an act of trusting abandonment to Christ, which enables us to live as he lived (cf. Gal 2:20), in profound love of God and of our brothers and sisters. Faith also possesses a moral content. It gives rise to and calls for a consistent life commitment; it entails and brings to perfection the acceptance and observance of God’s commandments. (Veritatis Splendor, no. 88) 

We need to retrieve creatively St. John Paul II’s great encyclicals Veritatis Splendor (1993) and Fides etRatio (1998) in order to revitalize the present theological culture and life of the Church from its drift—in view of what Pope Francis calls the “new paradigm’’²⁰—which is nothing other than a drift toward a new modernism.

1. Jaroslav Pelikan, Credo, Historical and Theological Guide to Creeds and Confessions of Faith in the Christian Tradition (New Haven/London: Yale University Press, 2003), 35.
2. The following paragraphs are adapted from my book Pope Francis: The Legacy of Vatican II, Second edition, revised and expanded (Hobe Sound, Florida: Lectio Publishing, 2019), 33-44.
3. International Theological Commission, The Reciprocity between Faith and Sacraments in the Sacramental Economy (Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 2021), no. 51. The quote within the quote is from Pope Benedict XVI, Apostolic Letter issued Motu Proprio Porta Fidei, October 11, 2011, no. 10.
4. Gerald O’Connell, “In Morocco Pope Francis explains what it means to be Christian in a majority Muslim Land.”
5. Francis, “Homily at Holy Chrism Mass.”
6. John Paul II, Novo Millennio Ineunte, Apostolic Letter, 2001, no. 29.
7. André Frossard, with John Paul II, “Be Not Afraid!” Pope John Paul II Speaks out on His life, His Beliefs, and His Inspiring Vision for Humanity, trans. J.R. Foster (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1984), 66.
8. A Big Heart Open to God: A Conversation with Pope Francis (New York: HarperOne, 2013), 59; similarly, 46.
9. Romanus Cessario, O.P., Christian Faith & the Theological Life (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1996), 71.
10. St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, II-II, q. 1, a. 2, ad. 2.
11. Ibid.
12. St. Thomas Aquinas, Disputed Questions on Truth, q. 14, art. 8, ad. 12.
13. Guy F. Mansini, “Dogma,” in Dictionary of Fundamental Theology, eds. Rene Latourelle, et al. (New York: Crossroad Publishing Company, 2000), 242. See also, John Paul II, Fides et Ratio, no. 82.
14. Benedict XVI, Porta Fidei, no. 10.
15. Religious Studies, Vol. 1, October 1965, 5-27.
16. Fides et Ratio, no. 32.
17. Eduardo Echeverria, Revelation, History, and Truth: A Hermeneutics of Dogma (New York: Peter Lang Publishing, 2018), 113-117, for a philosophy of testimony.
18. Gavin D’Costa, Vatican II, Catholic Doctrines on Jews & Muslims (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 35.
19. Although Massimo Borghesi claims that this, too, is Francis’ view—“essential truth must be found in the existential truth”—I see no evidence in Francis’ writings that he holds that view (The Mind of Pope Francis: Jorge Mario Bergoglio’s Intellectual Journey, trans. Harry Hudock [Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press Academic, 2018],  256). The absence of that view is not surprising given Francis’ dismissal of abstract truth, his skepticism about absolute truth, and his theologico-practical epistemology with its attendant principle that realities are greater than ideas. See my book Pope Francis: The Legacy of Vatican II, Chapter 1.
20. See the reflections on Ad theologiam promovendum, Larry Chapp, Eduardo J. Echeverria, and Fr. Thomas Weinandy, “Three Theologians on the Pope’s ‘Paradigm’ Shift in Theology,” The Catholic Thing, November 7, 2023.