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CHAPTER V

GOOD AND BAD IN THE CHURCH

In answer to the proofs cited in Chapter III, urging the contrary to what is here laid down, this is to be said: To understand them we must be on our guard to note that men are said to be in holy church in different senses. For some are said to be in it by virtue of an unformed faith^[1] only, as are reprobate Christians involved in sins, to whom the Lord said: "Why call ye me Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I bid you?” Luke 6:46. And of them he also said, "Many will say unto me in that day, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy by thy name, and by thy name cast out demons, and by thy name do many mighty works? and then will I profess unto them, I never knew you,” namely, as persons to be saved, Matt. 7:22. Hence Psalm 6:9 says: "Depart from me all ye workers of iniquity."

Some are in the church only according to present faith

↑ Fides informis, as opposed to fides formata, that is, faith working by love, or, as we might say, intellectual belief and living faith. The distinction of formata and informis was first made by Peter the Lombard. In his Com. on Peter the Lombard, Huss treats the subject at length, pp. 452–455, defining the different sorts of faith. He says, to believe God, credere Deo, is to believe that the things He says are true. Such faith the wicked have. To believe God, credere Deum, is to believe that He is God. To believe in God, credere in Deum, is by believing to love Him. The faith which the demons and bad men have is a quality of the intellect, but it is unformed, informis, faith because it is unaccompanied by love, and this unformed faith is an acquired habit and not a habit infused from above. This fides informis precedes hope and love, but the fides formata is contemporary with hope and love. Peter the Lombard, 4:23, quotes Ambrose as saying: "Love is the mother of all virtues, which forms all within us—informat—and without which there is no virtue." Luther denounces this distinction as a pestilential ecclesiastical invention. Denifle, in his Life of Luther, 1: 637 sqq., makes the astounding assertion that the faith which Luther required was simply an intellectual assent—faith without love and the works of love.

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[1] Fides informis, as opposed to fides formata, that is, faith working by love, or, as we might say, intellectual belief and living faith. The distinction of formata and informis was first made by Peter the Lombard. In his Com. on Peter the Lombard, Huss treats the subject at length, pp. 452–455, defining the different sorts of faith. He says, to believe God, credere Deo, is to believe that the things He says are true. Such faith the wicked have. To believe God, credere Deum, is to believe that He is God. To believe in God, credere in Deum, is by believing to love Him. The faith which the demons and bad men have is a quality of the intellect, but it is unformed, informis, faith because it is unaccompanied by love, and this unformed faith is an acquired habit and not a habit infused from above. This fides informis precedes hope and love, but the fides formata is contemporary with hope and love. Peter the Lombard, 4:23, quotes Ambrose as saying: "Love is the mother of all virtues, which forms all within us—informat—and without which there is no virtue." Luther denounces this distinction as a pestilential ecclesiastical invention. Denifle, in his Life of Luther, 1: 637 sqq., makes the astounding assertion that the faith which Luther required was simply an intellectual assent—faith without love and the works of love.

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