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# Faith
- URL: https://www.journal.ninthheaven.co/civilisation/trad-catholicism/faith/
- Published: 2026-07-14T03:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-07-14T03:00:00.000Z
- Description: In Thomas Aquinas’s theology, faith is a theological virtue: an act of the intellect assenting to divine truth at the command of a will moved by grace — firmer than opinion, yet concerned with things unseen.
- Author: Ben Ajaero
- Tags: Catholicism, Scholastic, Western Christendom, Text, English, Summa Theologica, Library, Concept

In the theology of Thomas Aquinas, *faith* (*fides*) is the first of the three theological virtues. It is not blind feeling but an act of the intellect — one that reaches, under the movement of grace, toward truths that reason alone cannot see. The *Summa* treats it across sixteen questions; a few of its answers, in Aquinas’s own words, follow.

## What is faith?

> Faith is the substance of things to be hoped for, the evidence of things that appear not.
> 
> — [Summa Theologica](https://www.journal.ninthheaven.co/civilisation/trad-catholicism/summa-iiaiiae-q4/), IIa-IIae Q.4, a.1 (citing Hebrews 11:1)

## How does Aquinas define faith itself?

> Faith is a habit of the mind, whereby eternal life is begun in us, making the intellect assent to what is non-apparent.
> 
> — [Summa Theologica](https://www.journal.ninthheaven.co/civilisation/trad-catholicism/summa-iiaiiae-q4/), IIa-IIae Q.4, a.1

## Is faith an act of the intellect, or of the will?

> To believe is an act of the intellect inasmuch as the will moves it to assent.
> 
> — [Summa Theologica](https://www.journal.ninthheaven.co/civilisation/trad-catholicism/summa-iiaiiae-q2/), IIa-IIae Q.2, a.1

## Is faith a virtue?

> Since it is by faith that the intellect assents to the truth at the command of the will, faith is a virtue, for it makes its possessor’s act good, and directs the intellect to its due end — God, the First Truth.
> 
> — after [Summa Theologica](https://www.journal.ninthheaven.co/civilisation/trad-catholicism/summa-iiaiiae-q4/), IIa-IIae Q.4, a.5