St. Peter Canisius Apostolate

From his Catechetical Instruction on the Apostles’ Creed, St. Thomas Aquinas writes:

Then, again, if one were willing to believe only those things which one knows with certitude, one could not live in this world. How could one live unless one believed others? How could one know that this man is one’s own father? Therefore, it is necessary that one believe others in matters which one cannot know perfectly for oneself. But no one is so worthy of belief as is God, and hence they who do not believe the words of faith are not wise, but foolish and proud. As the Apostle says: “He is proud, knowing nothing” (1 Tim 4.4). And also: “I know whom I have believed; and I am certain” (2 Tim 1.12). And it is written: “Ye who fear the Lord, believe Him and your reward shall not be made void”(Ecclus 2.8). Finally, one can say also that God proves the truth of the things which faith teaches. Thus, if a king sends letters signed with his seal, no one would dare to say that those letters did not represent the will of the king. In like manner, everything that the Saints believed and handed down to us concerning the faith of Christ is signed with the seal of God. This seal consists of those works which no mere creature could accomplish; they are the miracles by which Christ confirmed the sayings of the apostles and of the Saints.

In historical context, St. Thomas is addressing the philosopher who believes through the natural light of human reason that God exists but does not believe what God has said. Though it may not be obvious at first, St. Thomas’ argument for why we should believe in divine revelation is quite simple: we believe God has revealed himself because of the miracles Christ did through the apostles and saints.

Of course, the natural response to this kind of talk is to question the validity the stories themselves. One of the most fascinating aspects of St. Thomas’ genius is how he answers this question:

If, however, you would say that no one has witnessed these miracles, I would reply in this manner. It is a fact that the entire world worshiped idols and that the faith of Christ was persecuted, as the histories of the pagans also testify. But now all are turned to Christ — wise men and noble and rich — converted by the words of the poor and simple preachers of Christ. Now, this fact was either a miracle or it was not. If it is miraculous, you have what you asked for, a visible fact; if it is not, then there could not be a greater miracle than that the whole world should have been converted without miracles. And we need go no further. We are more certain, therefore, in believing the things of faith than those things which can be seen, because God’s knowledge never deceives us, but the visible sense of man is often in error.

The genius of this passage is that St. Thomas doesn’t even try to prove the validity of miracles. He knows that it’s not only a futile but also an impossible task. Either one will believe or one will not believe. But what one cannot do is deny fact; and the fact is that a group of twelve disparate men from a marginal province in the Roman Empire founded the Church of Christ that spread, despite all odds, throughout the known world and transformed the face of western civilization. If that’s not a miracle, then I (and St. Thomas) don’t know what is.

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