Bellarmine: Faith Is Not Hope Or Trust In Special Mercy

St. Robert Bellarmine, De Iustificatione, Book 1, Chap. 4: “Therefore [in regard to what justifying faith is] Catholics differ from heretics in three matters. First, in the object of justifying faith, which heretics restrict to the promise alone of special mercy, while Catholics hold that it extends as widely as the word of God extends; nay they [Catholics] contend that a certain promise of special mercy pertains not so much to faith as to presumption. Next [they differ] on the faculty or power of the soul which is the seat of faith. For heretics locate faith in the will when they define it to be trust, and thereby confuse it with hope. For trust is nothing other than a strengthened hope, as St. Thomas teaches in Summa Theologiae, II-II, q. 129, art. 6. But Catholics teach that faith has its seat in the intellect. Finally, [they differ] in the very act of the intellect. For the heretics define faith in terms of knowledge, but we in terms of assent. For we assent to God, although He proposes things to us to believe which we do not understand.”