CREDENZA. — In its general and broader meaning, to believe is to accept a proposition, a fact, or a doctrine, not on account of its intrinsic evidence, but because of the authority of a witness, or the force of motives of an affective and sentimental order. C. is therefore, formally, an intellectual assent, but other psychological factors converge in it, since the intrinsic motive determining it—namely, trust in the witness—is not a purely cognitive modality, but also an affective-volitional disposition. For this reason, c. is ordinarily a complex psychological situation in which the predominant element is intellectual in order, but in which the will is also engaged, often feeling and practical interest, and sometimes, as in the case of religious faith, the whole personality. The opposition, fairly frequent today, between c. and certainty of evidence is legitimate insofar as the motive of intellectual assent is formally different in them, but it is not necessary if it refers to the conviction produced by this assent, which may also be absolutely firm in faith when the motives of credibility are certain and evident (cf. s. Tommaso, De verit., 14, 1, ad 7).
In certain modern philosophical currents, c. is presented as the universal condition and motive of certainty. Even before E. Kant, D. Hume had attributed certainties of fundamentally metaphysical value—first and foremost, causality—to a persuasion of a purely psychological order, and T. Reid had universally appealed to a trust in common sense. Kant, after denying pure reason the possibility of metaphysical knowledge, asked faith—a faith still conscious of itself, founded upon the demands of morality and duty—for certainty regarding the supreme religious and moral truths. Subsequently, F. E. Jacobi placed knowledge of the true, the beautiful, and the good in an intimate spiritual feeling to which we give credence, and T. Jouffroy proclaimed that « belief is a universal necessity », and that, ultimately, « an act of blind but irresistible faith is the foundation of every persuasion ». The neo-criticism of C. Renouvier asserts that objective evidence alone is never sufficient to generate certainty, but that underlying every affirmation there are postulates which feeling and will overcome through an act of faith. G. Hamilton, Goblot, and E. Lotze, among others, think likewise. A similar attitude was adopted more recently by M. A. Balfour, who urges us to take as our norm the profound and impulsive instincts of our soul, and to believe in authority, morality, free will, and God; and by F. Brunetière, who appeals to Christianity, insofar as it is the creator of the world’s civilization, as a sure norm for our faith.
All these forms, and still more recent ones, of dogmatism, fideism, and mysticism serve to confirm the importance and the considerable place that c. and faith undoubtedly occupy in human knowledge. But the claim to make c. the « primum philosophicum », and to reduce all human knowledge to its denominator, is entirely unjustified both in fact and in principle. There are quite a few truths, both of a common and of a philosophical order, which determine thought solely by virtue of their objective necessity, opening itself to the light of intelligence. Speaking of a faith or trust in the value of our faculties, upon which we must ultimately rely, is justified with regard to the senses, which are inferior forms of knowledge and predominantly passive functions, incapable of mediating and controlling themselves; but it does not apply to the intelligence, which finds itself in the light of its self-conscious spirituality and, in finding itself, also knows how to discern, in the immutable values of truth, the objective conditions that determine it in its functions and acts. V. FEDE.