Faith, the First Theological Virtue

Faith, fides, is the first of the three theological virtues named with hope and charity by Paul at 1 Corinthians 13:13. The tradition distinguishes them sharply from the cardinal virtues: the cardinal four can be acquired by practice and are recognised by pagan philosophy, whereas the theological three are held to be infused, given rather than earned, and to have God as their direct object. Aquinas defines faith as an act of the intellect assenting to divine truth at the command of the will moved by grace, which locates it between knowledge and opinion; it is more certain than opinion because of what it rests on and less evident than knowledge because it does not see. Protestant theology from the Reformation onward gave faith a different weight, as trust rather than as assent to propositions, and the difference between fides as assent and as fiducia, trust, is one of the substantive divisions between the traditions.