Articles Of Faith
Articles of Faith
(Greek, arthron; Latin, articulus, joint).
Certain revealed supernatural truths such as those contained in the symbol of the Apostles. The terms were not used by the Fathers or by ecclesiastical writers in the early Middle Ages. St. Bernard and Richard of St. Victor employed them, the latter applying them to truths having God for their object and so explicitly stated as to compel assent. According to St. Thomas Aquinas, the article of faith is any revealed supernatural truth which is distinct in itself from other such truths but which unites with them to form the organic whole of Christian teaching. Thus the articles of the Creed announce truths which are in themselves distinct from one another but parts of a complete summary of the truths which have been revealed to help us to gain our last end. They are for Christian theology what fundamental principles are for a science. Not every revealed truth is an article of faith, nor are theologians agreed on what constitutes any truth an article of faith. Some would limit these articles to the contents of the Apostles’ Creed. Others say that every truth defined by the Church, or in any other manner explicitly proposed for our belief, is an article of faith. De Lugo describes them as the principal or primary truths which are the basis of other revealed truths or principles. In the Catechism of the Council of Trent (p. 1, c. 1, q. 4), the truths of the Apostles’ Creed are called “articles” by a sort of simile frequently used by our forefathers; for as the members of the body are divided by joints (articuli) so also in the profession of faith whatever is to be believed by us distinctly and separately from anything else we properly and appositely call an article”.
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JOHN J. WYNNE Transcribed by Tomas Hancil
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume ICopyright © 1907 by Robert Appleton CompanyOnline Edition Copyright © 2003 by K. KnightNihil Obstat, March 1, 1907. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., CensorImprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York
Fuente: Catholic Encyclopedia
Articles Of Faith
statements of the main points of belief of any single church framed by authority of the church, and binding upon its ministers or members, or upon both. Some object to Articles of Faith. Among the grounds of objection are the following, viz. that they infringe Christian liberty, and supersede the Scriptures by substituting- in their place a number of humanly-formed propositions; that to exhibit the Christian faith in any limited number of statements is virtually to declare that all besides is superfluous. It is objected, also, that such articles nourish hypocrisy, and hinder advancement in divine knowledge. “If employed at all,” it is said, “they should be in the words of Scripture.” The advocates for ” articles of faith,” on the other hand, affirm that it is not their purpose to sum up the whole of Christianity in any number of propositions, but merely to set forth the belief of a given church upon the leading truths of religion, as well as upon those matters which have at any period been subjects of heretical corruption or of controversy, and respecting which it is necessary that there should be agreement among such as are to be members of the same church; that articles are not intended to be guides through the whole voyage of Christian inquiry, but only beacon-lights to inform the mariner where lie those rocks and shoals on which preceding voyagers have made shipwreck. It is clear that there is a necessity for such articles, because the sense of Scripture upon any one point of faith lies scattered over too large a surface to be easily collected for himself by every individual member of the church; that scriptural truths are as capable as any other of being translated into common language; and that controversies within the church upon the meaning of Scripture would abound, if the church itself should give no interpretation of them (comp. Rom 6:17; 2Ti 1:13). The most important of these are specially treated below. SEE CONFESSIONS, SEE CREEDS.