We believe,
not because we know but so that we may come to know. For what we shall know no
eye has seen, no ear heard, nor has man’s heart imagined. Faith is to believe
what we do not yet see: truth to see what we have believed. To follow after God
is to long for happiness, to reach him is that happiness itself.
If we have
reached the pathway of faith let us keep to it unswervingly, so that our hearts
may become able to know things which at present we do not understand.
Bring the
light of reason to bear on what you now believe firmly by faith.
Could God
hate in us that by which he has distinguished us from the beasts? Of course
not: we could not in any case believe, if we had not reasonable souls.
There are
some things belonging to our salvation which we as yet cannot understand,
though one day we shall. In these matters faith should go ahead of reason,
purifying the heart and making it able to receive the great light of reason.
The prophet
said, unless you believe you shall not understand: thus we may see that it is
reasonable for faith to go before. If we are persuaded of this, it is by the
small amount of reason which goes before faith.
