Whether Faith, Among the Fruits, Responds to the Gift of
Understanding?
Objection 1: It would seem that, among the fruits, faith does not
respond to the gift of understanding. For understanding is the fruit
of faith, since it is written (Isa. 7:9) according to another reading
[*The Septuagint]: "If you will not believe you shall not
understand," where our version has: "If you will not believe, you
shall not continue." Therefore fruit is not the fruit of
understanding.
Obj. 2: Further, that which precedes is not the fruit of what
follows. But faith seems to precede understanding, since it is the
foundation of the entire spiritual edifice, as stated above (Q. 4,
AA. 1, 7). Therefore faith is not the fruit of understanding.
Obj. 3: Further, more gifts pertain to the intellect than to the
appetite. Now, among the fruits, only one pertains to the intellect;
namely, faith, while all the others pertain to the appetite.
Therefore faith, seemingly, does not pertain to understanding more
than to wisdom, knowledge or counsel.
_On the contrary,_ The end of a thing is its fruit. Now the gift of
understanding seems to be ordained chiefly to the certitude of faith,
which certitude is reckoned a fruit. For a gloss on Gal. 5:22 says
that the "faith which is a fruit, is certitude about the unseen."
Therefore faith, among the fruits, responds to the gift of
understanding.
_I answer that,_ The fruits of the Spirit, as stated above (I-II, Q.
70, A. 1), when we were discussing them, are so called because they
are something ultimate and delightful, produced in us by the power of
the Holy Ghost. Now the ultimate and delightful has the nature of an
end, which is the proper object of the will: and consequently that
which is ultimate and delightful with regard to the will, must be,
after a fashion, the fruit of all the other things that pertain to
the other powers.
Accordingly, therefore, to this kind of gift of virtue that perfects a
power, we may distinguish a double fruit: one, belonging to the same
power; the other, the last of all as it were, belonging to the will.
In this way we must conclude that the fruit which properly responds to
the gift of understanding is faith, i.e. the certitude of faith; while
the fruit that responds to it last of all is joy, which belongs to the
will.
Reply Obj. 1: Understanding is the fruit of faith, taken as a virtue.
But we are not taking faith in this sense here, but for a kind of
certitude of faith, to which man attains by the gift of understanding.
Reply Obj. 2: Faith cannot altogether precede understanding, for it
would be impossible to assent by believing what is proposed to be
believed, without understanding it in some way. However, the
perfection of understanding follows the virtue of faith: which
perfection of understanding is itself followed by a kind of certainty
of faith.
Reply Obj. 3: The fruit of practical knowledge cannot consist in that
very knowledge, since knowledge of that kind is known not for its own
sake, but for the sake of something else. On the other hand,
speculative knowledge has its fruit in its very self, which fruit is
the certitude about the thing known. Hence the gift of counsel, which
belongs only to practical knowledge, has no corresponding fruit of
its own: while the gifts of wisdom, understanding and knowledge,
which can belongs also to speculative knowledge, have but one
corresponding fruit, which is certainly denoted by the name of faith.
The reason why there are several fruits pertaining to the appetitive
faculty, is because, as already stated, the character of end, which
the word fruit implies, pertains to the appetitive rather than to the
intellective part.
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