Growing in the Theological Virtues – Avoid Four Deadly Foundational Errors of Faith

Sometimes the best way to think about growing in a virtue, including the theological virtues, is to consider the vices that oppose it.

You do want to want a deep relationship with God, don’t you? Then make sure to root out any of these errors of faith in your life!

The vices against the theological virtue of faith fall into two rough categories. The first category, which we’ll discuss here, contains the vices that keep us from accepting what God reveals about himself. The other category includes vices that keep us from sharing the truth with others.

A Silly Exercise?

Does it can seem that a “vice against faith” is pretty silly? I mean, if people don’t have faith – they don’t believe in God – who cares if they are committing a specific sin? But if we consider that the theological virtues form the foundation of our relationship with God, a vice against any of the theological virtues really means rejecting a relationship with God. A sin against faith means refusing intimacy. It means to fail to trust that what God has revealed about himself is true.

Do you think these vices as other people’s problems since you have a relationship with God? The truth is the virtue of faith – like the virtue of hope – is not all or nothing. There is general faith. But there is also the specific, day-to-day faith that means truly trusting what God reveals about himself in the thick of a skeptical culture.

An Examination of Conscience

So let’s take a look at the ways that our own faith can be weak. Let’s identify our faults and work on cooperating with grace to improve. That’s what spiritual growth is all about, right?

Disbelief

Disbelief is the rejection of the faith by an unbaptized person. Now, this is not the state of someone who has not heard the Gospel or been invited to be part of God’s family. It is the state of someone who has heard the Gospel, who has been given the grace to accept it, but who willfully rejects it anyway. In effect, disbelief is a flat refusal to come into God’s family. It is a refusal of grace.

To label this rejection a sin or a vice is not to hate on people who do not believe as we do. Keep in mind that one understanding of a sin is to “miss the mark” – to miss out on the happiness that God has in store for us. Those who think that someone can be “perfectly happy without God” fail to understand what perfect happiness really is. Perfect happiness means to live in the Covenant with God – to be the children of the King – to be tight with the source of all goodness and all happiness. So the proper response to disbelief on behalf of the believer is not anger – it’s sorrow that someone would reject perfect happiness.

Apostasy

Apostasy is the rejection of the faith by a baptized person. In effect, this means that someone who was born into the family through baptism has made the choice to become the prodigal son by rejecting the family and their relationship with the Father. We all do this in one way or another when we sin. But someone who falls into apostasy completely rejects it all. Like disbelief, apostasy is a rejection of intimacy with God and a failure to trust. But in many ways apostasy is even worse. Because the person was baptized, apostasy is not just a rejection of faith from the outside. It is a rejection of the faith that has been infused into the soul by the sacrament.

Incredulity

Incredulity is the rejection of revealed truth or the willful neglect of it. Whereas apostasy completely rejects a relationship with God, incredulity expresses a desire to be in relationship with God but lacks the trust to completely accept divine revelation. Incredulity can be an extremely difficult roadblock to spiritual growth. It can seem that blind acceptance of doctrine opposes your freedom and ability to think for yourself. Faith doesn’t mean that you never wonder why something is true. It doesn’t mean that you don’t question. But at the root of your questioning there should be a trust that doctrine is true and that the difficulty lies in our ability to understand it at this point in time rather than in the doctrine itself. Incredulity is the lack of that trust at the root of our questioning.

Willful Ignorance

Willful ignorance is the neglect of intimacy with God. Look, nobody can know everything there is to know about God. Even the greatest theological minds in the world need to recognize that they don’t know nearly all there is to know about God. Even Saint Thomas Aquinas, after a genius career of teaching and writing about God, was given a special revelation near the end of his life that made him declare that everything he had taught is “nothing but straw” in comparison to the fullness of God. Ignorance does not indicate that we lack knowledge. Ignorance is defined as a lack of required knowledge. In our faith, ignorance would either be lack of knowledge that is basic to our belief or a lack of effort to continue learning our faith so we can grow in intimacy with God. So that’s what ignorance means. What about “willful”? Willful ignorance indicates that you have somehow chosen to be ignorant. The opposite of willful ignorance would be involuntary ignorance. This means that you may not know something that you should have known, but it wasn’t your fault. You were doing everything you could to learn the faith but something vital was left out of your instruction. So you can be willfully ignorant if you

1. Neglect ongoing learning as part of your spiritual growth – or neglect spiritual growth altogether.
2. Choose not to learn about something important to your faith or spiritual growth because you don’t want the extra responsibility such knowledge might bring.

Become a Spiritual Warrior

We have lived in a Church culture for about 50 years that has downplayed the importance of learning the faith. Instead emphasis has been placed on experience and emotional response. The Catholic truth is always both-and rather than either-or. Learning for the sake of learning can puff us up with pride. That’s a danger. But learning for the sake of growing in intimacy with God – that is the true nature and purpose of catechesis and theology.

To avoid these errors and grow in faith, you need to learn and live your faith every day. You can get help doing both – learning and living your faith – in the Keys to Spiritual Growth series of courses. This series begins with a free video tutorial that gets you started applying five vital components of spiritual growth to your life right away. Once you’ve seen that series, I continue to send you great free education such as this article you’re reading now, as well as videos, audio programs, and other resources. When you’re ready to get serious about implementing one of the Keys to Spiritual Growth in your life with some help and direction, full courses are also available. These courses come with online support, encouragement and accountability to help you make some real change in your life. So if you haven’t done so already, visit the home page of www.fromtheabbey.com and get yourself the free video tutorial. Get started growing in faith and kickstarting your spiritual growth! Brought to you by Jeff Arrowood and From the Abbey, where we are encouraging you to rediscover the JOY of learning and living your faith so you can grow in intimacy with God.