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Dear Father,

God bless you for the holy spiritual help you give to all us, souls in search of the Lord.

I have a question that I cannot answer: we usually comment that faith is a gift by God; Jesus Himself says in the Gospel that everybody comes to Him because of the enlightenment by the Lord our God.

But at the same time those who do not have faith “risk” their salvation.

How do the two things match? I mean, why is anyone guilty of having no faith if that is a gift?

Thank you for your answer and I keep you in my prayers

The priest’s answer

Dear reader,

1. The faith we are talking about is not human faith. It is the theological faith.

We set countless acts of human faith: we believe the doctor, we believe the shopkeepers, we believe the information we receive…

These acts of human faith start and depend only on us.

On the other hand, objects of Theological faith are the realities of a supernatural order, which man does not see.

One can adhere to these realities only if God reveals Himself and only if God inwardly equips him or her to give consent.

This is why theological faith is a gift by God.

2. The Sacred Scripture clearly reminds that theological faith is a gift by God.

Jesus says: “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draw him” (Jn 6:44) and “no one can come to me unless it is granted him by my Father” (Jn 6:65).

Believers are those whom Jesus received as a gift by the Father: “Everything that the Father gives me will come to me, and I will not reject anyone who comes to me” (Jn 6:37).

3. Also, in the Acts of the Apostles there is a clear reference to the prevenient action of grace.

We read that in Philippi “One of them, a woman named Lydia, a dealer in purple cloth, from the city of Thyatira, a worshiper of God, listened, and the Lord opened her heart to pay attention to what Paul was saying” (Acts 16:14).

God did no violence to Lidia, but He gave her the strength to adhere.

She was the one who agreed, and her joining was a personal act.

But grace prompted and comforted that act.

4. God offers the gift of faith to everybody because He wants to save everybody.

In fact, God “wills everyone to be saved and to come to knowledge of the truth” (1Tim 2:4).

And, since “without faith it is impossible to please him” (Heb 11:6), consequently God offers faith to everybody.

5. Faith is essential to salvation because we know the ultimate end, and the means to achieve it, only through faith.

Now both the end and the means are of a supernatural order.

Without knowing the end, and without using the means of a supernatural order that God gave us, it is impossible to enter that reality of a supernatural order which is God, heaven.

This is why the Lord said: “Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved; whoever does not believe will be condemned” (Mk 16:16).

And: “Amen, amen, I say to you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit” (Jn 3:5). This clearly alludes to baptism and the absolute need for it.

The Kingdom of God is a divine and supernatural reality and one enters it “through the bath of rebirth and renewal by the holy Spirit” (Tt 3:5).

6. Jesus also said “Whoever believes in him will not be condemned, but whoever does not believe has already been condemned” (Jn 3:18).

One is already doomed because of being in darkness.

As having faith is the same thing like an anticipated paradise, so having none is the deprivation of that same paradise.

That is already a sentence.

It does not mean the impossibility of conversion. The Lord presses beside each person to become welcome.

7. Where is the fault if someone has no faith?

Certainly not because God would have not given it, as He wants to give faith to everybody.

The only answer is this: there was some impediment in receiving it.

The impediment can be caused by one’s own sins that darkened the subject’s mind, so that Jesus said: “the light came into the world, but people preferred darkness to light, because their works were evil” (Jn 3:19).

Or, because men allowed their hearts to “become drowsy from carousing and drunkenness and the anxieties of daily life” (Lk 21:34).

But the fault could also come from the outside, for instance due to a failed announcement, or a distorted announcement for which, more than the rejection of the true God, there is the rejection of a false image of God.

Or again, and unfortunately not infrequently, it is due to the counter-testimony of believers.

So, the judgment is not up to us.

Thank you for keeping me in your prayers.

I gladly reciprocate and I bless you.

Father Angelo