Wednesday, February 05, 2014

Faith and Fulfillment

Faith, unlike the natural experience of God, in a certain sense is already marked by fulfillment, though not, of course, as our own experience fulfills what we merely know, but rather as what we clearly understand compared to what we only have vague "hunch" about (not yet taking "natural knowledge of God" here for natural theology but for the "grasping along with" of a higher power in plain natural experience). Again, faith is marked by fulfillment as an enrichment of the content of knowledge (insofar as it tells us something new about God over and above our natural experience and natural theology). And lastly faith is fulfillment as a confirmation by a higher authority of what we have already known.

Edith Stein, "Ways to Know God," section 4c3, in Edith Stein, Knowledge and Faith, Redmond, tr. ICS Publications (Washington, DC: 2000) p. 107.