December
4

Whereby shall I know this?

And Zacharias said to the angel, Whereby shall I know this? For I am old, and my wife is far advanced in her days. And the angel answering said to him, I am Gabriel, who stands in the sight of God, and am sent to speak to thee, and to announce to thee these good tidings. And behold, thou shalt be silent, and not able to speak, until the day that these things shall come to pass, because thou believest not my words, which shall be fulfilled in their time. (Luke 1:18-20)

There are therefore two principles, one of which leads to all folly and insanity, and the other to all intelligence and wisdom. The former principle is to deny all things, or when someone says in his heart that he cannot believe them until he is convinced by what he can apprehend or perceive by the senses. This is the principle that leads to all folly and insanity, and is to be called the negative principle. The other principle is to affirm the things which are of doctrine from the Word, or when someone thinks and believes within himself that they are true because the Lord has said them. This is the principle that leads to all intelligence and wisdom, and is to be called the affirmative principle. (Arcana Coelestia 2568:4)

Real faith is nothing else than an acknowledgment that the thing is so because it is true; for one who is in real faith thinks and says, “This is true, and therefore I believe it.” For faith is of truth, and truth is of faith. If such a person does not see the truth of a thing, he says, “I do not know whether this is true, and therefore as yet I do not believe it. How can I believe what I do not intellectually comprehend? Perhaps it is false.” (Doctrine of Faith 2)

Spirits are perfectly well distinguished from each other, as to whether they are in the faith of charity or not. Those who are in the faith of charity do not reason about the truths of faith, but say that the thing is so, and also as far as possible confirm it by things of sense and of memory, and by the analysis of reason. But as soon as anything obscure comes in their way, the truth of which they do not perceive, they defer it, and never suffer such a thing to bring them into doubt, saying that there are but very few things they can apprehend, and therefore to think that anything is not true because they do not apprehend it, would be madness. (Arcana Coelestia 1072:2)

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