Catholic View
According to Catholic teaching, the essential note of faith lies in the complete and unhesitating acceptance of the whole depositum on the ground that it is the revealed word of God. The conscious rejection of a single article of this deposit is sufficient to render a man guilty of heresy. The question is not as to the relative importance of the article in question but solely as to whether it has been revealed by God to man. This is clearly put by Thomas Aquinas in the Summa Theologica II-II:5:3:
- "In a heretic who rejects a single article of the faith, there remains the virtue of faith whether as united with charity, or as severed from charity . . . The formal object of faith is the Supreme Truth in so far as revealed in the Holy Scriptures and in that doctrine of the Church that proceeds from the Supreme Truth. Hence if anyone does not hold to the doctrine of the Church as to an infallible and divine rule, ... he does not possess the virtue of faith."
The Catholic Church does not deny that certain truths are more vital than others. There are some as to which it is important that all the faithful should possess explicit knowledge. In regard to others explicit knowledge is not necessary. But it denies that any Christian may reject or call in question any truth, small or great, revealed by God.
The Catholic Church's one and only one test, to determine the question of membership in Christ's body, does not lie in the acceptance of this or that particular doctrine, but in communion with the Apostolic hierarchy. It argues that the theory that finds the one requisite in the acceptance of a series of fundamental articles is a novelty without support in the Church Fathers.
Read more about this topic: Fundamental Articles (theology)
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