Abstract

The praeambula fidei are according to Aquinas truths about God that can be known using natural reason. Often the "fidei" in "praeambula fidei" is understood to refer to the act of faith and therefore the preambles are interpreted as truths about God which must be known with certitude before making a rational act of faith. A close reading of the text reveals, however, that the "fidei" refers to the articles of faith not the act of faith. Thus in this dissertation the preambles are studied in relation to the articles of faith not in relation to the act of faith. ;Four questions, based on the seemingly analogous use of the term "preamble" in Aquinas's works, are asked about the relation between the preambles and the articles of faith; namely, whether the preambles are imperfect, whether they are extrinsic to the articles of faith, whether they are more general than the articles of faith and whether they are a preparation. The answers to these questions are as follows. The preambles are imperfect in comparison to the articles of faith. They are formally distinct from the articles of faith; however, they are included among the articles of faith insofar as "articles of faith" refers to faith's material object. They are more general than the articles of faith insofar as the relation between them is an example of the relation between the more and less universal principles of a science. Finally, the preambles are a preparation insofar as they are the passive intellect's disposition for the articles of faith. ;In the process of answering these questions several other things were discovered about the relation between the preambles and the articles of faith: this relation is one existing on the part of faith's object not on the part of faith's subject, it is characterized by the ordo determinandi and by passive potency, and it is not the same as the relation between metaphysics and its preambles. Furthermore, it was discovered that the term "articles of faith" sometimes refers only to its per se constituents and that "preamble" is a logical term