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44 • Part I. The Creed: The Faith Professed
FOR DISCUSSION
1. In what ways do you find it difficult to be open about your faith in
public situations? How have you been able to apply your faith to
family issues, community development, and political decisions?
2. What steps might you take to make your faith more effective in our
culture? What help in this regard do you expect from the Church?
3. Who are outstanding models of faith that inspire you to deeper faith
and practice? How is your faith bringing you closer to God and to a
deeper understanding of his message?
DOCTRINAL STATEMENTS
• Faith is a gift from God. He not only enters a relationship with us
but also gives us the grace or help to respond in faith.
• In faith we surrender our whole being to God who has revealed
himself to us. This involves the assent of the intellect and will to the
Revelation that God has made in words and deeds.
• By faith, we enter a relationship of trust in God as well as belief in
the message of truth that he has revealed.
• Faith is a free, conscious, human act. Faith is a way of knowing just
as reason is, though it is different from reason. Faith involves the
whole of the human being. Aided by the Holy Spirit we exercise faith
in a manner that corresponds to our human dignity.
• Faith is a supremely personal act: “I believe.” It is also communal,
occurring within the life and worship of the Church. In the assembly
of believers at Mass, as we join together in the Profession of Faith
(or Creed), we experience ourselves as the Body of Christ.
• By faith we believe with conviction in all that is contained in the
Word of God, written or handed down, which the Church proposes
for belief as divinely revealed.
• Faith is necessary for salvation. “Believing in Jesus Christ and the
One who sent him for our salvation is necessary for obtaining that
salvation” (CCC, no. 161).