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66. We shall discuss analogy in this chapter to see how faith is above and the intellect is below. First, let us discuss goodness. The intellect cannot objectify God as fully as He can be objectified. Therefore, divine goodness is a reason for God to show himself to the human intellect through belief, for the benefit of the intellect. Then the intellect objectifies God and believes that He is one, infinite and eternal, the creator, redeemer and so forth; and the intellect does all this beyond its own natural capacity. This kind of objectification is what we call holy faith, and it is a good and admirable thing.

67. God is a great object, due to his greatness the intellect cannot naturally objectify him and this is why God magnifies the intellect so that it can act far beyond its natural capacity by simply believing. Thus, faith ascends above intellect just like oil rising above water; when the intellect realizes that God is one, it believes through faith in God's unity much more than it can understand that God is one, for the intellect rises to much loftier heights through effortlessly believing in God than through its effort to understand.

68. Faith lasts due to God-given duration, whereas understanding lasts as an acquired science. This clearly shows that faith is above and the intellect is below. However, when a man habituated with faith commits sins of avarice or lust etc. then faith remains present in the subject although it is in an ill-proportioned and distorted state because the subject is not well disposed toward justice, prudence etc. just as a donkey is not worthy of silken garments.

69. The prime cause is more powerful than the second cause. When the second cause is empowered by the first, it can do things beyond its own natural capacity. Hence, the intellect's belief in the prime cause is due first of all to the prime cause, whereas the intellect itself can understand the prime cause with the help of belief, as Isaiah said: "If you will not believe, you shall not understand". (Isaiah Ch.7 v.9) Consider someone who was not a philosopher at first, but became one later on. While he was not a philosopher, he believed in God’s existence, and when he became a philosopher, he understood that God exists; at this point, the intellect rose through understanding to the level it had previously reached through believing. However, I do not say that faith perished when this happened. Faith always rises to a higher degree through believing in God's existence than through understanding it, like oil floating on top of water in a vase. If we pour more water into the vase, the water ascends to where the oil was and the oil ascends to a loftier place than where it was before.

70. God is intelligible by nature. God causes the human intellect to understand many things naturally while habituating it with faith to help its understanding to ascend by means of faith; indeed, the intellect can better rise to the prime cause, which is God, with two habits than with one alone, just as it can do more with prudence and fortitude than with prudence alone.

71. Hence, when the intellect understands the prime object, faith disposes the intellect to understand it just as charity disposes the will to love it, and just as the will cannot love the prime object without charity, likewise the intellect cannot understand the prime object without faith. And as charity does not perish when the will loves the prime object, faith does not perish when the intellect understands the prime object. Indeed, a faculty does not contradict its disposition to rise aloft and grow strong.

72. Faith is a virtue and as such it is a habit of the intellect. Otherwise, faith cannot be a virtue or a habit, just as charity cannot be a habit unless it has the will as its subject. Just as

charity makes the will rise aloft to a virtuous love of its object, so does faith makes the intellect rise aloft to a virtuous understanding of its object.

73. With truth, faith is a habit of the intellect, and when it understands the prime object, it understands it with truth, for it cannot understand it without truth; thus, truth is a principle common to faith and understanding. However, the belief of faith is truly above the intellect's understanding, which is beneath it. Thus, when the intellect ascends to a higher truth, faith also ascends to a higher level of truth, because the habit is on top of the person wearing it, as when a man wearing a coat climbs a mountain, his body is under the coat and the coat is on top.

74. The intellect can understand God only with effort, just as a man climbing a mountain can climb it only with effort. But when the intellect rises aloft to God through faith, it does so without any effort, instead, it enjoys the presence of God through belief; and given that a faculty's performance is better when it is effortless than when it takes effort, the intellect reaches a higher level by believing in divine glory than by understanding it.

75. When the intellect believes, it does not make necessary methodical distinctions, for it understands things in a broad and confused way; but when the intellect truly understands, then it understands through necessary reasons and without confusion. Therefore, the intellect believes instantly whereas it understands successively, which shows that the intellect is loftier when it believes than when it understands, and this is because its act reaches beyond its natural capacity when it believes, just as water acts beyond its own natural capacity when it heats things.

76. Faith is a God-given habit, and as God created it, God governs it. Clearly, the intellect cannot govern this kind of habit because it is beyond the reach of its natural capacity. However, it disposes itself to submit to faith, for fear of offending God by not believing in him. This is how the concordance between understanding and believing arises.

77. Any law that claims belief should be true, just as it should be good in goodness, great in greatness etc. Consequently, the true law must be the one in which faith rises to the highest truth and most strongly opposes the vices. Here, the intellect can see which one of these laws, namely the Christian, the Jewish and the Moslem law, is true.

78. In the beginning, faith disposes the intellect to understand by the process of rule B. When the intellect reaches some degree of understanding, faith disposes it in a corresponding degree of belief to enable it to raise its understanding further. Thus, the intellect ascends through successive degrees until it attains the prime object where its understanding ultimately reposes. However, on the pilgrimage through this mortal life, belief is the intellect's primary guide.

79. Faith is a means for the intellect to earn merit and rise aloft to the prime object. God instils faith into the intellect so that faith is as it were one foot that the intellect uses for climbing; and since the intellect naturally has another foot, namely understanding, it climbs upward like a man using both feet to climb a ladder. First, he puts the foot of faith on the first rung, and then the foot of intellect follows. Likewise, on the second rung, the foot of faith comes first as the intellect continues to ascend gradually with faith coming first and understanding in the second place. Similarly, in debate, doubt or supposition comes first, followed by affirmation or negation.

80. The intellect's final purpose is not in believing but in understanding. Nonetheless, faith is the intellect's instrument that enables it to elevate its understanding through belief. Just as an instrument stands between a cause and its effect, so does faith stand between the intellect and God, as God instils faith into the subject, enabling it to repose in the prime object even during this mortal life.

81. The faith that is greatest in goodness, greatness etc. as well as in hope, charity etc. must be true, and any faith contrary to it must be lesser and false, otherwise positive

principles would succumb to privative ones, which is impossible. Here, the intellect sees that the faith that has major virtue and a greater object is truly the greater faith.

82. The faith that believes in greater equality among the divine reasons must be true, while the faith that posits inequality among them must be false. In God there is no before and after, because divine goodness, greatness etc. must have equal correlatives just as the intellect and the will have equal correlatives. Here, the intellect knows which faith is true.

83. The intellect cannot elevate its understanding through minor faith, but only through major faith. Here, the intellect realizes that greater understanding is not opposed to greater belief, just as one foot is not opposed to the other when climbing a ladder and one foot is not opposed to the other foot when running.