Does Faith Encompass Both Belief and Trust?

The word “faith” can be used equivocally, i.e., in more than one way. It can refer to belief in the truths that God has revealed and that the Church has otherwise proposed for our belief. This understanding of faith is encompassed in the theological virtue of faith (CCC 1814).

However, we also see that the virtue of faith also includes our freely and entirely committing ourselves to God (CCC 1814). So there is an element of trust in faith, which is extended via the theological virtue of hope, whereby “we desire the kingdom of heaven and eternal life as our happiness, placing our trust in Christ’s promises [including his raising us from the dead on the last day], and relying not on our own strength, but on the help of the grace of the Holy Spirit” (CCC 1817).

Understanding faith as both belief and trust is advanced by the author of the Letter to the Hebrews: “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1).