If is of course necessary to remember that faith implies the acceptance of truths proposed by authority. But this element of submission in faith must not be so over emphasized that it seems to constite the whole essence of faith: as if a mere unloving, unenlightened, dogged submission of the will to authority were enough to make a “man of faith.” If this element of will is over=emphasized then the difference between faith in the intellect and simple obedience in the will becomes obscured. In certain cases this can be very unhealthy, because actually if there is no light of faith, no interior illumination of the mind by grace by which one accepts the proposed truth from God and thereby attains to it, so to speak, in His divine assurance, then inevitably the mind lacks the true peace, the supernatural support which is due it. In that event there is not real faith. The positive element of light is lacking. There is a forced suppression of doubt rather than the opening of the eye of the heart by deep belief.

~An excerpt from Thomas Merton’s “New Seeds of Contemplation”