Gordon H. Clark explains in What is Saving Faith (p. 47):
“The crux of the difficulty with the popular analysis of faith into notitia (understanding), assensus (assent), and fiducia (trust), is that fiducia comes from the same root as fides (faith). The Latin fide is not a good synonym for the Greek pisteuoo. Hence this popular analysis reduces to the obviously absurd definition that faith consists of understanding, assent, and faith. Something better than this tautology must be found.”
Or as Dr. Bob Wilkin explained in his debate with Dr. James White:
“The crux of the difficulty with the popular analysis of faith into notitia (understanding), assensus (assent), and fiducia (trust), is that fiducia comes from the same root as fides (faith). The Latin fide is not a good synonym for the Greek pisteuoo. Hence this popular analysis reduces to the obviously absurd definition that faith consists of understanding, assent, and faith. Something better than this tautology must be found.”
Or as Dr. Bob Wilkin explained in his debate with Dr. James White:
[Begin] You’ve heard the old line: notitia, assensus, fiducia. That’s understanding, acceptance, and trust. Gordon Clark points out that fiducia is a synonym for faith. And so when you say “understanding, acceptance, and trust,” that’s like saying, “understanding, acceptance, and faith.” You can’t say that a part of something is the whole thing. It would be like saying that a car is made up of glass, metal, and automobile. Well, you can’t do that because an automobile is a car. Faith is fiducia. And so when he says that “you’re choosing to believe,” no, you don’t choose to believe. The evidence either convinces you or it doesn’t. And if the evidence convinces, you believe. [End]
