Faith is a gift of God, not in the sense that it is offered by God for man to choose, but that it is in actual fact bestowed on man, breathed and infused into him.  Nor is it a gift in the sense that God bestows only the potential to believe, but then awaits assent- the act of believing- from man’s choice; rather, it is a gift in the sense that He who works both willing and acting and, indeed works all things in all people produces in man both the will to believe and the belief itself.