Part 1 of a Discussion of Mark O’Keefe’s Virtue Abounding Chapter 6 “The Christian Life of Virtue”
The preceding four chapters have covered each of the four cardinal virtues whose examination and analysis dates back to the time of Aristotle, also called the natural moral virtues: prudence, justice, courage, and temperance.
In this final chapter of O’Keefe’s book that is explaining the ideas in St. Thomas Aquinas’s The Summa Theologica, we learn there are also three theological virtues (faith, hope, and charity/love) that Aquinas adds in his writings about moral living. However, Aquinas sees these as gifts from God, while the four cardinal virtues can be developed on our own through practice.
In our pluralistic society, it is much easier to discuss the cardinal virtues than the theological virtues since the latter obviously brings up the discussion of who is God, is there a God, and what, if any, obligation do we owe God, among many other divisive topics.
I am not solving those questions here in this chapter. I am going to accept Aquinas’s assertions that there are three theological virtues that are gifts from God and explore what they are and how they could impact our moral development.
Saint Thomas believed that, created in the image of God and made for divine union, we cannot reach our fullest development as humans except in relationship with God. The life truly worthy of the human person is life directed to and lived in divine communion. The apex of human community is sharing together in the life of the Persons of the Trinity. (p. 91)
That then is the context to understand this article. I am not requiring you to agree with Aquinas but just to be open to his view point as we delve into each of the theological virtues and the consequences of developing them.
Ultimately, the “fullest development as humans” means achieving happiness, and growing in the natural virtues is a big step in a kind of “human excellence.” (p. 92) But, the natural virtues alone will not lead to our complete fulfillment.
Rather, these natural virtues are taken up into the completion of our life journey in God, which can only be accomplished by the further work of grace and the divine gift of the theological and other infused virtues. (p. 92)
The Theological Virtues
While ultimately even the good that is in the natural virtues requires God’s grace to propel us in our development of them, as mentioned above Aquinas sees the theological virtues as gifts from God.
But the infused virtues come to us directly from God as a gift. These dispositions are “poured into us” (infused) by God, and they can also be called supernatural virtues as distinct from the natural virtues that we have been examining in previous chapters. We must claim them, embrace them, and nurture their growth within us, but we cannot produce them in ourselves. (p. 93)
While they are gifts, they are still virtues because they are habitual dispositions that guide our behavior. We may be given the gift of faith, but it is only by choosing actions to grow our faith that it will strengthen.
But it’s not that God generally hands out greater faith to one than another. It’s just that some people embrace and nurture their faith from day to day in the decisions that they make. (p. 94)
Thus, even the theological virtues require us to take actions to grow our habitual disposition to right actions.
- Faith: “an abiding way of knowing and a sustained way of seeing God, self, other people, relationships, the created order, what constitutes authentic value, and what counts as worthy priorities” (p. 95)
- Hope: “an abiding expectation that we can attain union with God and that God will give us the means and the help to do so” (p. 95)
- Charity: creates a disposition in which “we love God and we love those who bear the divine image and who are loved by God” (p. 97)
Thus, with faith we see other people as our brothers and sisters, which impacts our decisions as we apply the natural virtues of prudence, justice, courage, and temperance.
Likewise, with hope we keep the future in mind as we apply the natural virtues to today’s situations.
Finally, with charity we are able to live life to our true fulfilment by being directed toward God. As a result, the natural virtues “attain their truest shape and completion.” (p. 97)
Conclusion
From Aquinas then we see we have our natural virtues which we acquire through practice, but he does not mean to imply the infused virtues that God gives us are an add-on. Instead, he sees them impacting the natural virtues, too.
Rather, they are the divine gifts by which God enables the full unfolding of our humanity, including through our acquired moral virtues. The infused moral virtues then, are not some parallel reality superimposed over our own moral dispositions. They are what animate, shape, and strengthen our dispositions and actions through our natural powers of intellect and will so that we can act in accord with the divine will for ourselves and for the world — which is to say, for our true good and for the good of those around us. (p. 98)
The infused virtues can thus impact each of the acquired natural virtues. For example, we learned previously that the natural virtue of justice is about giving others what is due to them.
With the help of the infused virtues, justice can be broadened to take in account what actions would help their spiritual welfare as well. (p. 99)
That is the full vision then of living a life of moral virtues. Aquinas was Catholic and thus had certain ideas of how to develop the infused virtues that includes a larger focus on certain sacraments than many of the Protestant denominations.
And then there is the fact that we live in a pluralistic society that includes people of non-Christian faiths or no faith at all, hence the easier sell of the natural virtues.
In the next blog, I will wrap up the discussion on this book considering how our society could be improved if we consider adopting the practice of developing virtue.
Reference: O’Keefe, Mark, 2014. “The Christian Life of Virtue,” Chapter 6 of Virtues Abounding, Cascade Books.
