FAUSTO GOMEZ OP
The life of an authentic Christian is a virtuous life: following the Virtuous One Jesus Christ, God and Man. A virtuous life is the life of a disciple of Christ who practices virtues: the seven virtues (and their respective allies) which according to St. Thomas Aquinas make a good Christian. The Magnificent Seven: faith, hope and charity (the theological virtues), and prudence, justice, fortitude and temperance (the cardinal moral virtues).
We plan to develop, to the best of our ability, the most essential virtues: the theological virtues of faith, hope and charity. Due to the celebration of the 2025 Jubilee Year, we reflected first on Christian hope, for the 2025 Holy Year is the Year of Hope. (We published ten columns on theological hope in O Clarim). Hereafter, we meditate on faith, the fundamental theological virtue.
Because faith is a theological virtue, in our first column we describe briefly, in the first place, the nature of virtue and the kinds of virtues, and in the second, on the close connection of faith with the other two theological virtues – hope and charity.
- DESCRIPTION OF VIRTUE AN KINDS OF VIRTUES
VIRTUE is a fundamental ethical category and, therefore, continually important in general ethics and in professional ethics, and in moral and spiritual theology.
Virtues dispose human beings firmly to act according to their nature, and help them develop rationally, emotionally and creatively their potentialities. Josef Pieper, a lucid exponent of the two most salient authorities on virtue, Aristotle and St. Thomas Aquinas, has written: Virtuous living is a never-ending process towards excellence, self-realization and happiness. Indeed, as Spinoza said, virtue fascinates.
St. Augustine writes: “The only cause of all human philosophy is to achieve happiness.” For Aristotle, the ideal man or woman is the happy person, and the happy person is the virtuous person. To want to be happy is a natural longing of the human person: the human person wants to be happy by nature. For St. Thomas, every moral quest is a quest for happiness. For Aquinas, virtue is cause of happiness and the way to greater happiness. For him, happiness consists in the praxis of virtue.
Virtue is a quality which enables an individual to move toward the achievement of the specifically human telos (end), whether natural or supernatural (Aristotle, the New Testament, Aquinas). A virtue is a firm quality of the soul that has utility in achieving earthly and heavenly success (Benjamin Franklin). We need virtues to correct our moral deficiencies, overcome temptations, eradicate evil and vices, and as Philippa Foot emphasizes, virtue is also corrective in nature (Virtues and Vices).
Traditionally, virtue is defined simply as a good operative habit. It is a habit, that is, an internal disposition, a human quality which firmly disposes the human person’s potencies toward good or evil. It is a good habit that inclines the person to perform good actions. The quality of goodness distinguishes virtues from vices: while good operative habits are in conformity with our nature as human beings, on the other hand, vices, or bad operative habits, are contrary to our nature. The habit of compassion, for instance, inclines the compassionate person to perform acts of love to the neighbor in need. Virtue is, moreover, an operativehabit, that is, it disposes a person firmly to act in a manner that is pleasant, prompt and easy in a particular field of life. It inclines a human being intellectually and affectively, to realize his firm intention. Words to ponder: “Virtue enhances vision, while vice darkens and finally blinds” (Gilbert C. Meilaender, The Theory and Practice of Virtue).
VIRTUES. Aquinas adds that virtues are good dispositions in conformity to human nature that can only produce good deeds. Virtues are interior principles of good actions. Laws, on the other hand, are external principles of good actions – if the laws are good – just.
The place of virtue is the “heart”, the center of morality; concretely, the will, reason and sensitivity (S. Pinckaers). We may describe virtues as the human person’s practice of his/her humanity (L. Boros), as successes in self-realization (C. van der Poel), as strong propensities which lead us to live as flourishing human beings (Peter Geach, The Virtues). Through the practice of virtues, the human person may attain “the furthest potentialities of nature” (J. Pieper).
KINDS OF VIRTUES. There are different kinds of virtues. According to their origin, we distinguish between acquired and infused, and according to their object, between theological and moral virtues.
According to their origin, we distinguish between acquired and infused virtues. The human virtues are acquired by a person through repetition of the same specific acts, while the infused virtues are given by God. “Infused cardinal virtues are like the acquired cardinal virtues, except that they are infused by God and ordered to eternal happiness. In other words, the infused cardinal virtues perfect the same powers of the soul as the acquired virtues” (John Sziha, The Christian Moral Life Directions). Acquired virtues are raised up, perfected by infused virtues, which are grounded on divine grace. The infused virtues are helped by the acquired virtues by strengthening the graced inclination to perform specific good deeds in an easy way.
In Christian perspective, in the perspective of God’s Kingdom – of eternal life -, the theological virtue of graceful love gives life to all virtues: charity – as divine love in us – is a faithful and hopeful love. “The traditional way of explaining the relation between charity and the other two theological virtues, and the cardinal virtues is that charity is the form of all virtues. In other words, since the form determines the object of an action, all actions stemming from the infused cardinal virtues are acts of charity” (John Sziha).
According to object, we divide virtues into intellectual, moral (cardinal) and theological virtues. Pope Francis liked to underline that there is a hierarchy of virtues and that the primacy belongs to the theological virtues, which have God as their object and motive” (Gaudete et Exultate). Truly, the greatest virtue is charity or love. Thus, St. Augustine defines virtue simply as “rightly ordered love.” The Bishop of Hippo adds: “Now if virtue takes us to the blessed life, I would dare to say that nothing is virtue outside of the love of God” (City of God).
Our Christian life, our divine life on earth is grounded on grace, which is a static (entitative) supernatural habit. Grace grounds the theological and infused moral virtues. All these are not static but dynamic habits. Divine grace, which raises us to the divine – the supernatural – order becomes dynamically operative in the theological and infused moral virtues, and the Gifts of the Holy Spirit, the supernatural habits infused by the Holy Spirit, that perfect the seven magnificent virtues of an authentic – witnessing – Christian: the three theological and the four cardinal moral virtues.
AND TO CLOSE! Divine, supernatural perspective of Christian life: grace, infused virtues (theological as well as moral virtues), and Gifts of the Holy Spirit. These in our heart make our life really happy. This is why the saints are the happiest persons to walk on earth. Hard to be a saint? Just one step beyond mediocrity and you are a saint (Leon Bloy).
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