TO DELIGHT IN
HIS WILL
AND WALK IN HIS WAYS
Chapter 10
The Function of the Virtues
In the description of practical reasoning we established that our decisions are made by the joint operation of intellect and will: a judgment that an action is good with the concurrence of the will.
This basic pattern of practical reasoning covers a great deal of our daily decisions, especially those that are ordinary or routine, that do not involve perplexity or a sense of conflict. Nevertheless it represents an idealized pattern for practical reasoning unless the role of our affections and emotional life is properly included.
The decisions we are most conscious of are precisely those where we experience doubt and conflict, the ones that do not go smoothly. There are the cases in which we are simply not clear about what is the right path to choose, when deliberation and analysis, advice, prayer is required. This is a matter of practical reasoning proper–a matter of discernment and judgment. What we are concerned with here, however, are the cases where there is a lack of harmony between the judgments of our practical reasoning and the actual things we do. We make decisions at the beginning of a day (perhaps writing out an agenda list), and reflect at night that our intentions were imperfectly carried out. This could be the result of poor or overly ambitious planning, in which case these experiences may help us with more realistic practical reasoning.
In many other cases, we may simply not “feel like” doing something. The laundry is postponed in favor of reading a magazine, we omit the exercise we had planned, we eat more at dinner than we had originally planned, we curtail or omit our prayer time. We don’t get around to writing the letter we had planned, and we find that we had spent unplanned time on video games, or internet surfing, or a number of other things not wrong in themselves, but in reference to our plans and prior decisions, amount to a deflection from our aims. This is part of the human condition, of course, and part of the material for our reflection that “we have left undone those things which we ought to have done, and we have done those things which we ought not to have done.”
More serious are the omissions and commissions which we recognize as sinful: actions contrary to the love of God and neighbor and corrosive of our character. We may know that we ought to be patient and kind, but in certain circumstances we feel provoked and incensed–perhaps a totally unfair insult--and might respond with verbal attack or even physical aggression. When we cool down we talk about the heat of the moment, the surge of passion which overtook our better judgment. We call this a lack of emotional control or a lack of patience. But if we analyze it more deeply, there could be a wide range of possible factors.
Further, if we take the model of practical reasoning seriously, that actions are the product of intellect and will, and we say that an angry retaliation was purely an emotional response, then we remove it from a decision of practical reason altogether, and such actions become irrational. In other words, in some way, the angry person thinks that his target deserves the attack, and his judgment in that situation of provocation was that his response was a good thing to do. There are actions triggered by psychological disturbances, such as Tourette’s Syndrome where a person utters shocking verbal abuse with no control. But in the case of a person who needs help with “anger management” problem, the counsellor does not solve the problem by prescribing a strong sedative. There is a moral dimension to ordinary human anger which needs addressing on all levels: intellect and will as well as emotion.
There may be a warped way in which the angry person sees himself and others. He may feel that others are putting him down, or “out to get him” (paranoid in a non-clinical sense), that he is not respected properly (and there may be a complex set of personal and experiential factors which have affected his self-image, and where psychiatric counselling can provide insight). But he may also have an un-articulated principle to teach others a lesson, that they need to get what is coming to them, and this is a reasonable principle in certain situations: rebuke and punishment are sometimes the correct action to take.
The person’s will is too set on what he perceives as the good of his own self. There is a failure in holding the good of others and of society in general sufficiently important. From a Christian point of view this selfishness is an aspect of the fallenness of human nature and of original sin.
On the level of emotions, there are varieties of dispositions and temperaments. We talk about choleric or “hot-blooded” people on the one hand, and calm or mild-mannered people on the other. But the strength of angry emotions does not cause the aggressive response without being validated by the decision of intellect and will. We all feel provoked at times, but we are expected to moderate and channel our aggressive impulses. What is required in the management of anger (and other emotional reactions) is the education of the emotions, the training over time of improving the way one sees situations, to improve the patterns of intellect and will so as to guide the emotional reactions in a better way.
Note how this explanation differs from a psychological model where the function of the will is to control or suppress the emotion. In widespread popular thinking, often in Christian circles, the easy explanation for wrong actions involving emotion is that the conscience knows the right thing to do, but the person lacks enough “will power” to keep the emotions in check to follow the right course. The assumption is that the intellect through conscience has the right perspective, and that it is largely the irrationality of the emotions that threatens correct action. It is then the role of the will as arbiter to choose between obedience to conscience or to give in to the pressure of emotion. If one’s will is weak, then irrationality triumphs. This simple and common model has explanatory force in describing the experience of conflict and temptation, but it fragments the agent into separate agencies: a rational and objective conscience; unintegrated and dangerous emotions; and a will that becomes the moral center since it alone is responsible for the choice to obey or disobey. The Christian who wants to improve her moral character seems to be faced simply with the need to develop more will power to combat emotional force. It is too crude a model: unrealistic, a set-up for discouragement, and far too limited in its ability to describe comprehensively the unity of the moral agent and the many ways in which grace is meant to assist in the growth of Christian character.
The Theological Virtues
What we need are the virtues--all of them, for all aspects of our personality involved in behavior.
We need to have our intellect, will, and emotions all strengthened, corrected, and perfected if we are to be the human beings God means us to be.
Thomas Aquinas accepted this
definition of virtue which had been pieced together from
Virtue is a good quality of mind (qualitas mentis) by which one lives righteously, of which no one can make bad use, which God works in us without us.
At first glance this would seem to be unduly restrictive, since it implies first that virtues belong only to our rational nature (and not our sense appetites or emotions), and, second, that there are only God-given virtues, no natural ones. For the first, virtues do operate primarily in intellect and will, but become part of our affective or emotional natures as well, to the extent that they are guided by reason and so participate in the correctness of reason and will. For the second, Thomas clearly affirms the possibility of natural virtues in a real (but limited) way–he could hardly be a follower of Aristotle without doing so. But the Augustinian definition does point more directly to the theological virtues.
By inverting the usual order and beginning with the virtues of grace rather than with the moral virtues, we can make clear the central theological commitments of St. Thomas and correct the false impression that the Thomistic account of the moral life is largely based on a naturalistic description of moral virtues, with the theological virtues and grace added as a kind of supplement for the purely religious and spiritual aspects of the Christian life.
The Theological Virtues
The theological virtues are love, faith, and hope, based on 1 Cor. 13, but also based on a certain logic of the relationship between intellect and will and our need for their proper orientation and perfecting. The “greatest” of these is love, not because the moral life can be reduced to some sort of essence or supreme principle of love, but because love is the principle of union within the Trinity, and the principle of our own union with God. Love for God is at the very heart of morality because it fixes on God as our final end, that the truly supreme good is in fact the object of our desire, the over-arching purpose for which all our actions are conducted. In this life faith and hope are necessary virtues, but once we leave this life for the presence of God faith and hope are no longer necessary: the intellect enjoys the beatific vision directly, while the will comes to its full and lasting completion and enjoyment in continued love.
The theological virtues are supernatural in that their origin and goal is God himself. The natural powers of the soul that we have–intellect and will–are oriented to truth and goodness, but only as they are encountered in the observable world. Grace through the Holy Spirit is required for us to have God himself as the object of our hearts and minds, and thus these virtues are known as infused virtues. They are not acquired by our actions but by our sharing in the divine life through the Spirit.
Love is a virtue of the will (which is directed to the good), while faith is a virtue of the intellect (directed to truth), and hope is the virtue directed to God as our final end and supreme happiness.
Note that there would be no virtue of love without faith. This follows from the description of the relation of intellect and will. The will, oriented to the good, is dependent on the intellect for the presentation or interpretation of the object it can desire. A principle important for both Augustine and Aquinas is that an object not understood cannot be loved. Of course God is beyond our ordinary understanding, which is why the virtue of faith as a gift of the Spirit for our understanding is essential for us to be able to love God and our neighbor truly.
This is an important safeguard against the kind of vagueness which plagues many types of Christian ethics which reduce morality to love. There is often an indifference (if not hostility) to the relevance of dogmatic theology, and a desire to fashion an ethics which centers on an emphasis on love to generate an attractive system of morality. This is a legacy of the enlightenment which valued the moral teachings of the Bible and the Christian heritage which could be adapted to our common social life over the supernatural features of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and the need for conversion, redemption and sanctification. A kind of culmination was reached in the situation ethics of Joseph Fletcher, in which the one guiding principle–“always do the loving thing”–was apparently completely severed from any sense of the need for love to be rooted in the worship of God in spirit and in truth.
Thus the theological virtues are united, and one cannot have one virtue without the others. There is no love without faith and hope, no faith without love and hope. The devils who are said to believe and tremble (James 2:19) have a kind of belief in that they recognize the existence of God and know certain things about him, are actually devoid of faith because they absolutely lack any dimension of love and hope.
By beginning with the theological virtues we may observe that children who are baptized and brought up in church and a Christian home may have the virtues of faith, hope and love (since they are given by the Holy Spirit) before there is much evidence of the development of the moral virtues. There may be little evidence of justice, temperance or prudence, but they can understand the rudiments of the faith and have a sense that God exists, that he is the supreme good and their final hope.
The theological virtues must be actualized in the concrete thoughts and actions of our lives in order to grow and flourish. This is where we have some control and responsibility. Regular worship and prayer and participation in the sacraments are the means through which our minds and hearts are not only reminded of the reality of God as creator, redeemer and sanctifier, but we have the opportunity to realign and affirm with our whole beings this fundamental relationship. We then bring this vision and conviction (“go in peace to love and serve the Lord”) to the framework by which we make all our decisions. Our intentions, deliberations and decisions are conducted in the light of the truth that we have about God, our acknowledgment of him as the over-arching object of our love, and the hope we have in God as our final happiness.
The Moral Virtues
The moral virtues include prudence, justice, fortitude and temperance. They are often referred to as the “cardinal” virtues, because they are the central or core virtues required for good action. Other virtues we would also want to see, such as patience and humility, for example, are sub-virtues and incorporated in these basic four.
Prudence is the virtue of the intellect, and justice of the will. Prudence is the ability to reason well about actions: to deliberate, decide, and execute actions well. Justice is the attitude of the will that considers the good or well-being of others, and can be identified with a spirit of fairness.
Fortitude and temperance are virtues of the sense appetite, or the emotional aspect of our personality. In a Thomistic view of the emotions, there are two general groupings: those directly related to desire, and those related to an obstacle to our desire. Love (not the virtue, but the basic emotion) and hate are basic emotional frameworks we have toward many objects, while joy and sorrow are affective reactions to the presence or absence of the desired object.
Emotions such as fear and anger arise in us when we see something threatening our well-being: there is some kind of threat to us, or an obstacle to accomplishing our purpose that must be dealt with. Hope and despair describe our possible attitudes toward attaining our purpose in the light of our assessment of the obstacle.
With this sketch of a summary of emotion to which Aquinas devoted a very detailed analysis, we can see the basis for the virtues of temperance and fortitude. Temperance governs those affections which may be called desiring emotions and are directly related to sense desire, including food and drink, sex, and other activities we take delight in. Fortitude governs the contending emotions which arise when we feel attacked or thwarted in our purposes.
The moral virtues, in distinction from the theological virtues, may be acquired, rather than infused. They are developed by a pattern of good actions which gradually become part of one’s character. If one has good intentions, deliberates and decides well, and executes good actions, and is not deflected by contrary emotions, and has a developed consistent pattern of so acting, then he or she is developing the moral virtues.
The building blocks of virtues are the patterns of repeated actions. But simple repetition of actions is not formative of moral virtue in the way that repeating basketball shots develops the ability to become an accurate shooter. There is an internal habituation that is required on the level of intellect, will and emotion that underlies the development of moral virtue. An adolescent may, under parental supervision for years do his homework assignments well, keep his room tidy, and do his share of family chores. When he reaches university his behavior may well degenerate into procrastination, sloppiness, and selfishness, showing that the earlier and better patterns of behavior were not really integrated into his character.
The moral virtues are a kind of package: they are interdependent and cannot be developed in isolation. You cannot have the virtue of justice, for example, without having the prudence or wisdom to make good decisions at the right time and without the courage and persistence to act justly when tempted or pressured otherwise. A person cannot have one virtue without the others. This points to the fact that a virtuous person is acting for the right reasons.
For example, a person’s sexual behavior may on the surface appear to be chaste and virtuous–without promiscuity or illicit affairs. But this could be due to fear and insecurity rather than because of a properly developed virtue of temperance.
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The Central Role of Prudence
Prudence is the acquired ability to reason well about actions, and involves good deliberation, sound judgment and excellence in execution. Clearly, prudence is the key to good behavior and to the other moral virtues. The pattern of one’s behavior, as well as the moral virtues, are built up by the many different decisions that are made, and they need to be made by a person with prudence.
We can go further and say that in a very real sense prudence forms the other virtues by setting their standards of rationality. In Thomistic terminology, prudence is the regula, the rule of the other virtues. This makes sense, because a virtue such as justice, is in itself a sense of fairness, an attitude of benevolence toward the good of others; but in each situation where a decision needs to be made--debts paid, and the like—it is obviously the practical reason that must discern and judge the proportionate action.
This role of prudence as the measure for the other virtues is even more evident with fortitude and temperance. The emotions that are have to do with fear and courage, for example, need to regulated and channeled by reason, not ignored or suppressed, on the one hand, nor simply followed, on the other hand. The virtue of courage exhibits that quality of the “mean” which Aristotle analyzed (and perhaps pushed a bit too far in implying that all virtues have this character): the standard of right reason avoids the extremes of excess and lack in emotional appraisal and reaction. One can be too fearful (with phobias and the like), or react with fright in situations which ought to be faced. But one can also have too little fear, where risks are ignored or belittled, and life endangered. Such a person we call “reckless” rather than courageous. Thus courage finds a kind of intermediate point between timidity and bravado.
The very fact that we cannot beforehand say what is the “right amount” of courage or justice for someone to have shows that practical reason must be aware of the person’s needs and goals, the circumstances, and make fitting decisions and actions in the light of each situation.
But the relationship of prudence to the other moral virtues is not only directive and regulative. Prudence in turn depends on the soundness of the will and emotional management. For good decisions to be made, the overall orientation must be sound, with an attitude of justice toward the implications of social and personal relationships; otherwise there may be pretty good deliberation decisions made, but may well tend in a selfish direction.
Similarly, we need to manage our anger and fear if we are to get the right benefit of our practical reasoning. Anger will often interfere with calm deliberation, and fear can be a factor any time, especially at the point of execution. Since execution, the production of an action, is really the point of practical reasoning, there is no prudence if a person comes to a sound decision about what to do and then through fear (perhaps of the consequences, or of others’ opinion, etc.) and then omits or delays the action. Thus the acquisition of prudence requires the simultaneous acquisition of the other virtues. Clearly the virtues are interdependent. One cannot have one moral virtue without the others, just as one cannot develop one theological virtue without the other two.
One question remains in this general account of the virtues: what is the relationship between the theological and moral virtues? This may be divided into two further questions: can the moral virtues really exist without the theological? And are the moral virtues changed in quality by the infused theological virtues?
The Augustinian reading (see The
City of
In regard to the second question on the change in the moral virtues in the life of grace, we may first of all say that the moral virtues become true virtues when God becomes the true object of faith, hope, and love. All the aims and attitudes of the person become properly ordered to their final end. But beyond this there is an aspect of each moral virtue in the Christian that receives an “infused” quality as a result of operative grace. Thus prudence, justice, fortitude and temperance are strengthened and receive an additional dimension by the work of the Holy Spirit.
At the conclusion of the treatment of each virtue Aquinas works out an
appropriate gift of the Holy Spirit and a beatitude which corresponds to the
moral virtue. The gifts of the Spirit
are drawn from Isaiah 11: 2-3 (and had become part of the tradition before