top of page
The Meaning Of Virtue: “Virtue” is a very simple concept to define. As vice is a bad habit, so virtue is a good habit. “A virtue is an habitual and firm disposition to do the good” (CCC 1803). Virtues and vices form a person’s “character.”
The Importance Of Virtue: a) Without personal virtue, we will do good only sporadically. The main source of a good and happy life – for the human race, for each nation and community, and for each family – is the personal virtue of each individual. No system or set of laws, however perfect, can work for good without virtuous individuals. A Chinese parable says: “When the -5- wrong man uses the right means, the right means work in the wrong way.” Bad bricks, however well arranged, don’t make a good building. Nothing can improve the world the way a saint does.
b) Virtues – unless we lose them! – last forever. They are cultivated by each external good action, and underlie the habitual quality of virtuous actions.
​
c) Virtues improve not just what you do but what you are. And every lover knows that the object of love is not just deeds but persons. Your boss may care more about what you do (your work) than about what you are (your character), but the opposite is true for those who love you. And God is not our boss, but our loving Father.
The Goal Of Virtue: “Why should I be good?” The question is simple and profound, and requires a simple and profound answer. Personal virtue is the key to improving the world, finding happiness, and helping other people to be good and happy too; yet the ultimate end of virtue is even greater than these great goals: “‘the goal of a virtuous life is to become like God’ 63 ” (CCC 1803). No secular answer to the question of the goal of virtue can rival this one.
The Four Cardinal Virtues: From ancient times (Plato, Aristotle) and in various cultures four virtues have traditionally been recognized as the indispensable foundation of all the others, as the “hinges” (cardines in Latin, thus “cardinal”) on which all others turn.“Four virtues play a pivotal role and accordingly are called ‘cardinal’; all the others are grouped around them. They are: prudence [or wisdom], justice [or fairness], fortitude [or courage], and temperance [or self-control]” (CCC 1805). They are mentioned in Scripture by name (Wisdom 8:7) and -6- “are praised under other names in many passages of Scripture”(CCC 1805).
Prudence: Prudence “is not to be confused with timidity or fear” (CCC 1806). Perhaps “practical moral wisdom” is a clearer term for this virtue today. Prudence is “the virtue that disposes practical reason [the mind thinking about what should be done] to discover our true good in every circumstance and to choose the right means of achieving it…. With the help of this virtue we apply moral principles to particular cases…” (CCC 1806).
Justice: “Justice is the moral virtue that consists in the constant and firm will to give their dueto God and neighbor.Justice toward God is called the ‘virtue of religion’ [or ‘piety’]. Justice toward men disposes one to respect the rights of each and to establish in human relationships…harmony…” (CCC 1807). Justice gives to each “what is due,” or “what is right,” or “just desserts.” This logical and almost mathematical aspect of justice, focusing on equality and rights for individuals, is balanced and complemented by a more intuitive and holistic aspect which aims at harmony and right relationships. Typically, men are especially sensitive to the first aspect, and women to the second. Complete justice requires both. Justice transforms power and is transformed by love. Power is meant to serve justice – might should serve right – and justice is meant to serve love. We are born first knowing power and weakness, like the animals. As children, we learn a sense of justice from our conscience and from parents and teachers. As adults, we realize that justice, though necessary, is not sufficient; that our only hope is love and mercy and forgiveness – from God and from each other. -7- Wars will not cease and peace will not come, to nations or to families or to individuals, without justice. But neither will lasting peace come through justice alone.
Fortitude: “Fortitude is the moral virtue that ensures firmness in difficulties and constancy in the pursuit of the good. It strengthens the resolve to resist temptations and to overcome obstacles in the moral life. The virtue of fortitude enables one to conquer fear, even fear of death,and to face trials and persecutions. It disposes one even to renounce and sacrifice his life in defense of a just cause” (CCC 1808). Of all the virtues this is perhaps the one most conspicuously lacking in the lives of most people today in technologically developed and relatively pain-free modern societies. Alexander Solzhenitsyn in 1978 dedicated his Harvard Commencement Address to this challenging subject. Fortitude is a necessary ingredient in all virtues, for no virtue “just happens,” but must be fought for.
Temperance: “Temperance is the moral virtue that moderates the attraction of pleasures…” (CCC 1809), as fortitude moderates the fear of pains. (Thus it is also called “moderation.”) Without it we do not rise above the level of animals who live by their instincts, desires, and fears, especially the instinct to seek pleasure and flee pain. Temperance “ensures the will’s mastery over instincts [thus it is also called “self-control”] and keeps desires within the limits of what is honorable…and provides balance [i.e. moderation: not too little and not too much] in the use of created goods” (CCC 1809). Our instinctive desire for pleasure and fear of pain is the matter, or raw material, to be formed and controlled by all four cardinal virtues. Prudence provides the map, fortitude tames the -8- fears, temperance tames the appetites, and justice regulates the resulting activities. All four cardinal virtues have deeper and wider meanings than their names suggest in current usage. Prudence is not just “playing it safe,” justice is not just punishment, fortitude is not bullheadedness, and temperance is not just sobriety.
The Three Theological Virtues: The four cardinal virtues are natural.
That is:
1) they are known by natural human reason.
​
2) their origin is human nature, and
3) their goal is the perfecting of human character and life.
They are also:
1) known more perfectly by divine revelation
2) aided and increased by divine grace, and
3) incorporated into the higher goal of union with God (see paragraph 3 on the goal of virtue).
The three “theological virtues,” on the other hand, are supernatural, for they are:
1) revealed by God and known by faith
2) “infused by God into the souls of the faithful” (CCC 1813), and
3) their purpose is our participation in the divine nature. They are called “theological” because they have God as their object. “Faith, hope, and love” mean faith in God, hope in God, and love of God, and of neighbor for God’s sake.
The Relation Between The Natural and The Supernatural Virtues: The three theological virtues are not an “extra,” a second story added onto the natural virtues. “The theological virtues are the foundation of Christian moral activity; they animate it and give it its special character” (CCC l813). The Christian is prudent, just, courageous, and temperate out of faith in God, hope in God, and love of God.
Faith: “Faith is the theological virtue by which we believe in God and believe all that he has said and revealed to us, and that Holy -9- Church proposes for our belief, because he is truth itself” (CCC 1814).
The proximate, or immediate, object of faith is all the truths God has revealed. The ultimate object of faith is the person of God himself (see Part I, Section 2). Faith is living and not dead only when it “‘works through charity’ 79 ”(CCC 1814).“Faith without works is dead”(James 2:26). Faith, hope, and charity are three parts of the same living organism; the root, stem, and flower of the same living plant.
Hope: “Hope is the theological virtue by which we desire the kingdom of heaven and eternal life as our happiness, placing our trust in Christ’s promises and relying not on our own strength, but on the help of the grace of the Holy Spirit”(CCC 1817).“The virtue of hope responds to the aspiration of happiness which God has placed in the heart of every man” (CCC 1818).
Hope is not merely our natural desire for happiness; everyone has that. Like faith, hope is our freely chosen affirmative response to a divine revelation: in the case of hope, our response to divinely revealed promises. Hope is faith directed to the future.
Hope is the strongest source of fortitude. If you trust God’s promises of the incomparable happiness of Heaven, you can give up any earthly good or endure any earthly deprivation for that. “Man can endure almost any how if only he has a why,” wrote Viktor Frankl from the Auschwitz death camp (Man’s Search for Meaning). A “why” is a hope, a goal, a meaning and purpose to your life.
Love: What word shall we use to translate agape in the New Testament? It is a crucial point, for this is the most indispensable of all virtues (1 Corinthians 1:1-3), the greatest of all the virtues (1 Corinthians 13:13), the greatest of the commandments (Matthew -10- 22:36-37), and the very nature of God (1 John 4:16), of ultimate reality.
“Love” is too broad a word, for it usually connotes the natural loves – of sex, food, beauty, comfort, friends, etc. “Charity,” the old word for agape, is now too narrow, for it usually connotes only giving money to good causes. We shall use both words, to compensate for the defects in the way each word is used.
“Charity is the theological virtue by which we love God above all things for his own sake [because he is worthy of such love], and our neighbor as ourselves for the love of God” (CCC 1822). Charity is not a feeling or emotion, but a choosing by the will and an obeying. Here is how it was defined by Christ, the perfect incarnation of charity and the supreme authority on the subject: “he who has my commandment sand keeps them, he it is who loves me” (John 14:21).
Christ commands charity to everyone, even our enemies: “You have heard that it was said, ‘you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you: love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust” (Matthew 5:43-45). “Christ died out of love for us while we were still ‘enemies.’ 100 The Lord asks us to love as he does…” (CCC 1825).
Charity is freeing. “The practice of the moral life animated by charity gives to the Christian the spiritual freedom of the children of God. He no longer stands before God as a slave, in servile fear, or as a mercenary looking for wages, but as a son responding to the love of him who ‘first loved us….’ 106 ” (CCC 1828) “Perfect love casts out fear” (1 John 4:18). Indeed “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” (Proverbs 9:10). But it is not the end. Love is
bottom of page