Article I: On the Mean of Infused Virtues

St. Thomas, I-II, q. 64, a. 1, 2, 3; De Virt., q. 1, a. 13.

645. Theological virtues are not in the mean, properly and per se and according to the very account of virtue, that is, by reason of the object, because in their matter excess cannot be given: for the object and measure of the theological virtues is not the good of reason to be placed in acts (which is in the mean), but God Himself (infinite perfection, which exceeds every human faculty), toward whom we cannot tend too much; indeed, we cannot love Him or believe in Him or hope in Him as much as we ought. Namely, there is no excess in attaining the measure.

Nevertheless, on our part and by reason of the subject and the mode in which they are exercised, they are in the mean between two extreme vices, because we ought to tend toward God according to the measure of our nature and condition; whence we ought so to hope and believe that our hope may be midway between presumption and despair, and our faith between two opposed heresies, and therefore the presumptuous man sins, who hopes for a good which exceeds his condition, and the despairing man, who does not hope for what according to his condition he can hope; likewise he sins who would give himself to contemplation when detriment would follow for society or when he ought to be vacant for the affairs of the family. But this is per accidens as to the nature of theological virtue, because it does not come from its proper acts considered according to themselves, and from its proper matter, but from the extrinsic circumstances of the subject in which it inheres. Whence they are said improperly to be in the mean.

646. Therefore theological virtues are appretiatively supreme, that is, they adhere to God above all things:¹

¹ Hence faith is said to be without measure, because it is concerned with the end. Cf. St. Thomas, on Rom. XII, lect. 3.

1. Faith adheres to divine authority before every other authority; hope adheres to omnipotence before every other power; charity adheres to divine goodness before every other goodness.

2. Faith believes God more firmly than all others; hope hopes more immovably in God than in any others whatever and loves Him above all concupiscible things; charity prefers God to all other things and loves Him above all lovable things.

3. Whence we are prepared to put aside all things which are contrary to faith, hope, or charity, rather than depart from them.

647. Infused moral virtues are in the mean, in the same way as was said concerning acquired virtues; but the mean can be diverse because it is not determined by relation to human reason but to divine law.

The gifts of the Holy Spirit are not in the mean because they are directed by the instinct of the Holy Spirit, who cannot fall short or exceed; furthermore, the Holy Spirit is not something regulable.