Article I: On Theological Virtues

St. Thomas, I-II, q. 62; De Virt., q. 1, art. 10 and 12.

623. Theological virtues are operative principles by which we are immediately ordered to God as supernatural end, so that through their acts the soul immediately attains God the supernatural end and is joined to Him. They are rightly called theological:

1. because they have God Himself, the supernatural end, insofar namely as He exceeds the cognition of our reason, both as the material object which is attained by them and as the formal object or motive;

2. and therefore they are infused into us by God alone;

3. and they can be known by revelation alone (a. 1).

624. Thesis. Theological virtues are necessary, and indeed three. - It is proved:

1. By the reason of St. Thomas: In the natural order man would be habitually inclined to the natural end, radically through the soul, immediately through the intellect knowing the end and judging that one must tend to it, and through the will, which from its nature tends to the end or its proper good. But, since man, from the gratuitous goodness of God, is destined to the supernatural end, the beatific vision, it is necessary that supernatural principles be added to nature by which he is habitually inclined to the supernatural end.¹ There is one substantive principle: sanctifying grace, in the very essence of the soul, and three operative principles: faith, by which the intellect attains God, the supernatural end, as true, and is able to know Him and the other supernatural principles; hope, by which the will tends to God the supernatural end as its good but arduous; and charity, by which it is ordered to Him as good in Himself, and thus through love is supernaturally conformed to Him. Therefore there are three theological virtues (a. 3; II-II q. 17, a. 6).

¹ If nature, St. Thomas notes, does not fail in necessary things, much less grace.

2. By Scripture and Tradition, in which these three virtues are constantly enumerated, so that by a peculiar fittingness they must be connected with one another and distinguished from all the others; whence the Apostle, I Cor. XIII, 13: "But now there remain faith, hope, charity, these three. But the greater of these is charity" (cf. I Thess. V, 8; Col. I, 4, 5).

3. By decrees of the Church. For this is supposed by Innocent III (cap. Maiores), saying that it is disputed among the learned whether faith, charity, and the other virtues are infused even into little children; and by Clement V in the Council of Vienne, establishing that this opinion should be preferred as more probable. But the Council of Trent, sess. 6, c. 7, teaches it as certain for faith, hope, and charity, although it does not define it.

625. Among the theological virtues there is order:

A) The order of generation, not indeed 1. according to time, for all are infused at the same time, but 2. according to reason, faith precedes, hope follows, finally charity advances: a) according to acts: for no one hopes or loves what he does not know; but the things which he hopes and loves, he knows through faith; - and similarly, man, by hoping for good from God, also considers Him as his own good and proceeds to loving Him; - b) also according to habits, but in order to acts: for faith is presupposed to hope and hope to charity, just as intellect is presupposed to will, and imperfect love precedes perfect love.

B) But in the order of perfection charity precedes, which is the perfection of all virtues (a. 4).