Article IV: On the Gift of Counsel

St. Thomas, II-II, q. 52.

32. What the gift of counsel is. - The gifts of the Holy Spirit are dispositions by which the soul is rendered well and easily movable by the Holy Spirit, especially in arduous things which pertain to salvation. Therefore the gift of counsel (gave van goddelijken raad) is a certain light by which, as if by counsel received from God, man sees what is to be done in order to salvation. Whence just as through prudence or eubulia man is one counseling well, so through the gift of counsel he is capable of taking counsel well; in the same way as in human affairs those who do not suffice for themselves in the inquiry of counsel seek counsel from wiser men (a. 1, ad 1).

Man needs to be moved by God Himself, through a supernatural inquiry of reason, concerning the means to the supernatural end: for human reason is not able to comprehend all individual and contingent things. But for such motion acquired or infused prudence is not sufficient, nor are the other virtues. Therefore a special habit must be posited, so that man may be moved by God through a supernatural inquiry of reason concerning the means to the supernatural end; this we call the gift of divine counsel.

It is distinguished a) from faith, which, although it is secondarily practical, is practical only remotely by way of universal rule, not proximately and applicatively to a work here and now to be placed in singulars;

b) from science and wisdom, for a similar reason. For they treat of things to be done scientifically and speculatively, namely of practical principles in common, and are not immediately concerned with singular contingents;

c) from the supernatural virtue of prudence also, chiefly in that prudence moves in a human mode, as a dictate proceeding from deliberation dependently upon human reason, nevertheless illustrated by faith; but the gift itself moves in a divine mode, according to the instinct of the Holy Spirit, immediately dependently upon divine reason, from connatural supernatural affection and union with the supernatural end: from this union, namely, and connaturality, man is rendered fit and perfect for judging concerning things to be done for the supernatural end. Thus the gift of counsel is a completing co-principle of the infused virtue of prudence.

A threefold grade is distinguished in its use.

"The first grade of the gift of counsel is that by which man is receptive of the counsels of the Holy Spirit as to those things which are necessary for salvation, namely for observing the precepts; indeed he who is not adorned with this grade of counsel is in a state of condemnation... The second grade of the gift of counsel is that by which we incline the ear of the mind to the evangelical counsels of Christ... The third grade... perfectly to fulfill the counsels themselves of Christ."

1. Dionysius the Carthusian, On the Gifts, tr. III, a. 7.

33. The gift of counsel corresponds to prudence as helping and perfecting it, because it is concerned with the same things to be done here and now for the sake of the end.

"The inferior moving principle is chiefly helped and perfected by this, that it is moved by a higher moving principle... But it is manifest that the rectitude of human reason is compared to divine reason as an inferior moving principle, which is moved, to a superior one...: for eternal reason is the supreme rule of all human rectitude. And therefore prudence, which imports the rectitude of (practical) reason, is most of all perfected and helped according as it is ruled and moved by the Holy Spirit; which pertains to the gift of counsel... Whence the gift of counsel responds to prudence as helping and perfecting it" (a. 2).

But it is rightly called divine counsel, and not judgment or command: "To judge and command does not belong to one moved, but to one moving. And because, in the gifts of the Holy Spirit, the human mind does not have itself as moving, but rather as moved..., hence it is that it was not fitting that the gift corresponding to prudence be called command or judgment, but counsel, by which there can be signified the motion of the mind counseled by another counseling" (ad 1).

34. The gift of counsel is in all the just, at least as to those things which are necessary for salvation (a. 1, ad 2). And it remains in the fatherland, where man is perfectly directed by the Holy Spirit; but there it will have another act. For there it is not according to some inquiry and doubt about things to be done (which does not befit the perfection of the fatherland), but partly insofar as the cognition of those things which they already know are to be done is continued by God in the blessed, for example, in praising God or praying for others; partly insofar as they are illuminated concerning those things which they do not know about things to be done. For they do not know all things which pertain to the governance of things and are not of the essence of beatitude, but that which is revealed to them as it pleases God, as is explained by St. Thomas, I, q. 12, a. 8 (a. 3).

The fifth beatitude is said to correspond to the gift of counsel: Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy. For counsel is properly about those things useful for salvation; but mercy is most useful. And "therefore the beatitude of mercy specially corresponds to the gift of counsel, not as eliciting but as directing" (a. 4). And although the counsel of the Holy Spirit directs in all acts of the virtues, nevertheless it specially directs in works of mercy, for the reason already given (ad 1).