Treatise VI: Aids of Human Liberty

Usefulness. Having considered and deplored the vices of our infirmity and malice, it will greatly help, before we enter the parts of special theology, to place before the eyes, in a very brief survey, the aids, both interior and exterior, by which our infirmity is strengthened, so that we may be able to reach the most sublime goal without such great difficulty.

— I. Aids in general. In the order of elevated and repaired nature, divine munificence infuses into us:

1. Sanctifying grace, as a new nature, which formally makes us just, sons of God, and now brothers of Christ; and it is in us the condition and principle of meriting the kingdom of heaven de condigno;

2. Actual grace. Actual grace of God precedes and accompanies the good acts themselves, so that they may be meritorious; and it aids us in overcoming evil temptations and in declining from evil. Therefore the same grace is both elevating and medicinal for us;

3. So that supernaturally good acts may be done connaturally by us, from divine liberality we receive supernatural virtues.

— II. Concerning virtues in particular. 1. Natural and supernatural virtues. Wherefore, in the present economy natural and supernatural virtues must be distinguished.

Supernatural virtues are infused into us; they immediately effect this: that we can do supernatural acts, each of its own kind, connaturally. They do not themselves bestow facility of acting.

On the other hand, natural virtues, which are acquired by the very acts, consist in that facility, in the inclination toward certain acts. Yet in the present order of elevated nature, the good toward which they incline no longer suffices for us. It is natural, or proportioned to nature, while we exist for a good or end which exceeds our nature. Wherefore, in the present order, the same are not virtues except in a diminished way; and they should rather be praised as accidental but most useful complements of the virtues properly so called, which are the infused virtues. The very acts of the infused virtues, as such, insofar as they remove contrary dispositions, contribute indirectly to facility of exercise. But inclination toward supernatural things is had from the gifts of the Holy Spirit.

— 2. Theological virtues. Among infused virtues, those may most of all be called supernatural which are so proper to the present order that nothing would correspond to them in the natural order ¹. These are the theological virtues; while moral virtues would have existed in every order, although otherwise in the natural order and otherwise in the present order.

Wherefore the theological virtues ought not simply to be counted together with the moral virtues, but must be ascribed altogether to a higher order. Through them we participate in the divine life and begin to act it, while infused moral virtues perfect and ennoble our human life. Man elevated is scarcely conceived without the infusion of the theological virtues, since through their acts alone he immediately reaches God; while even elevated man could have lacked infused moral virtues. The theological virtues are expressly named in Sacred Scripture (e.g., 1 Cor. 13); concerning supernatural moral virtues it is not established that discourse is mixed in the sacred letters. Wherefore it is theologically certain and to be held next to faith that there are three theological virtues, while, in affirming other infused virtues, we rely only on the common opinion of theologians.

Cf. Mazzella, De virtutibus infusis, n. 30-32, from Suarez, De gratia, who, l. 6, c. 8, n. 14, appeals to Trid., s. VI, c. 7, etc.; Billot, De virtutibus infusis.

¹ For in the natural order the object is lacking at which acts would terminate analogically: in that order God would neither reveal Himself, nor promise Himself as to be possessed, nor give Himself as to be loved by a love founded on the communication of His own beatitude. Indeed, there are not lacking those who think it repugnant to the natural order that in it God should reveal anything.

— 3. Moral virtues perfect the principles of our human actions: we call human actions free acts, interior or exterior, which would also have existed in the merely natural order, although otherwise than now. (For this reason they are distinguished from the theological virtues, which give a beginning to actions that are, as it were, divine.) Wherefore their formal object is moral honesty in some created order. The principles which are perfected are powers which are so constituted under the power of the will that they nevertheless have spontaneous acts: over these the will is said to preside politically. But the virtues are perfective insofar as, if they are supernatural or infused, they bestow the capacity of connaturally eliciting acts proportioned to the supernatural end; or insofar as, if they are acquired (virtues today imperfect), they incline toward honest acts.

More strictly those virtues are called moral which reside in the appetite, and in this way they are distinguished from intellectual virtues, whose seat is the intellect. Such is prudence.

What cardinal virtues are. Already from remote antiquity, four moral virtues were distinguished as first or cardinal. They are named in Sacred Scripture ¹, they occur in Plato (2), and among the Stoics they are the first virtues: prudence, temperance, courage, justice. By these names there are signified either certain general notes by which every virtue is marked, or four principal virtues to which the others can be referred.

1. For in every virtue there is found discretion of reason, or the note of prudence; an inclination toward doing what ought to be done, which is the note of justice; observance of the middle mode between excess and defect, which pertains to temperance; finally, firmness in pursuing the good: this belongs to fortitude.

Moreover, since a good moral operation has its principle in the right ordering of the practical intellect, is derived from a free determination of the will, and can be impeded by passions, whether concupiscible or irascible, there is no virtue unless it either perfects the intellect for directing well, or the will for acting as it ought, or places order in the passions by repressing their impulses, or confirms the soul against their resistance.

2. And the virtues in which the several aspects among these stand forth are, as it were, heads to which the others are recalled. Now, direction chiefly belongs to command or precept; a perfect debt, to be rendered according to equality, is found in operations which are toward another as such, for no one strictly owes to himself; the appetites of the greatest pleasures, namely touch and taste, must chiefly be repressed; and the fears of the greatest dangers must be overcome. Therefore prudence, which is a preceptive virtue; justice, which renders right, or what is owed to another on account of his own proper personality; temperance, which moderates the pleasures of taste and touch; and fortitude, which sustains or attacks dangers of death, are cardinal virtues.

¹ Wis. 8, 7. - (2) Rep. IV, 441.

— Parts of virtues. Of virtue there are distinguished subjective parts, quasi-potential parts, and quasi-integral parts.

Subjective parts are the species into which virtue, as a kind of genus, is divided. The species ought univocally to participate in the generic notion of virtue, and to differ from one another by a specific difference.

Potential parts are virtues in which the proper notion of some virtue is in some way present, but defectively.

Quasi-integral parts are those things which must be had together in order that the perfect act of a virtue may be constituted. By these that act is composed almost as a body is composed of matter and form. Thus the integral parts of justice are said by St. Thomas (2, 2, q. 79, art. 1) to be to do good and to decline from evil, because justice follows upon a twofold good: not to take away what belongs to another, and positively to render what is due. And it is already an act of justice not to take away what belongs to another.

But take care lest you make less of virtues which, as potential parts, are referred to another. This division is merely logical; and, for example, the nobler virtue of religion is a potential part of justice.

— III. Gifts of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit, who through sanctifying grace dwells in us, brings His gifts to us, as a divine dowry. These are habitual qualities of our soul, by which we are disposed to act according to the motions, both ordinary and extraordinary, of the Holy Spirit.

They are in us, as it were, demonstrative signs of the Holy Spirit; as they are communicated to us after Christ, they are a participation in the fullness of Christ; as habitual qualities of our soul, they are its most precious ornaments; as operative qualities, they are complements of the supernatural virtues, through which we are inclined toward the supernatural end.

Seven gifts of the Holy Spirit are numbered from the Vulgate, Isa. 11, 2. 3: "And the spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him: the spirit of wisdom and of understanding, the spirit of counsel and of fortitude, the spirit of knowledge and of piety, and the spirit of the fear of the Lord shall fill him."

When we act according to the motions of the Holy Spirit, we gather the fruits of the Holy Spirit, which under another respect are called beatitudes. These fruits, by an exemplary enumeration, not an exhaustive one, are numbered as twelve by the Apostle to the Galatians, 5, 22. 23: charity, joy, peace, patience, benignity, goodness, longanimity, meekness, faith, modesty, continence, chastity.

— Besides interior aids, divine Providence supplies to us innumerable exterior helps of examples, counsels, circumstances, and events. Among all these, the first place must be assigned to the examples and doctrine of Christ. But among the words of Christ there stand forth the counsels and promises made, for example, to those who leave all things for Him, and to those who exercise works of mercy. And not without merit ought we to extol the often repeated promise of happiness even in this life; of happiness in the very tribulation and persecution. If, deceived by the appearance of false happiness, we do evil things or less good things, nothing is more usefully inculcated to men than the persuasion of the inseparable union and concord between the appetite of the honest good and the appetite of one's own beatitude ¹.

"If you know these things, you shall be blessed if you do them" (St. John 13, 17).

¹ The truth of this concord has very recently been shown by Fr. Victor Hostachy, in the lives of the saints: Joie et saintete. Essai d'etudes d'ames. Tournai, 1922.

— I. For attaining the supernatural end, these interior aids are conferred upon us:

1. Sanctifying grace as a new nature, which formally constitutes us just, sons of God, and brothers of Christ.

2. Actual grace of God, which at the same time elevates our actions, and is medicine for healing the wounds of nature.

3. So that acts may be done connaturally, infused supernatural virtues, which are for us as if supernatural powers. Hence they do not give facility of acting.

Some are theological, to which nothing would have corresponded in the natural order; through them we begin to act a truly divine life: Faith, Hope, Charity. Others are moral, which would have existed in every order, though otherwise than now.

By the very exercise of the virtues, even infused ones, we acquire for ourselves a certain facility of acting well. This habit of operating well is an acquired virtue; nevertheless, in the present order, it falls short of the notion of virtue, because it does not incline toward the supernatural end.

Among the moral virtues, from remote antiquity four are distinguished as cardinal: Prudence, Justice, Temperance, Fortitude. Their notes are apprehended in every virtue; at the same time they are special virtues which possess one of those notes peculiarly, to which therefore, in a logical distribution, other virtues can be referred as parts, whether subjective, if they univocally verify the generic note of the cardinal virtue, or potential, if that note is present in them defectively. Yet a virtue which is a potential part can be nobler than the cardinal virtue. Quasi-integral parts of a virtue are those things which must be had together in order that the perfect act of the virtue may be constituted. Thus justice requires that we not violate another's rights and that we positively furnish what is due.

4. The virtues are completed by the gifts of the Holy Spirit, which are infused habitual qualities by which we are prompt to obey the motions, both ordinary and extraordinary, of the Holy Spirit, and therefore we are inclined toward the supernatural end. Seven are numbered: wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, piety, and fear of the Lord.

When we act through those gifts we gather the fruits of the Holy Spirit, which under another respect are also beatitudes.

II. Divine Providence moreover prepares for us exterior aids of examples, counsels, circumstances, but above all the examples and doctrine of Christ. In this doctrine the counsels and promises must especially be attended to by us; above all, however, the often repeated promise of beatitude, already here on earth mysteriously but truly joined with virtue.

— While, after weighing our moral miseries, and the image of God in the sinful man disfigured by iniquity, we meditate on the aids supplied to our liberty, we begin to understand how with the same mouth the Apostle could call himself an unhappy man and grieve ¹, report the groaning of the whole creation (2), and again stir us to continual and perpetual joy (3). That in this life we may bear an affection mingled with pious fear and cheerful hope, the considerations brought together persuade us of our own proper neediness, and of the riches which we have in Christ. We grasp more distinctly also in what way the whole evangelical discipline is of humility (4) and magnanimity: of humility, by which we recognize that there is nothing in us; of magnanimity, by which we dare to expect divine things from God. Indeed, "He who was God was made man, about to make gods of those who were men" (5). This the disciple whom Jesus loved was already handing down to us in inspired words: "But as many as received him, he gave them power to be made the sons of God" (6). But if God has given all things to us with the Son (7), justice itself demands that the Son reign in us through those gifts of His.

The multitude of gifts and virtues may be likened with Augustine to an army; but, as the holy Doctor, addressing a Christian, admonished: there is "an army of the emperor who sits within in your mind. For as the emperor through his army does what pleases him; so the Lord Jesus Christ, beginning to dwell in our interior man, that is, in the mind through faith, uses these virtues as His ministers... Through these invisible virtues, the visible members are moved: the feet for walking; but whither? Whither the good will, which serves as a soldier for the good emperor, has moved. The hands for working; but what? What charity has commanded, which has been inspired within by the Holy Spirit ¹."

¹ Rom. 7, 24. - (2) Rom. 8, 22. - (3) Phil. 4, 4. - (4) "Humility, which is almost the one Christian discipline" (St. Augustine, Sermo 351, 4 (P. L. 39, 1538)). - (5) St. Augustine, Sermo 192 (P. L. 38, 1012). - (6) Gospel of St. John, 1, 12. - (7) Rom. 8, 32.

¹ In epist. Ioannis, Tr. 8, 1 (P. L. 35, 2030).

[Editorial note: Supplementary Notes 1 and 2 have also been attached at their referenced places in the body text, after n. 395 and n. 428 respectively.]

1. To n. 395, concerning material sin. There we described the material sin which he commits who acts freely but ignorantly. But another reason of material sin is had when an evil act is done by him who, on account of madness, sleep, or drunkenness, is not master of himself.

2. To n. 428, concerning the moral specification of sins. Nevertheless, it must not be passed over that complete acts and incomplete acts pertain to one perfect species of sin; but incomplete acts, as such, differ specifically from complete acts. Cf. S. Th. 1, 2, q. 72, art. 7, c. and ad 3.

3. The bibliography is deferred to the last volume.