1. Theological and Infused Virtues
NCSU LYFE March 25, 2018

2. Opening Question Can we be good without God?
Because we are raised to a supernatural state this must be revealed by way of operative powers and thus we have acts performed under the influence of supernatural principles and motives—Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange says “The Christian moral virtues are infused and because of their formal object, are essentially distinct from the highest of acquired moral virtues described by the greatest philosophers…There is an infinite difference between Aristotelian temperance with reason as its only rule, and Christian temperance with the superadded rule of divine faith and supernatural prudence.”

3. Natural-Supernatural Distinction
“I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.” Jn 15:5
“Indeed someone might say, ‘You have faith and I have works.’ Demonstrate your faith to me without works, and I will demonstrate my faith to you from my works.” James 2:18
“Just so, your light must shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your heavenly Father.” Mt 5:16

4. Virtue
“A virtue is an habitual and firm disposition to do the good. It allows the person not only to perform good acts, but to give the best of himself. the virtuous person tends toward the good with all his sensory and spiritual powers; he pursues the good and chooses it in concrete actions.”
CCC 1803
“an accessory quality which enables man to use any potency or faculty belonging to him correctly, with ease, promptness and pleasure.”
Always a mean between two vices, excess and defect
Courage is between daring and cowardice

5. Acquired Virtue
“Human virtues are firm attitudes, stable dispositions, habitual perfections of intellect and will that govern our actions, order our passions, and guide our conduct according to reason and faith. They make possible ease, self-mastery, and joy in leading a morally good life. the virtuous man is he who freely practices the good. The moral virtues are acquired by human effort. They are the fruit and seed of morally good acts; they dispose all the powers of the human being for communion with divine love.” CCC 1804
Each of the acquired, cardinal virtues orders a particular power of man towards its end—prudence (which St. Thomas says is the highest since it is closest to reason), justice (will), fortitude (irascible appetite) and temperance (concupiscible appetite)
Fortitude is above temperance because of its more rational determinateness

6. Infused Virtue
“A good habit of the mind or will given to the soul by God, and not acquired by the action of a human being. The theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity are always infused; the moral virtues are both acquired and infused.”
Fr. Hardon’s Catholic Dictionary
The divine life of grace develops in us under the form of the infused virtues and the gifts of the Holy Ghost
The theological virtues have God as their object while the moral virtues have for their object supernatural means proportioned to our last end
For the man in sin there are often false virtues—think the temperance of the miser and there may also be true acquired virtues as the temperate man who lives according to reason
Either way the man in sin lacks virtue in the solid state and they lack the necessary connectedness of all the virtues
In the case of an acquired virtue the principle is right reason, in the case of an infused virtue it is faith
The infused virtues are an intrinsic facility without always excluding the extrinsic obstacles—these extrinsic obstacles are excluded by the repetition of acts that engender the acquired virtues
The key to understanding the relationship between the acquired and infused virtues is that the infused virtues are not grafted on top of the acquired but instead the acquired facilitate the removal of obstacles to the infused
The acquired are subordinated

7. What is the Role of Acquired Virtue Then?
“…The moral virtues are acquired by human effort.”
CCC 1804
What is the relationship between the two? The acquired remove the obstacles to the infused being completely operative
Thus the needs for the purgative way—the illuminative we start having mixed motives natural and supernatural then unitive everything is done for the glory of God
The key to understanding the relationship between the acquired and infused virtues is that the infused virtues are not grafted on top of the acquired but instead the acquired facilitate the removal of obstacles to the infused
The acquired are subordinated

8. Theological Virtues
“The human virtues are rooted in the theological virtues, which adapt man's faculties for participation in the divine nature: for the theological virtues relate directly to God. They dispose Christians to live in a relationship with the Holy Trinity. They have the One and Triune God for their origin, motive, and object…They are infused by God into the souls of the faithful to make them capable of acting as his children and of meriting eternal life. They are the pledge of the presence and action of the Holy Spirit in the faculties of the human being. There are three theological virtues: faith, hope, and charity.”
CCC
• Theological virtues are necessary because of their supernatural object of which man cannot achieve on his own—they are perfective of the powers of the soul and explain why faith is not enough without hope and charity because it does not unite the whole soul to Christ (only the intellect?)
• They are called theological virtues because (1)they have God as their object (2)they are infused by God alone (3) we would not know about their existence without divine revelation
• While reason cannot prove there are three theological virtues it can show that three would be needed
• The purpose of the theological virtues is to ordain the human intellect and will towards supernatural beatitude
• Faith and hope are companions, in the intellect and in the will respectively, are charity’s companions along the road to God—charity is the embrace of the supernatural end
• In the ordering of the virtues charity because it unites us to God who is loved for Himself is the highest—then hope which is a virtue tending toward God as desired for our benefit (will) and faith (intellect) as the knowledge of God based on His revealing it
o To love God is better than to know Him, but in the natural order it is better to know a thing than to love it (prudence is highest)

9. 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 Church proposes for our belief, because he is truth itself. By faith ‘man freely commits his entire self to God.’ For this reason the believer seeks to know and do God's will. ‘The righteous shall live by faith.’ Living faith ‘work(s) through charity.’”
CCC 1814
Speak of natural faith vs supernatural faith
Natural would say that God exists (James 2:19—”You believe in one God…good even the demons do that and they tremble in terror”)
Faith unites us to God Who is Infinite Truth and causes us to enter into the divine mind since it makes God known to us as He made Himself known through revelation—it is a preparation for the Beatific Vision
Faith is an assent of the mind to truth—it is an assent that is based upon truth
Faith is the foundation of the spiritual life and thus the deeper the foundation the taller the edifice that can be built upon it
Mean between credulity and doubt

10. 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…The virtue of hope responds to the aspiration to happiness which God has placed in the heart of every man; it takes up the hopes that inspire men's activities and purifies them so as to order them to the Kingdom of heaven; it keeps man from discouragement; it sustains him during times of abandonment; it opens up his heart in expectation of eternal beatitude.” CCC
Faith in intellect, hope in will as sustaining our charity and keeping our will directed to God
Hope makes us love God for His goodness to us and through it we firmly and trustfully expect the happiness of heaven along with all the means to attain it
It is in the will and thus empowers us to make an earnest effort to tend towards God and make use of the means of salvation (as opposed to presumption and despair)
Presumption means expecting all the graces we need but not taking the means necessary to secure them either by presuming on God’s goodness thinking we do not have to follow the commandments or our own power rushing into the near occasion of sin
It begets holy desires and gives us the necessary yearnings to sustain our efforts in the midst of difficulty
It increases our energy through the prospect of a reward that far exceeds our efforts
Detachment means seeing everything as either helpful or not towards salvation and being ok with or without it

11. Charity
“Charity is the theological virtue by which we love God above all things for his own sake, and our neighbor as ourselves for the love of God.”
CCC 1822

12. “The Greatest of These…”
“‘If I have not charity,’ says the Apostle, ‘I am nothing.’ Whatever my privilege, service, or even virtue, ‘if I have not charity, I gain nothing.’ Charity is superior to all the virtues. It is the first of the theological virtues: ‘So faith, hope, charity abide, these three. But the greatest of these is charity.’”
CCC 1826
• Faith and hope are companions, in the intellect and in the will respectively, are charity’s companions along the road to God—charity is the embrace of the supernatural end
• In the ordering of the virtues charity because it unites us to God who is loved for Himself is the highest—then hope which is a virtue tending toward God as desired for our benefit (will) and faith (intellect) as the knowledge of God based on His revealing it
o To love God is better than to know Him, but in the natural order it is better to know a thing than to love it (prudence is highest)

13. Devotion to the Sacred Heart
"Behold the Heart which has so loved men that it has spared nothing, even to exhausting and consuming Itself, in order to testify Its love; and in return, I receive from the greater part only ingratitude, by their irreverence and sacrilege, and by the coldness and contempt they have for Me in this Sacrament of Love. But what I feel most keenly is that it is hearts which are consecrated to Me, that treat Me thus. Therefore, I ask of you that the Friday after the Octave of Corpus Christi be set apart for a special Feast to honor My Heart, by communicating on that day, and making reparation to It by a solemn act, in order to make amends for the indignities which It has received during the time It has been exposed on the altars. I promise you that My Heart shall expand Itself to shed in abundance the influence of Its Divine Love upon those who shall thus honor It, and cause It to be honored."
Our Lord to St. Margaret Mary, June 16, 1675

14. Charity and All the Virtues
“The practice of all the virtues is animated and inspired by charity, which ‘binds everything together in perfect harmony’; it is the form of the virtues; it articulates and orders them among themselves; it is the source and the goal of their Christian practice. Charity upholds and purifies our human ability to love, and raises it to the supernatural perfection of divine love.”
CCC 1827

15. Infused Moral Virtues
“Or if one loves righteousness, whose works are virtues, She teaches moderation and prudence, righteousness and fortitude, and nothing in life is more useful than these.”
Wisdom 8:7
As great as the theological virtues are they are not sufficient of themselves to govern the life of the Christian who must act in relation to his supernatural end

16. Prudence
“Prudence is the virtue that disposes practical reason to discern our true good in every circumstance and to choose the right means of achieving it; "the prudent man looks where he is going.’…It is not to be confused with timidity or fear, nor with duplicity or dissimulation. It is called auriga virtutum (the charioteer of the virtues); it guides the other virtues by setting rule and measure…With the help of this virtue we apply moral principles to particular cases without error and overcome doubts about the good to achieve and the evil to avoid.
CCC 1806
Right reason as the rule vs faith as the rule
Charioteer of the other virtues knowing when to act and how Always a mean between two vices, excess and defect and prudence helps to direct that
Courage is between daring and cowardice
We must strive for Christian prudence, that is seeing how to practically use the things of this world according to our supernatural end as opposed to merely natural prudence or prudence of the flesh which is more like manipulation and rationalizing
Christian prudence may not always be directly concerned with this end but always has this end in view
Prudence is necessary for our own personal conduct to avoid sin and practice virtue
To avoid sin we must know its causes and occasions and seek the remedies
Means of growth—prayer (like all of them), reflection on the life of Christ (His virtues become ours, or more accurately we take on His virtues)—especially seek ye first, Ignatius Principle and Foundation, that is referring all things to our last end
Constituent elements of this virtue that need to be fostered—common sense, a habit of reflection, readiness to consult others, determination, foresight and caution

17. Justice
“Justice is the moral virtue that consists in the constant and firm will to give their due to God and neighbor. Justice toward God is called the "virtue of religion." Justice toward men disposes one to respect the rights of each and to establish in human relationships the harmony that promotes equity with regard to persons and to the common good.”
CCC 1807
The supernatural habit of rendering to each his due—distinct from charity in that the latter treats the other as another self and renders service to them
We speak now mainly of rights, whereas justice really speaks about duties (what is owed)
Two kinds of justice—(1)social by which we owe to society as a whole because of the great benefits we receive from it—this would include contributing to the common good (distributive justice) (2)individual—commutative justice
Categories—(1)related to property, petty theft, paying debts on time, etc (2) guarding the good name of others—rash judgments, calumny, gossiping, slander,etc (3) to God—religion and obedience

18. Forgiveness “turn the other cheek” (Mt 5:39)
“Why did you strike Me?”(Jn 18:23).
The goal of forgiveness to restore the relationship back to the level of justice. Justice is a necessary part of love even if it not the most complete form of it. Often “loving our neighbor” simply means ensuring they are justly treated.
Recalling from St. Thomas that justice consists in “rendering to each his due,” we see that it is governed by a principle of reciprocity. This also means that we can treat someone justly while they may treat us unjustly. When we understand this, we can make the important distinction between forgiveness given and forgiveness sought (or received). Christ’s commandment is for us to forgive the other. What they do with that forgiveness is up to them. It can only be offered. But in order to be received they must attempt to restore what is due to us. A sincere apology is certainly a starting point but it usually involves more than that. In justice we have to set out to restore something of what was lost. Teaching children this part of forgiveness is very important from an early age. We do them a grave disservice by teaching them that saying “I am sorry” is always enough. They come to expect forgiveness as a right. It is better to teach them to ask, “will you forgive me?”
Forgiveness offered consists in willing the good of the other person and ensuring they are treated justly. What would it mean to forgive someone who murdered a family member? At a minimum forgiveness would consists in willing that they receive a just trial and fair punishment. It might even mean defending them against the death penalty since it would be an unjust penalty. Christian forgiveness would mean praying for their repentance and conversion so that God would be given His due. Forgiveness would not mean simply forgetting what they have done and pretending it didn’t happen.
If we should not merely “forgive and forget” then we should finish by discussing a key aspect of relationships and that is trust. Forgiveness does not mean that we should instantly operate on the same level of trust as before the offense. Forgiveness may be divine, but it does not absolve us from being prudent in our relationships. While Jesus may have said that Peter should forgive his brother a practically infinite number of times, He was not saying that Peter should set himself up allowing the same thing to happen over and over (Mt 18:21-22). If someone is not trustworthy then we should enter into relationships that require trust with them. This would be excusing and not forgiving.

19. Religion
Religion—moral virtue that inclines us to render to God the worship due Him by reason of His infinite excellence and of His sovereign dominion over us
We offer worship to God, as St. Thomas Aquinas says, not for His sake but for ours. We cannot give to God anything He doesn’t already have. Instead He creates us as rational creatures not just because we manifest His goodness or glory, but because we, among all visible creation, have the capacity to appreciate it. In other words, we worship to both show our appreciation and to grow in the pleasure that His goodness brings to us.
The implications of this are obvious. There are some external acts that are better than others at increasing devotion. This is certainly true in the subjective sense—we all have our favorite environments in which to pray—but it is also true in the objective sense. God is equally present in the bathroom as He is in the chapel, but it is the chapel that has been consecrated (i.e. set aside) as a place of prayer that is objectively better than the bathroom. This is why praying in front of the Blessed Sacrament is called Adoration. You can adore God anywhere in spirit, but in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament that Adoration occurs in “spirit and truth.”
Spiritual but not religious—primacy of the Mass

20. 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
Fortitude and temperance regulate our duties with ourselves” as opposed to justice which regulates our duties towards others
Habit that strengthens the soul in the pursuit of the arduous moral good—governs the irascible appetite and meant to govern both fear and audacity
Its action is to undertake and endure difficult things—we must learn to suffer for God’s sake—St. Thomas –“To bear is more difficult than to attack”
Fear of effort and fear of risks—fear of the unknown, fear of criticism

21. Temperance
“Temperance is the moral virtue that moderates the attraction of pleasures and provides balance in the use of created goods. It ensures the will's mastery over instincts and keeps desires within the limits of what is honorable. the temperate person directs the sensitive appetites toward what is good and maintains a healthy discretion…”
CCC 1808
Moderates the attraction to sense pleasure, especially those of the palate and the flesh—geared towards the preservation of the individual (eating) and the species (sexual powers)
Refer to class on mortification

22. Humility
“A virtue whereby man, through a true knowledge of himself, becomes despicable in is own eyes.”
Humility—the basis of humility is truth and justice; truth about ourselves as we really are and justice causes us to act upon that knowledge
“In man two things may be considered; what there is of God, and what there is of man. Of man there is whatever points to defect; but of all that makes for salvation and perfection there is God.”
We still see the good that is truly in us, but we admire it in the sense that it comes from God both naturally and supernaturally