Aquinas’s Theory of Infused Moral Virtue

 

Dr. Angela Knobel
Graduate Director and Associate Professor, Philosophy
University of Dallas
St. Vincent de Paul Lecture & Concert Series
November 8, 2024
Audio

 

Aquinas’s Theory of Infused Moral Virtue

 

It’s such a pleasure to be here. I’ve heard so much about your college, but so far it has existed only as a legend in my mind. I’ve been eager to compare the reality with all the images in my head.

I was invited to speak to you tonight about Aquinas’s theory of infused moral virtue (that is to say, about his view that not just faith, hope and love but versions of all the moral virtues are bestowed on us by God along with the gift of grace). That’s a big topic: meaning, it’s hard to say everything there is to say about it in an hour. It’s also in some senses a hard topic to talk about, because while I think it’s a topic that everyone should be familiar with; one that gets to the very epicenter of Aquinas’s thinking about the Christian moral life, it is in fact a topic that almost no one knows anything about.

Twenty-two years ago, when I told my prospective dissertation director I wanted to write about Aquinas’s account of infused moral virtue, he said “you’ll never get a job.” [Fortunately, my reply — “I don’t care” — delighted him, and he took me on.] His reaction turned out to be downright enthusiastic compared to those of some of my committee members, one of whom told me, dismissively, that Aquinas’s references to infused virtue were entirely ad hoc and unworthy of serious consideration. Now things are a bit different. It’s now not at all unusual for specialists in Aquinas’s moral philosophy to refer to the notion of the infused moral virtues, and the notion that some or all the virtues are divinely bestowed (i.e. infused) by God is even beginning to become a bit of a thing among Protestants, who are rediscovering versions of the same view in their own traditions.

But for all its relative ‘newness’ it’s still a huge topic. It’s huge in part because in reality it’s not really very new at all (even if everyone seemed to forget about them for a while, scholarship about them stretches all the way back to Aquinas’s earliest commentators), in part because of the sheer volume of questions the concept raises, especially if one also recognizes the possibility of cultivating the kinds of virtues described by Aristotle, and in part because Aquinas — aside from positing them and giving them primacy of place — says so very little about them.

In thinking about what to say to you on this topic, then, I was faced with a decision: I could say a lot about a little, and explain the essential, foundational aspects of Aquinas’s view that not only faith, hope and love, but also versions of all the moral virtues are directly bestowed by God along with the gift of saving grace, or I could say a little about a lot, and try to squeeze everything I’ve come to think about Aquinas’s view of infused moral virtue into one short talk. Especially because I know that this talk is intended to be the springboard for a longer conversation, I’ve opted for the former. My goal in what follows, then, is to make the case for two claims: First, I want to argue that Aquinas’s distinction between natural (i.e. acquired) and supernatural (i.e. infused) virtue arises out of and is even necessitated by his Aristotelian commitments on the one hand and his Augustinian/Christian commitments on the other. Second — and this point is to my mind absolutely essential (if also controversial) — I want to argue that however similar they might sometimes seem to the external observer, Aquinas understands the infused and acquired virtues to be altogether different from each other. They arise from different principles, are ordered to different ends, and incline our appetites toward different objects. I will spend most of this paper making the case for these two claims. This paper, then, bring the question of the relationship between the infused and acquired virtues into focus, but it will not answer that question. I will end, though, by detailing some parameters I think any such account would have to respect.

I. Conceptualizing “Infused” Virtue

Our contemporary assumptions about virtue tend to be Aristotelian: We think that virtues are stable habits, developed gradually over a long period of time. We think that the person who possesses them reliably acts in virtuous ways: that such a one would, indeed, have trouble acting in anything but a virtuous way. If we say that someone has the virtue of temperance (say) we take that to mean not merely that the individual in question reliably eats and drinks the appropriate amount but also that he enjoys doing so and would feel a kind of disgust at the idea of eating or drinking to excess. Even beyond that, we think the temperate person has a kind of insight into what conduct is appropriate in a given situation; an insight that has developed only with time, training, and self-discipline. Moral virtue, on this account, implies a very high bar, one which few ever meet, and those few only after a long space of time. The virtue of temperance is not something one could expect to find in, say, a child. And we think the same account, mutatis mutandis, could be given of moral virtues like courage, or justice, or etc.

Aristotle thought the possession of virtue implied all of the things above. If we, like Aristotle, insist that the possession of moral virtue implies all this, then the very idea of being given a virtue “all at once” will seem impossible and possibly even incoherent: at the very least, it will seem like something that can happen, if at all, only in the rarest and most miraculous of cases. If one is to go from being a glutton or a drunk to possessing everything described above all at once, then it seems like all of one’s deep seated habitual tendencies: when and how one wants to eat or drink, how one thinks about food or alcohol, even how one perceives the world, will all have to change as well, to the point where one might not even seem like the same person. But why think the notion of a virtue has to include all these things?

As will become clear in what follows, Aquinas is indebted to Aristotle for a great deal. But when Aquinas begins his discussion of virtue in the prima secundae, it is Augustine’s definition, not Aristotle’s, that he appeals to. Augustine tells us, says Aquinas, that virtue is “a good quality of the mind, by which we act rightly, of which no one can make bad use, in us without us”(Aquinas 2023, 1.2.55.4) And, says Aquinas, though “habitus” would be more precise than “quality,” and though “of the mind” should be read to include not just reason but also dispositions of those faculties subject to reason, like the appetites, and though “in us without us” refers specifically to infused virtue, the definition is a good one (Aquinas 2023, 1.2.55.4). Augustine’s definition refers to virtue as that by which we act rightly, and says that it cannot be misused. It does not say that virtue causes us to always act rightly, that it eliminates contrary desires, or that it renders us self-sufficient moral reasoners. There is good reason for this. Both Aristotle and Augustine are speaking of qualities that make right action possible. But they have very different notions of what right action is and of how one becomes capable of it.

“Virtue” refers to moral excellence. To speak of “virtues” is to speak of those qualities (usually character traits, habits, or dispositions) that allow one to act in morally excellent ways. Thus to the extent that two traditions understand moral excellence differently, their accounts of virtue will differ as well. The first, crucial difference between the Christian and Aristotelian understanding of virtue has to do with what each account upholds as the goal of the moral life. According to the view that has its roots in Aristotle, virtue enables us to become the best version of what we already are. To be able to say what we most fundamentally are is already to articulate the goal of human life: just as an excellent tomato (or frog, etc.) exhibits those things characteristic of tomatoes, but in a particularly excellent way, so too an excellent human being exhibits what is most characteristic of humans, but in a particularly excellent way. According to the tradition that has its roots in Aristotle, then, the “virtues” are just those qualities that allow us to be an excellent specimen of what we already are. Since Aristotle understands us to be rational animals, the virtues are thus those qualities that enable us to act in ways that exhibit the excellence of reason.

The Christian scriptures, by contrast, insist that Christ’s sacrifice has made it possible for us to become the adopted sons and daughters of God; to participate in the divine life.[1] The goal of the moral life, for the Christian, is to live in a manner befitting our divine inheritance. And living as befits our divine inheritance is not something we can do without divine help. This makes for a fundamental difference between the Aristotelian and Christian understandings of how moral excellence is rightly pursued. Even if they rarely use the word “virtue,” the need to develop morally good qualities such as moderation, courage, and self-control is a near constant theme in the guidance that Paul, Peter, James, and John offer the early church: one cannot merely call oneself a Christian; one must exert oneself to consistently live in a manner befitting a Christian. Anyone professing Christian belief must exert themselves to live out that belief in their works. And the authors of the epistles are explicit about what that life should involve. It should involve moderation, integrity and self-control; it involves guarding one’s tongue, loving one’s neighbor in thought and deed, and caring for the poor, the elderly and the infirm (2 Pet.1:3-11, 1 Cor.10:6-12, Rom.12:9-20). Although the traits believers are encouraged to cultivate are only rarely explicitly referred to as “virtues,” virtues certainly seem to be what they are. The apostles are enjoining those in their charge to cultivate certain ways of living and acting: to exert themselves to become Christians not just in word, but in deed.

The sheer volume of their exhortations, moreover, is itself evidence of a second important Christian belief about virtue, namely that its cultivation was neither either easy nor automatic. Belief in Christ and acceptance of salvation is certainly fundamental, but it is in an important sense a beginning, not an end. Christ is chosen (or rejected) again and again in our actions. To affirm the faith in words but to fail to express it in our deeds is to have a faith that is dead. The repeated admonitions of the apostles indicate that living as befits a Christian is not only something that must be chosen again and again, that it is difficult to choose, and, also, importantly, that one must exercise unceasing vigilance over one’s choices and actions (1 Tim.6:11-13). With the assent of faith, sin’s hold over us is destroyed. But the epistles would not give such extensive instructions about the importance of checking one’s tongue, or living moderately, etc. if it were not the case that those to whom they wrote continued, even as Christians, to feel the pull of their previous lives (1 Cor.10,12-13).

Most importantly of all, though, while the Christian scriptures depict the cultivation of virtue as crucial, as something that must be repeatedly chosen, and as something that one can never rest secure in, they also indicate that the ability to live as faith demands comes from a source other than oneself (2 Cor.2:12, 1 Cor.1:8, 1 Cor.2:4-7, Rom 6:12-14, Rom 9:16, Rom 16:25).

The contrast between the Aristotelian and Christian assumptions about moral excellence will be important for what follows. As we shall see, Aquinas appropriates the Aristotelian account of nature and thus offers an account of natural virtue which accommodates Aristotelian assumptions about virtue. But Aquinas is a Christian, and as a Christian he thinks our nature must be transformed and perfected by grace. While Aquinas is certainly interested in accommodating Aristotelian nature, he is equally interested in accommodating the scriptural account of true moral excellence.

 

II. Nature and Grace

Since scripture clearly asserts that grace makes us the adopted sons and daughters of God, that we are called to act in a manner befitting that adoption and that success in that endeavor is impossible without assistance, it should be no surprise that the Christian tradition that produced Aquinas uniformly agreed that any true virtue was a gift from God (Becjzy 2005, Kent 2012). We can only assume that Aquinas would have taken the orthodoxy of his time for granted. But if the divine source of all truly perfective virtue would have been assumed, it is also important to appreciate the other more controversial questions that Aquinas would have been aware of. One prominent question concerned the possibility of so-called “natural” virtue. Granting that only God can bestow the virtues that enable us to act in a manner befitting our Christian vocation, it still seemed to many that at least some (albeit non-salvific) moral progress was possible apart from sanctifying grace. The Roman emperors Trajan and Nero both considered themselves to be gods and were both dismissive of Christianity. But the former built orphanages and hospitals and disliked persecuting Christians while the latter was notorious for his depravity. Even assuming that Trajan and Nero were equally cut off from grace, the former seems to have been morally superior to the latter.[2] But if one concedes the moral superiority of Trajan, what then? How do Trajan’s “virtues” compare to Christian virtue?

At the time Aquinas wrote, Christian scholars were becoming increasingly willing to countenance the possibility of at least some kind of virtue apart from grace. But they had no clear account, let alone a consensus, of how what those virtues were or how they were related to the virtues given by God (Mattison, 2010). Both the traditional insistence on the divine source of true virtue and the notion that at least some limited moral progress is possible apart from grace are crucial for understanding Aquinas. On the one hand, Aquinas would have assumed the orthodoxy of his time: all truly perfective virtue comes from God. On the other hand, Aquinas would have been interested in the question of “natural” virtue: is some kind of (albeit non-salvific) moral goodness possible apart from the life of grace, and if so, how does that goodness relate to the Christian moral life? In the Aristotelian account of nature, Aquinas finds the resources that enable him to propose an answer. In what follows, I will first explain what Aquinas would have assumed about nature and grace and then explain how Aquinas’s appropriation and transformation of Aristotle enabled him to accommodate both natural and supernatural moral goodness.

Aquinas both accepts and rejects the Aristotelian account of flourishing. Like others (but by no means all) in the Christian tradition, Aquinas maintains that man was created in grace (Aquinas 2024, 1.95.1). Aquinas also holds, however, that grace is not owed to man: although God did not do so, God could have — without any injustice — created rational beings that were ordered to a purely natural kind of flourishing.[3] The good of such a creature (who, again, never existed) would consist in loving God in the manner appropriate to his rational nature: i.e. in the love of a creature for its creator. But for Aquinas, man is created in grace, and the love of God appropriate to him is not merely that of a creature for a distant, unapproachable creator.

Perhaps because Aquinas is committed to the purely hypothetical possibility of a “pure nature,” even in discussing man prior to the fall Aquinas distinguishes what is present in unfallen humanity thanks to our created human nature and what is present in unfallen humanity thanks to grace. On Aquinas’s account, in creation God gives man a “two-fold” gift: he gives him his rational human nature (with the kind of proportionate creaturely good described above) and he gives him the gift of grace. For Aquinas, the gift of grace transforms the very essence of the rational soul, altering both its proportionate good and its very principles of action. Both of these changes will be discussed in more detail below. For the time being, the important point is that Aquinas’s recognition that nature and grace make distinct contributions, even in the state of integrity, gives him the resources for a robust account of fallen nature.

On Aquinas’s view, in the fall Adam loses grace, and in so doing, loses all the transformative effects grace brings about in nature. Adam, and Adam’s sons and daughters, are no longer united to God in friendship; they are no longer participants in the divine life. Indeed, the wound of original sin extends even into nature itself, causing disorder in our desires and impeding even the pursuit of our natural (as opposed to our supernatural) good.

The distinct contributions Aquinas proposes for nature and for grace even in unfallen humanity can help us to understand why Aquinas would have been interested in offering an account of both “natural” and “supernatural” virtue. Natural virtue refers to those virtues that perfect the nature which, though it did not first exist apart from grace, is given as a “first gift,” a foundation, that was perfected by grace. Original sin removes the perfections grace causes and even impedes the nature that remains (Aquinas 2023, 1.2.85). In spite of those impediments, Aquinas thinks fallen man can still make some limited progress toward the fulfillment of the nature that remains apart from grace — (though even that progress cannot occur without God’s help). No amount of success in that endeavor can make us worthy of salvation. But Aquinas did think that progress in the pursuit of natural virtue could have a dispositive effect insofar as it makes us more ready and more open to God’s grace. To understand the difference between the virtues that perfect fallen nature and the virtues that perfect a nature healed and transformed by grace, we will have to say a bit more about what Aquinas thinks grace does.

Grace, for Aquinas, is a habit that disposes the very essence of the soul (Aquinas 2023, 1.2.110.2). In so doing it not only heals the disorder caused by original sin but also elevates the very capacities of our nature. The very capacities that make it possible for us to pursue our natural fulfillment become ordered by grace to the pursuit of supernatural fulfillment. Thus if we can understand how it is that we are by nature capable of pursing the fulfillment of our rational, human nature, and if we can understand how that capacity is transformed by grace, we will be in a position to understand Aquinas’s account of supernatural virtue. In what follows, then, I will first describe the capacities and principles that Aquinas thinks enable us to pursue the fulfillment that corresponds to the nature (considered in itself, apart from the further perfections added by grace) God gives us in creation. With that account in place, I will show how Aquinas thinks grace transforms those principles and capacities and thus makes it possible — albeit not without the continual help of the Holy Spirit — for the Christian to act in a manner worthy of his divine inheritance.

 

III. Natural and Supernatural Virtue

It should be obvious from the proceeding that the nature given in creation becomes central to Aquinas’s entire account of virtue. No exercise in self-perfection will lead to true Christian fulfillment. But grace nonetheless perfects something, and the kind of perfection grace makes possible will have important parallels with the kind of perfection we can achieve on our own. In what follows, I will describe Aquinas’s account of natural virtue — i.e. of how he thinks we can cultivate habits ordered to the perfection of the rational, animal nature given in creation. Then I will describe how grace alters that entire edifice.

In a naturalistic ethic like Aristotle’s, to say what something is most fundamentally is already to articulate an ought: human beings capable of ordering and directing their lives in accord with reason; the good human being will be one which achieves the fullness of this capacity: who orders and directs his life in a fully rational way. Aristotle thinks that we are by nature capable of this fulfillment, and he thinks that fulfillment is achieved through the cultivation of virtue, but — aside from emphasizing the importance of a good upbringing — he offers few details about what it is that makes us naturally capable of cultivating the virtues. Aquinas’s account is considerably more detailed.

“Nothing,” says Aquinas, “can be ordered to an end unless some sort of proportion to the end pre-exists in it, a proportion from which there arises in it a desire for the end” (Aquinas n.d., 14.2) In other words, we cannot be ordered to an end unless there is something “proportionate” to the end in us. In other texts Aquinas describes this “proportion” to the end as an “inception,” or “beginning” of the end: We already, that is to say, have a vague and imperfect understanding of our end, and because of that vague understanding, we desire it. Aquinas believes that in human beings it is the natural habitual knowledge of the natural law that both gives us our initial directedness toward and desire for the fulfillment of our created human nature. Thanks to the natural law we know — and show we know, in all of our actions — that good is to be done and evil avoided. The natural law also, by enabling us to recognize as good those things to which our nature naturally inclines (such as the survival of ourselves and our species, life in society, and the pursuit of knowledge about God), gives us a vague and imperfect directedness toward the good of reason. Aquinas calls the knowledge of the natural law the “seed” of natural virtue, because it provides us with the knowledge and desire from which the virtues grow (Aquinas 2023, 1.2.63.1). Because human beings naturally possess both the “seeds” of virtue and reason, Aquinas believes that all people are in principle capable of reasoning about what acts are and are not in accord with reason. Original sin disorders our desires and impedes our reason, but it leaves our knowledge of the natural law intact.

Although the natural habitual knowledge of the natural law gives us an inchoate vision of what the fulfillment proportionate to our created nature would be, and although reason is in principle capable of rendering that initial directedness specific in action, Aquinas believes that consistent success in that endeavor cannot occur without the (natural) moral virtues. The natural law provides us with very general moral knowledge. But that general knowledge needs to be applied in a concrete case, and unless our desires are rightly ordered, we will not be able to apply that general knowledge correctly. Poorly trained desires can get in the way of right action in two ways. First, they can impede us from doing what we ought, as when we know we ought to defend a friend against slander, but keep silent out of fear. Second and more importantly, though, poorly trained desires can impede our ability to recognize what right action requires. The natural law gives us certain universal principles, but, says Aquinas, if we are to apply that knowledge in action, we also need a right order to what Aquinas calls “particular” principles, i.e. to the various smaller, more particular goals that lie in between the general directives of the natural law and a decision about how to act in a concrete instance (Aquinas 2023, 1.2.58.5). The natural law tells me that life in society and the preservation of my own life are good things. When I reason about what courage and temperance requires I take my departure from the knowledge given in the natural law. But if I do not also experience what Aquinas calls a “connaturality” for, say, “standing firm in human justice” or “eating the amount conducive to the health of the body” at the level of my passions — i.e. if I do not feel an appetitive connaturality the ends to which the various moral virtues incline us — then Aquinas thinks that I am likely to deliberate poorly about what courage and temperance require. Aquinas thinks the moral virtues give us an appetitive connaturality for the various “particular principles” that our reason must pass through on its way from the universal principles of the natural law to a conclusion about action in a particular instance. Those general appetitive inclinations help to keep the deliberations of reason on track. The particular goals to which the natural moral virtues incline us are, importantly, narrower specifications of the general goals given in the natural law: the former are precisions of the latter. This will be important for understanding the necessity of infused moral virtue in Aquinas’s schema.

So far, I have offered a very quick snapshot of Aquinas’s understanding of the key elements of Aquinas’s account of natural virtue: of the initial direction given by our natural habitual knowledge of the natural law and of the respective roles of reason and moral virtue in rendering that general direction specific. I have focused on these three elements because Aquinas believes that each is altered in crucial ways by grace. In what follows, I will explain that alteration.

Supernatural Virtue

We have seen that Aquinas claims that no one can be ordered to any end unless some “proportion to the end” pre-exists in them, and that Aquinas thought we are “proportioned” to our natural fulfillment insofar as we possess natural habitual knowledge of the first principles of the natural law, which gives us a vague and inchoate understanding of what our natural fulfillment would be. The natural law orders us to the good of reason. It does not order us to participation in the divine life. It follows that we cannot really be ordered to the end of the Christian moral life unless God also makes us “proportionate” to that end in some way; unless God gives us the supernatural equivalent of the direction that the natural law provides the nature given in creation. Aquinas thinks that this occurs through the divinely given virtues of faith, hope and love. And because the natural moral virtues help to render the natural law precise, different virtues will be needed to render the general direction given by faith, hope and love precise.

Throughout his corpus, Aquinas repeatedly draws an analogy between our knowledge of the natural law (and the desire for the good of reason that that knowledge causes) and the theological virtues (Aquinas 2023, 1.2.62.3, Aquinas 2005, 1.10). Just as our knowledge of the natural law gives us a vague and inchoate glimpse of what the good of reason is, so, says Aquinas, does faith give us a first, vague and inchoate glimpse of supernatural beatitude. While the vague knowledge of the good of reason given by the natural law immediately causes a desire for the fulness of that good, the vague knowledge of supernatural beatitude given in faith does not in and of itself give us the confidence to pursue a good which so exceeds our natural capacity: we need in addition to be united to God in charity and also to be given the virtue of hope (Aquinas 2023, 1.2.62.3, Aquinas 2005, 1.10). Together, the virtues of faith hope and love give us the supernatural equivalent of the “seeds” that point us toward natural virtue.

The fact that Aquinas envisions the theological virtues as “seeds” helps explain the role and necessity of the infused moral virtues in the Christian moral life. We saw above that the natural virtues exist in the middle ground between the vague, general knowledge given in the natural law and a concrete decision about how to act. It is not merely that our appetites must be docile to reason’s control (though that is an important part of virtue) but that our appetites must be appropriately ordered to — to the point of experiencing a connaturality for — the “particular ends” in between the general knowledge given in the natural law and a decision about how to act. Unless I desire at an appetitive level to stand up for what is right, to consume the amount conducive to bodily health, to behave appropriately toward my spouse, and so on, I will be led astray in my deliberation. This helps to clarify exactly what Aquinas thinks the infused virtues do and why they are needed.

Because the natural law and the theological virtues give us inchoate knowledge of very different ends, they are the “seeds” of very different virtues: the “particular principles” we need to experience a connaturality for in order to act as befits our natural fulfillment are not the same as the particular principles we need to experience a connaturality for in order to act as befits our supernatural fulfillment. In order to be rightly ordered toward our natural fulfillment, we need to experience an appetitive connaturality for eating the amount conducive to the health of the body. In order to be rightly ordered to our supernatural fulfillment, we need to experience an appetitive connaturality for “castigating the flesh and bring it into subjection” (Aquinas 2023, 1.2.63.4). At the natural level, having the virtue of courage means having an appetitive connaturality for standing firm for the sake of human justice. At the supernatural level, having courage means having an appetitive connaturality for standing firm in the faith (Aquinas 2023, 2.2.124.2.1).[4] The appetitive inclinations that enable right deliberation about what does and does not conduce to our natural good do not, importantly, make us rightly ordered to our supernatural good. Perhaps more importantly, Aquinas doesn’t think we are capable of causing the appetitive inclinations that order us to our supernatural good at all. Only God can incline our appetites to stand firm in the good of faith, or to castigate the flesh and bring it into subjection, etc. Thus, while our repeated actions can incline our appetites to the goods proportionate to our natural fulfillment, the appetitive inclinations proportionate to our supernatural fulfillment must be bestowed, or “infused,” by God.

The preceding leads us to perhaps the most crucial difference in Aquinas’s accounts of natural and supernatural virtue, namely the different capacities of reason at the natural and supernatural level. Our natural habitual knowledge of the principles of the natural law gives us an inchoate understanding of the good proportionate to our nature and the desire to pursue it. Aquinas believes that thanks to that initial direction, reason can recognize the wrongness of some actions, at least those “that are most opposed to right reason.” Moreover — although parents and teachers and good laws are required — we can be trained to see what acts are and are not opposed to reason, and as we repeatedly act accordingly, we simultaneously acquire both prudence and the natural moral virtues. One might be tempted to assume that a version of the same thing would also occur at the supernatural level: that faith, hope and love would give us an inchoate knowledge of and desire for supernatural beatitude, that the supernatural moral virtues would incline our appetites to the appropriate “particular” ends, and that the combination of the theological and infused moral virtues would enable us to reason correctly about acts ordered to supernatural beatitude. But this is precisely what Aquinas denies. Aquinas insists that even with the theological and infused moral virtues, we cannot act in a manner befitting our divine adoption without the direct and continual assistance of the Holy Spirit.

While the theological virtues of faith, hope and love gives us a first, inchoate glimpse of supernatural beatitude analogous to the way the natural law directs us to our natural fulfillment, Aquinas argues that our possession of the theological virtues is much less secure, and our glimpse of the end they direct us much less illumined (Aquinas 2023, 1.2.68.2). Faith gives us sight, but it allows us only to see “through a glass darkly.” Even with the appetitive inclinations given by the infused moral virtues, our human reason is inadequate: it cannot all by itself direct us in acts ordered toward supernatural beatitude (Aquinas 2023, 1.2.68.2). If we are to act as befits a Christian we need in addition the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

Aquinas thus argues that in addition to the theological and infused moral virtues, we receive in baptism the gifts of the Holy Spirit: dispositions that make the various powers of our souls receptive to the Holy Spirit’s motion. Aquinas does not think that the motion of the Holy Spirit replaces reason or renders it unnecessary. Rather, he holds that the Holy Spirit prompts us, both affectively and rationally, and thus helps to guide our deliberation. The Holy Spirit might, for instance, direct our thoughts through the gift of counsel, or make us feel pity and thus direct us toward mercy, or etc.

A final point bears emphasizing here. Aquinas maintains that the assistance given in grace: the theological and infused moral virtues and the gifts of the Holy Spirit — make it possible for Christians to act in a manner befitting their divine adoption. The mere possession of those gifts does not make our use of them inevitable. Rather, the gifts given in baptism free us from the despotism of sin: they give us the ability to act in a manner befitting our divine inheritance (Aquinas 2005, 1.11). But while the gifts given in grace make it possible to resist our vicious desires, they do not remove those desires altogether, and they do not make Christian action inevitable or even reliable.[5] The Christian who has received divinely given virtues must still exert himself to live accordingly, and to participate more and more in the life grace makes possible.

Considered in light of our initial contrast between Aristotelian assumptions about moral excellence and those implied by scripture, it becomes clear that Aquinas’s framework accommodates both, albeit each in a different way. The natural virtues; the virtues that can be (imperfectly) pursued apart from the life of grace, will indeed be the kind of habits envisioned by Aristotle: deep seated inclinations caused by our repeated acts that reliably incline us to act in certain ways. The very process of cultivating these dispositions — to eat or drink the amount reason demands, say, or to stand up for what reason recognizes as right — will (in Aquinas’s view) drive out contrary dispositions (Aquinas 2005, 1.11).[6] But growth in the life of grace is different. The virtues given in grace produce different acts and incline the appetites in different ways than the natural virtues do. Since those virtues are given to us, they exist alongside contrary dispositions. Even though Aquinas believes that God typically increases the infused virtues in those who practice them, our acts are not the cause of that increase. Perhaps most importantly, while Aristotelian nature virtue can become so deeply rooted that it becomes impossible to act otherwise, the cultivation of infused virtue is always a work in progress.

 

IV. Ramifications

So far I’ve made two arguments. I’ve argued that the infused virtues, far from being ad hoc or a gesture to tradition, play a key role in the integration he envisions between the Aristotelian account of nature and the Christian account of grace. I’ve also argued that there are, for Aquinas, deep and important differences between infused and acquired moral virtues. The infused and acquired moral virtues are not just ordered towards different ends but also have different objects: each type of virtue moderates the appetites in different ways. Beyond all that, the infused virtues can be gained and lost all at once, but can also exist alongside contrary dispositions, while the acquired virtues are gained slowly, lost with difficulty, and cannot exist alongside contrary disposition. And so it should now also be clear that just as I promised, I’ve raised far more questions than I’ve answered. I’ll conclude by raising some of those questions and by gesturing towards some possible answers, answers which we can hopefully unpack in our ensuing conversation.

The question that looms largest, is one which what I have said has hopefully only brought into focus, is the question of how Aquinas envisions the relationship between the infused and acquired virtues. Very many scholars have tried to collapse the infused and acquired virtues into one; to argue that we get most of the way towards moral perfection by cultivating Aristotelian acquired virtues; that grace simply crowns and redirects the entire edifice of Aristotelian virtue, and so on and so forth. It should be clear from what I have said that I think that Aquinas’s texts show that answer to be false. At the same time, however, Aquinas clearly seems to think that Aristotelian acquired virtue is important, and for whatever reason, he doesn’t seem to feel the need to sharply distinguish acquired virtues from their infused counterparts: while I would maintain that his extensive discussions of virtue in the secunda secundae are primarily focused on the infused virtues rather than their acquired counterparts, much of what he says there is clearly applicable to both acquired and infused virtue. So what’s the relationship?

I think Aquinas’s texts give us some parameters which any possible answer must respect. First, I do not think one can get around the conclusion that the goal of the Christian moral life has to be the cultivation and increase of the infused moral virtues. Grace makes nature capable of pursuing the only end capable of truly fulfilling us, and so it would be odd to insist that it is sometimes or even ever appropriate to set the pursuit of that end aside and focus on the pursuit of Aristotelian flourishing instead. But second, and equally importantly, though, Aquinas also makes it clear that grace only begins a process of transformation. The person who receives grace becomes capable of performing (with the help of the Holy Spirit and the gifts given in grace) acts ordered to supernatural beatitude. To be capable of performing such act is no guarantee that we will perform them, let alone perform them regularly. After John Newton experienced the dramatic conversion that inspired him to write Amazing Grace, he persisted in his old life for some time and only gradually — as he read scripture more and more, and prayed more and more — relinquished it. Whatever account we give of the respective roles of infused and acquired virtue has to respect the fact that where the goals of the Christian moral life are concerned, most of us are like toddlers trying to take our first, uncertain steps.

The second important point I want to make is this. I think Aquinas’s texts give evidence that even if the infused theological and moral virtues are bestowed on us all at once in the moment of grace, they do not become operative in us all at once in the moment of grace. Faith, hope and love give us new first principles, and the infused moral virtues give us new appetitive inclinations, but Aquinas is also clear that the “old man” remains: the gifts of grace are in the typical case covered over and obscured by sin. While the cultivation of the infused virtues is the only reasonable goal of the Christian moral life, even if we manage only an act of acquired virtue, we still avoid sin.

Finally and perhaps most importantly, even if acts of infused virtue are the goal, we cannot know if or when or how often we achieve that goal. The best we can do is try to avoid sin, try to act according to the best of our understanding and pray that our understanding and our choices will be guided by the Holy Spirit and helped by the infused virtues. If we seek that earnestly and nonetheless fail — as I think we often will — then I think we what we succeed in performing will look very like an act of Aristotelian virtue, and I think it is fully in accord with the Aquinas’s view to say that such acts, and especially the repeated performance of them, will indeed dispose to growth in the Christian moral life.