Infused Virtue and the Effects of Acquired Vice: A Test Case for the Thomistic Theory of Infused Cardinal Virtues

The Thomist 73 (2009): 29-52 INFUSED VIRTUE AND THE EFFECTS OF ACQUIRED VICE: A TEST CASE FOR THE THOMISTIC THEORY OF INFUSED CARDINAL VIRTUES MICHAELS. SHERWIN, 0.P. University ofFribourg Fribourg, Switzerland SERVAIS PINCKAERS REPEATEDLY affirmed the importance of the infused cardinal virtues for the moral life.1 For Pinckaers, what is at stake in this doctrine is the difference that grace makes in the life of virtue. Grace transforms the source and character of moral excellence. "The first source of moral excellence is no longer located in the human person, but in God through Christ."2 In this reorientation, the most important moral virtues "are not 'acquired' by unaided human effort, but implanted in the human person by the Holy Spirit."3 Nevertheless, as dispositions residing in the powers of the human soul, the infused moral virtues are intimately the excellences of the agent himself. As such, they become the traits of character by means of which the Spirit teaches us the ways of holiness. "Thus, in the context of a gradual education guided by the light of the Gospel, an active cooperation between God and 1 Servais Pinckaers, Morality: The Catholic View (South Bend, Ind.: St. Augustine's Press, 2001), 71-72; The Sources of Christian Ethics, trans. Sr. Mary Thomas Noble, O.P. (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1995), 180; "The Sources of the Ethics of St. Thomas Aquinas," in The Ethics ofAquinas, ed. StephenJ. Pope (Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 2002), 23; "The Place ofPhilosophy in Moral Theology," in The Pinckaers Reader: Renewing Thomistic Moral Theology, edited by John Berkman and Craig Steven Titus (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2005), 6768 . 2 Pinckaers, Morality: The Catholic View, 71. 3 Ibid. 29 30 MICHAEL S. SHERWIN, O.P. the human person can develop."4 Pinckaers, therefore, did not see Aquinas's doctrine on the infused moral virtues as a Scholastic vestige, but as something rooted in the scriptural account of moral development. "Some such theory seems necessary if we are to explain what the Scriptures teach concerning the way to live as followers of Christ."5 A cursory analysis of the way New Testament authors employ the Greek terms for the cardinal virtues seems to support their status as infused by God. Ephesians, for example, describes God as having lavished upon us grace that grants us "all wisdom and prudence [phronesis]" (Eph 1:8), while 2 Timothy (1:7) tells us that "God did not give us a spirit of cowardice but rather of power, love and temperance [sophrosyne]," where "power" (dynamis) is one of the New Testament equivalents for the pagan Greek word for courage.6 It is the strength (kratos) that comes from God and emboldens us to resist the devil (Eph 6:10). Lastly, although the New Testament authors radically reinterpret the meaning of justice (dikaiosyne), they affirm that Christ is our justice (1 Cor 1:30) and that in him we become the justice of God (2 Cor 5:21). Prudence, justice, courage, and temperance, therefore, are all described in the New Testament as given to us by God. In this the New Testament authors seem to be following an Old Testament theme that portrays God, through the mysterious action of his wisdom, as teaching the cardinal virtues: "if one loves justice, the fruits of [wisdom's] works are virtues; for she teaches temperance and prudence, justice and courage, and nothing in life is more useful for humans than these" (Wis 8:7). These passages, however, while suggestive, are not of themselves probative. Indeed, many reject the doctrine of infused 4 Ibid. 5 Ibid., 72. 6 One explanation for the virtual absence of the classical Greek term for courage (andreia) in the New Testament is that since its etymological root is the Greek word for man (aner, andros) the New Testament authors wanted to avoid the connotations of self-sufficiency that the term normally conveys. Instead, as Ceslas Spicq notes in his classic study of New Testament morality (Theologie morale du Nouveau Testament [Paris: Librairie Lecoffre, 1965), 354.)), when offering their theology of courage the New Testament authors appeal to a cluster of...