Introduction: Natural and supernatural virtues
Introduction (commandments that require us to refrain from doing certain things), positive precepts (commandments that require us to do certain things) are not to be acted upon all the time and in every possible way. For one thing, it would be impossible to do so. I cannot take every available opportunity for honouring my father and mother and for giving to the poor and for worshipping God and for the many other things I am obliged by positive precept to do. More important than this purely practical problem, however, is a difficulty that arises from the metaphysics of goodness sketched earlier. Goodness is perfection, completeness, full-being. So if an action is to be good, it must get everything right. It must be done by the right person, with the right aim, from the right state of character, and under the right circumstances. This is what Aquinas is getting at when, as he so often does, he quotes the dictum of pseudo-Dionysius that 'Goodness arises from an integral cause.'
So we are to act on the precept requiring brotherly correction only 'when the appropriate conditions are present regarding persons, places, reasons, and times' (DQBrCorr rep.). Most important among these conditions is 'that the action corresponds to the end at which the virtue is aiming. When correcting an offender, charity aims at reforming him. The action would not be virtuous if the offender were corrected in such a way as to make him worse' (ad ). Of course, this means that in order to act virtuously in performing the duty of brotherly correction, someone needs to be able to 'read' people well, to find the words and the tone of voice that will soften the offender's heart and inspire reform, not cause him to dig in his heels and add resentment to iniquity. And the other circumstances require astute discernment as well. 'It is not possible', Aquinas writes,
'to provide a discourse that defines these circumstances' – that is, some general rule or set of rules that could be applied mechanically and would invariably give the right answer about how to act in any given situation –
'because judging them must take place in individual cases. This is the job of practical wisdom, whether acquired by experience and over time, or, better still, infused' (rep.).
Natural and supernatural virtues Notice that Aquinas here envisions two quite different ways in which one might acquire the practical wisdom that will enable one to judge correctly about how to act in particular situations. One might acquire it xxvi
Introduction according to the natural means of which Aristotle speaks: 'by experience and over time'. But one might also acquire it in a supernatural way of which Aristotle knew nothing: it might be 'infused' – literally, 'poured in' – by God. Infused practical wisdom is even better than the acquired kind. This is not because it is intellectually superior to the acquired kind
(say, because it is more comprehensive or more accurate), but because it is connected with our supernatural good. As Aquinas puts it, itisnotnecessaryfor[infused]practicalwisdomthatsomeoneisgood attakingcounselineveryarea,e.g.commerceorwar,butonlyinthose matters that are necessary for salvation. Those who are dwelling in grace do not lack that, however simple they are, in keeping with John .: 'Anointing will teach you about everything.'
(DQCard ad ) Aquinas holds that there are infused counterparts for all the cardinal virtues: not just infused practical wisdom, but also infused temperateness, courage, and justice. They differ, not in the actions they dispose us to perform, but in the end for the sake of which they dispose us to perform them. For example, the person with acquired temperateness, as we have seen, tempers his sensual desire for the sake of his own good as correctly discerned by reason. The person with infused temperateness does the same thing, but for God's sake.
In purely natural terms, the person with only the acquired virtues is in some ways better off than someone with only the infused virtues.
Those who are in a state of grace possess the infused cardinal virtues, but 'they can still find it difficult to exercise the virtues which they have receivedasdispositions,becausethetendenciesresultingfromtheirearlier sinful activity remain with them. This does not happen with virtues that are acquired through engaging in virtuous activity', because in the very process of acquiring those virtues one roots out the tendencies that oppose virtuous activity (ad ).
Later theologians will question whether it is necessary, or even rational, topositinfusedcardinalvirtues.Aquinas,however,isemphaticthatthere must be such virtues. His insistence on this point is another illustration
Bonnie Kent writes that John Duns Scotus was 'the first Scholastic theologian to subject this class of virtues to intense critical scrutiny'; she sketches Scotus's arguments and their subsequent influence in 'Rethinking Moral Dispositions: Scotus on the Virtues' in The Cambridge Companion to Duns Scotus, ed. Thomas Williams (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, ), pp. –, especially in sections and .. xxvii
Introduction of his distinctive way of negotiating a middle position between integral
Aristotelianism and rejectionism. Although he upholds the integrity of the natural order, allowing that human beings have a natural end and a set of virtues that dispose them to achieve that end, he also acknowledges a distinct and superior supernatural order, with its corresponding set of virtues. Yet there is an intelligible continuity between the two. It is, in a sense, natural for there to be supernaturally infused virtues, and the supernatural has a parallel structure to the natural. Notice how all these points are made in his extended argument that there are some supernaturally infused virtues:
Just as human beings acquire the first thing that completes them, i.e. the soul, from the action of God, so they also acquire the last thing that completes them, that is complete human happiness, directly from God, and they rest in him . . .
It is appropriate, then, that just as the first thing that completes a human being, which is the rational soul, exceeds the abilities of the material body, so the last state of completeness that human beings can attain, which is the blessedness of eternal life, should exceed the abilities of human nature as a whole. Now, each thing is ordered to its end by what it does, and the things that contribute to the end ought to correspond in some way to that end. Consequently, it is necessary for there to be some sorts of completeness in us that exceed the abilities of the principles natural to us and that order us towards our supernatural end. This could only be the case if God infused in human beings certain supernatural principles of activity on top of the natural ones.
(DQVirtGen rep.) So far I have been speaking only of the infused cardinal virtues, but there are other infused virtues. The infused cardinal virtues perfect our natural capacities so that we will deal with the concerns of our natural life in a way that is informed by our supernatural destiny. The other infused virtues perfect our natural capacities so that we can deal directly with concerns that transcend our natural life altogether. These virtues, in other words, are supernatural not only in the end to which they direct us but in the subject-matter they allow us to deal with. These are the three 'theological' virtues of faith, hope, and charity. 'By faith', Aquinas says, 'the intelligence may be enlightened concerning the knowledge of xxviii