On the Virtues in General: Article 11: Whether infused virtue may be increased
Article Article : Whether infused virtue may be increased Objections It seems not, because:
() Things only increase in respect of quantity. But virtue is not a quantity, but a quality. Therefore it is not increased.
() Virtue is an accidental form. A form is something that consists in an utterly simple and unchanging essence. Therefore virtue does not vary in respect of its own essence. Therefore it is not increased in its essence.
()Anythingthatisincreasedchanges.Anything,then,thatisincreased in its essence, changes in its essence. But anything that changes in its essence is either destroyed or generated. Generation and destruction are bothchangesinathing'ssubstance.Thereforecharitycannotbeincreased in its essence, except by being destroyed or generated.
() What belongs to something's essence can be neither increased nor decreased. But it is clear that the essence of virtue belongs to its essence.
Therefore virtue cannot be increased in its essence.
() Contraries occur in respect of the same thing. Increase and decrease arecontraries.Thereforetheyoccurinrespectofthesamething.However, infused virtue is not decreased, because it cannot be decreased either (i) through virtuous action, which instead strengthens it; or (ii) through a venially sinful action, because then a number of venially sinful actions would completely remove charity and the other infused virtues, and this is impossible; for then a number of venial sins would be of equal gravity to one mortal sin; or (iii) through mortal sin. For mortal sin removes charity and the other infused virtues. Therefore infused virtue cannot be increased.
() Like things are increased by like, as Aristotle says [Soul ., a].
Therefore if infused virtue is increased, it ought to be increased by the addition of virtue. But this cannot happen, because virtue is something simple. One simple thing added to another does not make it bigger; for example, if you add a point to a point, it does not make the line longer.
Therefore infused virtue cannot be increased.
() Aristotle says [GC ., b] that an increase is an addition to a pre-existing magnitude. Therefore for virtue to be increased, it needs something to be added to it. But then it will become more composite, and move further from likeness to God, and therefore be less good. That
On the Virtues in General must be wrong. Therefore the only possibility left is that virtue is not increased.
() Everything that is increased changes. Everything that changes is physical. Virtue is not something physical. Therefore it does not change.
() If something has a cause that does not vary, it does not vary itself.
But the cause of infused virtue is God, who does not vary. Therefore infused virtue does not vary. Therefore it does not admit of less or more.
Therefore it does not increase.
() Virtue, like knowledge, comes under the class of disposition.
Therefore if virtue can be increased, it ought to be increased in the way that knowledge is. But knowledge is increased by multiplying its objects, that is, by extending itself over more things. Virtue does not increase in this way, as is clear in the case of charity: for the smallest amount of charity extends itself to loving everything that ought to be loved through charity. Therefore there is no way for virtue to be increased.
()Ifvirtueisincreased,itsincreasemustcountassometypeofchange in it. But it can only count as 'alteration', which is a change in quality
[Cat , b]. However, according to Aristotle [Phys ., b], 'alteration' can occur in the soul only in the sensory part. Charity is not found there, nor most of the other infused virtues. Therefore not every type of infused virtue can be increased.
() If infused virtue can be increased, it must be increased by God, who is its cause. However, if God increases it, this must happen through a fresh inpouring by him. But there cannot be a fresh inpouring unless there is a new infused virtue. Therefore infused virtue can only be increased by the addition of new virtue. But it cannot be increased in this way, as has been shown above. Therefore there is no way for infused virtue to be increased.
() Dispositions are greatly increased by actions. Therefore since virtue is a disposition, if it is increased, it will be increased greatly by its own actions. But this cannot happen, so it seems, as an action is something that comes from a disposition. For things are only increased when something goes into them, not when something comes out of them. Therefore there is no way that virtue can be increased.
() All the activities of a single virtue share a single character. If, then, a given virtue is increased by its own actions, it ought to be increased by any such action. Experience seems to prove this false. For we do not find through experience that virtue grows with any such action.
Article () Something that is in its character the best of its kind cannot be increased: for nothing can be better than the best, nor whiter than pure whiteness. However, the character of virtue just is that it is the best of its kind, for virtue is the upper limit of a capacity. Therefore virtue cannot be increased.
() Something that is in its character indivisible cannot be made more or less intensive: for example, the form of a substance, or a number, or a figure.But virtue is by definition something indivisible, for it consists in the mid-point. Therefore virtue cannot be made more or less intensive.
() Nothing infinite can be increased, because nothing is larger than something infinite. But infused virtue is infinite, because through it a person can merit infinite good, i.e. God. Therefore infused virtue cannot be increased.
() Nothing advances beyond its own completeness because that is a thing's finishing-point. However, virtue is what completes whatever has it; for Aristotle says [Phys ., b] that virtue is the tendency of something complete towards what is best. Therefore virtue does not increase.
But on the other hand () Peter :says, 'As newborn babies, reasonable and without guile, desire milk, so that you may grow into salvation.' However, no one grows into salvation except by increasing virtue, which is what orders a person towards salvation. Therefore virtue can increase.
() Augustine says [TGJn .] that charity will increase in such a way that when it is increased it will also merit being completed.
My reply (i) Many make mistakes about forms by treating them as if they were substances. This seems to happen because forms are described by using nouns, just as substances are, albeit abstract nouns, such as whiteness or virtue, and so on. That is why some are led by this way of speaking to treat them as if they were substances. From this two errors arise: (a) some
Thus, being a dog (substance), being three (number), and being a triangle (figure) do not come in degrees of more and less. Either a thing is, or it is not, a dog, three, or a triangle.
On the Virtues in General people posit a hidden existence for forms; (b) others hold that forms exist by being created. For they reckon that whatever is true of a substance ought to be true of a form, and so, when they fail to find a source from which forms can be generated, they hold either that they are created
{cf. (b)}, or that they pre-exist in matter {cf. (a)}.
They do not notice that just as being belongs not to a form but to a subject by means of the form, so too the process of coming into being
(which concludes with there being a form) does not belong to the form, but to the subject. A form x is called a 'being' not because it itself is, if we speak strictly, but because something is it. In the same way, a form is said to 'come into being' not because it itself comes into being, but because something comes to be it: namely when its subject is brought from capacity to actualisation.
(ii) Similarly, on the question of increase in qualities, some people speak of this as if qualities as well as forms were substances. Now a substance is said to increase insofar as it is the subject of a change from a smaller quantity to a greater quantity. This change is what is called 'increasing'.
Since the increase of a substance happens by adding one quantifiable substance to another, these people think that charity and the other infused virtuesareincreasedinthesameway,byaddingcharitytocharityorvirtue to virtue.
But this cannot stand. The reason is this: we can only understand the idea of adding one thing to another if we have first understood them as two. But we can only grasp that there are two different things of a single type if they belong to distinct subjects. For the forms of a single type can only be numerically distinguished if they inhere in different subjects. For one quality to be added to another, then, one of two conditions is needed:
(a) one subject is added to another; so, for example, one white thing is added to another white thing; or (b) in a subject that is becoming whiter, something becomes white which was not previously white, as some people believe happens with physical qualities. Aristotle, however, disproves this possibility [Phys ., b]. For when something becomes more curved, it is not that some new thing is curved that was not curved before, but that the whole thing becomes more curved. In the case of qualities that are spiritual, which have either the soul or part of the soul as their subject, we cannot even imagine such a possibility.
The text adds 'or whiteness to whiteness'.
Article (iii) That is why yet others say that charity and the other infused virtues are not increased in their essence, but are said to be increased, either because they become more firmly rooted in their subject, or because they are exercised more fervently and more intensively. Now this claim would be reasonable if (a) charity were a substance which existed in itself separately from any other substance. That is why Peter Lombard, who holds [Sent ...] that charity is a substance, i.e. the Holy Spirit itself, does not seem unreasonable in holding that it can be increased in this way. Others, however, who consider that (b) charity is some quality, are basically unreasonable in holding the same view.
The reason is that a quality's being increased is nothing other than its subject's sharing to an increasing degree in that quality: indeed, a quality does not exist except insofar as it inheres in a subject. Precisely from the fact that a subject shares more in such a quality, it is more strongly active.
This is because each thing acts insofar as it is actualised; that is why the more it is brought to actualisation, the more completely it acts. Therefore to hold that some quality is not increased in its essence, but is increased in its degree of rootedness in its subject, or in the degree of intensity of its actualisation, is to hold contradictory beliefs at the same time.
(iv) Finally, therefore, we need to consider (a) how certain qualities and forms are described as being increased, and (b) which are the ones that can be increased.
(a) Now we need to know that since names are the signs for concepts, as Aristotle says [Int , a], in the same way that we learn things that are less well known from things that are better known, we also name things that are less known from things that are better known. That is why, since change of place is the best known of all types of change, the phrase 'at a distance', meaning 'not in the same place', is applied to all contrasts in things that change, as Aristotle tells us [Met ., a; Phys ., a]. In a similar way, since we perceive more easily when something changes its size than when it changes in the sense of altering in quality, it comes about that words suitable for change of size are used also in the context of altering in quality. Now a body that changes its size until it is complete is said to increase, and the final, complete, size is called
'big' by comparison with the incomplete. Similarly, then, for the reasons I have explained, something that changes in its quality from incomplete to complete is said to 'increase' in quality, and the complete quality is described as 'big' by comparison with the incomplete. Moreover, since
On the Virtues in General the completeness of a thing is its goodness, Augustine says [Trin ..] that even in things that are not big in terms of size, we still take 'more' to mean better.
When something changes from having an incomplete to having a complete form, all that happens is that the subject is more fully actualised, since a form is an actualisation. That is why, for the subject to participate in the form more means simply that the subject is actualised more fully in respect of that form. Just as something can be brought by another agent from being in a state of pure capacity to having the form actualised, in the same way it can be brought by another agent's activity from being less than completely to being completely actualised.
(b) This, however, does not happen with every type of form. There are two exceptions, for the following reasons:
(α) because of the character of the form, for example when the character of the form is completed by something that cannot be divided, such as a number. For every time you add one to a number, you change its type: you cannot talk about more or less twoness or threeness. That is why you will also fail to find more or less in those quantities that can be labelled by numbers, such as a double cubit or a triple cubit, or in figures such as triangles or squares, or in ratios, such as double or triple;
(β) because of the relation between a form and a subject, when the form exists in the subject in an indivisible way. That is why a substantial form cannot be made more or less intensive, because it gives the thing its being as a substance, which happens only in one way. For where the substance has a different being, there is a different thing. That is why
Aristotle likens definitions to numbers [Met ., a]. It is also why any x that is predicated as a substance of some y, even if x actually belongs to the category of accidents, cannot be predicated of y more or less. For example, whiteness is not said to be more or less a colour. For the same reason, abstract qualities too, since they are described in the same manner as are substances, do not become more or less intensive. Something is not said to be more or less whiteness, only more or less white.
Now neither of these reasons applies to charity and the other infused virtues to prevent them from existing more or less intensively. They are not in their character indivisible in the way that a number is {cf. (α)}.
Nor do they give their subject its being as a substance, as the substantial forms do {cf. (β)}. Therefore they do exist in a more or less intensive way, to the extent that the subject is brought to actualise them more
Article fully, through the activity of the agent that causes them. That is why just as the acquired virtues are increased by the actions that cause them, so the infused virtues can be increased by the action of God, who is their cause.
Our own actions, too, can be related to the increase of charity and the infused virtues as tendencies, in the same way that they make us tend towards receiving charity in the first place. For we can do what is in our own power to prepare ourselves to receive charity from God. Our further actions can be meritorious to the degree that charity increases, because they presuppose charity, which is the basis for meriting anything. But no one can have any merit at all from having received charity in the first place, for without charity we can merit nothing.
In sum, we say that charity can be increased by becoming more intensive.
Replies to objections () Just as we talk about 'increase' in charity and the other virtues by analogy, so we talk of 'quantity', as is clear from my reply.
() The form does not vary because it is not a subject that varies.
However, it can be said to vary in the sense that the subject varies in respect of it, by sharing in it more or less fully.
() Changes in something in respect of its essence can be understood in two ways:
(i) with reference to what is distinctive of the thing, that is, what it essentially is or is not. Changes in essence of this sort are simply changes in and out of being, that is, cases of generation and destruction;
(ii)asachangeinsomethingthatadheresintheessence.Forexample, we say that a body has in its essence changed its place, because the subject has moved from one place to another. Similarly, we can say that some quality changes in its own way with respect to essence when it varies in degrees of completeness, or rather, when the subject does so in respect of it. This is clear from what I said in my response.
() Something that is predicated essentially of charity cannot be predicated of it to a greater or lesser degree: we do not say that it is 'more' or 'less' a virtue. But 'more' charity can be called 'more' virtue, because of our way of talking, since we talk about it as if it were a substance. Now since charity is not predicated essentially of its subject, the latter may admit of it to a greater or lesser degree. This is how the subject is said
On the Virtues in General to 'have more or less' charity. What, then, has more charity, is also more virtuous.
() Charity is not decreased, because there is no cause that can decrease it, as Ambrose proves.However, it has a cause that can increase it, i.e.
God.
() Increase by addition is an increase in a substance characterised by quantity. Charity is not increased in this way, as I said in my reply.
From this, the answer to objection () is also clear.
() Charity is said to increase or change not because it is in itself the subject that changes, but because its subject changes and increases in respect of it.
() Although God does not vary, things can vary without God's varying.
For it is not necessary that everything that changes something else is changed itself, as Aristotle proves [Phys ., b]. This is true in particular of God, who acts not by necessity of nature, but by will.
() There is one sense in which the idea of size, as I have explained, applies to all qualities and forms alike, that is, with reference to their degree of completeness in their subject. Size or quantity in this sense applies to them per se. However, size or quantity in a different sense can also apply to some qualities per accidens. This happens in two ways:
(i) by reason of the subject. So, for example, whiteness is quantified per accidens, because its subject is something of a certain size: if the subject getsbigger,thenwhitenessisincreasedperaccidens.However,thisincrease only allows us to say that there is more whiteness there, but not that the thing is whiter. Then we can talk of 'more' white, because we attribute this increase to whiteness in the same way that we attribute it to the subject that is the reason for the whiteness being said, per accidens, to increase.
Thistypeofquantityandincrease,however,doesnotapplytothequalities of the soul, i.e. to knowledge or virtue;
(ii) quantity and increase can be attributed to a quality per accidens, with reference to the object on which it acts. This is the sense in which we talk about a 'quantity' of virtue; it is said to be more because of the quantity of its object either (a) understood as continuous. For example, someone who is very strong can carry a large weight, or do something great in whatever way (whether that thing is great in the sense of size or degree of completeness); or (b) understood as discrete, in the sense that Cf. ST aae ..
Article someone who is very strong can do many different things. In this way, quantity can be attributed per accidens to the qualities of the soul, i.e. to knowledge and the virtues.
However, there is this difference between knowledge and virtue: since it is not part of the character of knowledge that it actually embraces all objects, there is no need for someone knowledgeable to know everything that can be known. However, it is part of the character of virtue that it acts virtuously in every respect. That is why knowledge can be increased or decreased both with respect to the number of its objects {cf. (b)} and with respect to how intensively the subject possesses it {cf. (a)}. However, virtue can be increased only in the second of these ways.
We ought to notice that it is the same character that means that a quality (i') is able to achieve something large; and (ii') is large itself, as is clear from the preceding argument. That is why a large degree of completeness can be described as a large degree of virtue.
() A change in charity in the sense of an increase cannot count as an alteration between contrary states, which would only occur in sensible things or in the sensitive part of the soul, but only as an alteration, or passive experience, in the sense that it involves receiving something and being completed. Similarly, feeling and understanding are both passive experiences or alterations. Aristotle distinguishes senses of alteration or passive experience in this way [Soul ., b].
() God increases charity but not by pouring in fresh charity, rather by making more complete that which is already there.
() An act that comes from an agent can cause acquired virtue by impressingactivevirtueonsomethingthatreceivesitpassively,asIargued above. It can increase it in the same way.
() Charity and the other infused virtues, as I have argued, are increased by actions as being dispositions and as being meritorious, rather than as being active. Moreover, a certain degree of virtue does not have to include completed action that corresponds to it, for it is not necessary for someone who possesses charity always to act in accordance with the full potential of charity. For our use of our dispositions is subject to our will.
() (i) The character of virtue does not consist in being the best of its kind in itself, but with reference to its object. For it is through virtue that someone is ordered towards the upper limit of his capacity, that is towards doing things well. That is why Aristotle says [Phys ., b] that virtue is the tendency of something complete towards what is best.