Becoming Virtuous
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The Church's teachers often speak of "the seven virtues:"
Faith, Hope,
Charity, Prudence, Fortitude, Temperance, and Justice. The first three
of these are the "theological virtues," known as such because they
relate directly to -- and come from -- God Himself. They are infused in
us by God, and we receive them only as a gift of grace, such as through
supplication and the
Sacraments. The
last four
of these -- the "Cardinal Virtues," "moral virtues," or "human
virtues" -- are virtues which
can be developed and practiced by man in his natural state, without
supernatural aid. In fact, it wasn't the early Christians, but the
ancient Greeks who first wrote about the these virtues: Plato (d. ca.
423 B.C.) wrote of them in the fourth part of his "The Republic," which
predates their mention in the seventh verse of the eighth Book of
Wisdom, a verse that relates how wisdom "teacheth temperance, and
prudence, and justice, and fortitude, which are such things as men can
have nothing more profitable in life."
St. Ambrose (d. A.D. 397) was the first to refer to them as the
"cardinal" virtues (where "cardinal" means "hinge"), a description
based on the fact that these four virtues are the virtues on which all
other natural virtues "hang." They've been depicted over and over again
in Church art, often grouped together with the theological virtues and
personified as women, and have come to be symbolized in distinct ways.
Prudence is typically shown holding a mirror, book, serpent, or fish --
and
is sometimes depicted as having two or three faces of different ages;
Fortitude is shown
wielding a club or accompanied by a lion, and often standing by or
holding a broken column; Temperance is usually shown pouring wine from
an urn or holding a bridle and reins; and Justice is shown holding a
sword or scales, often while wearing a crown (below, from left to
right, are Fortitude, Temperance, Justice, and Prudence). As another
example, you can see them wonderfully depicted in these 16th century Flemish tapestries.
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On the Moral Thinking: A Basic Primer
on Catholic Moral Theology page, you'll find an introduction to the
virtues, which you should read first. This
section of the website will be purely practical;
the focus will be
on acquiring them. In order
to acquire them, though, we need motivation, so should answer the
question "why should we strive for virtue?"
The first and most important answer is that we are to emulate Christ so
He might deign to save us. While we cannot work our way into Heaven,
and while salvation is a gift of grace, we must do more than simply
believe that Christ is the Son of God (see James 2:14-26 and know that
even "the devils also believe and tremble"). We must cooperate with
that
grace by doing the right things. We are to avoid sin, and "put on
Christ," as Romans
13:12-14 tells us:
The night is
passed, and the day is at hand. Let us therefore cast off the works of
darkness, and put on the armour of light. Let us walk honestly, as in
the day: not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and
impurities, not in contention and envy: But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ,
and make not provision for the flesh in its concupiscences.
A second answer to the question of why we should strive for virtue is a
practical one: without virtue, we are doomed to endure unjust social
orders. It's been known for millennia that democracies, marked by
political liberty, invariably devolve. Plato, again in his
"The Republic," describes how the rule of the wise gives way to
timocracy (the rule of those motivated by honor), which gives way to
oligarchy marked by corruption and the desire for wealth. Oligarchy
then gives
way to democracy in which liberty, egalitarianism, and
the satiation of the passions predominate. And finally, democracy gives
way to tyranny after men become unwilling to govern themselves.
He describes the democratic man as a "lotus-eater" who calls modesty
"silliness," temperance "unmanliness," moderation "vulgarity," anarchy
"liberty," insolence "breeding," and impudence "courage." He writes
that, in democracies,
the father grows
accustomed to descend to the level of his sons and to fear them, and
the son is on a level with his father, he having no respect or
reverence for either of his parents; and this is his freedom, and the
metic is equal with the citizen and the citizen with the metic, and the
stranger is quite as good as either...
... [T]he master fears and flatters his scholars, and the
scholars despise their masters and tutors; young and old are all alike;
and the young man is on a level with the old, and is ready to compete
with him in word or deed; and old men condescend to the young and are
full of pleasantry and gaiety; they are loth to be thought morose and
authoritative, and therefore they adopt the manners of the young.
Sound familiar? 1
The Founding Fathers of the United States were well aware of the
hazards of democracies (which is why they formed a Republic instead).
John Adams wrote to the Massachusetts Militia: "Our Constitution was
made only for a moral and religious People. It is wholly inadequate to
the government of any other." Now look around and see the modern
"lotus-eaters" that surround you. See how those who lack fortitude vote
for more "free" things from the government at the expense of those who
persevere in work, how those who are unwilling to practice chastity
move the burden of raising their young from themselves to the taxpayers
(or murder the results of their fornications), how libertines demand
that the world twist how it speaks of reality so it fits their
ideologies rather than the other way around. Nero fiddled while Rome
burned; today, our civilization collapses while
CardiB sings about her genitalia. Our course must be reversed. We must
become virtuous, and train our children to be the same, in order to
save Western civilization.
A third answer to the question is that you will be making the world a
better place, doing the right things with effects
that may reverberate throughout the world in ways you can't imagine,
making the lives of those you love easier and less disordered, and
setting
a good example for others, including any children you might have -- or
have influence over as an uncle, aunt, older sibling, mentor, teacher,
etc.
A fourth answer is psychological in nature: practicing the virtues is a
large part of living a fulfilling, well-ordered life that is rich in
meaning and easier to endure in the long run. In the short run, it may
be easier and "more fun" to take the low road and the short-cuts, to
sit on the couch and risk nothing, to go ahead and have that third
piece of pie. But the prudent man makes decisions that tend not to be
of the sort that'll result in chaos and pain. A fortitudinous
man doesn't let life's obstacles stand in the way of his goals, thereby
keeping him from success, or allow himself or his loved ones to be
bullied or mistreated. A temperate man won't likely find himself the
father of eight children by five different women, an addict living on
the streets, in prison on drug charges, too fat to walk up a flight of
stairs, or so addicted to
pornography that he can't become attracted to a real woman. A just man
won't find himself with enemies who dislike him for good reason, and
who want revenge against him. Further, if you're called to marriage,
you will become worthy of attracting a virtuous spouse, which can only
sweeten the time you spend in the world and be a great help in getting
your children to Heaven.
Life is tragic enough; don't make it worse by your own actions.
Becoming Virtuous
A virtue is a good habit, and you acquire good habits by first
committing to do so, and then by practicing them. Aristotle, in his
"Nicomachean Ethics," puts it clearly:
... [T]he
virtues we get by first exercising them, as also happens in the case of
the arts as well. For the things we have to learn before we can do
them, we learn by doing them, e.g. men become builders by building and
lyreplayers by playing the lyre; so too we become just by doing just
acts, temperate by doing temperate acts, brave by doing brave acts.
Once you have practiced a behavior enough, it becomes habitual -- an
easier, more "reflexive" way of responding to the world, and a part of
your very being. But this takes time. C.S. Lewis, in "Mere
Christianity," rightly distinguishes between merely doing something
virtuous once in a while and actually becoming a "virtuous person":
There is a
difference between doing some particular just or temperate action and
being a just or temperate man. Someone who is not a good tennis player
may now and then make a good shot. What you mean by a good player is
the man whose eye and muscles and nerves have been so trained by making
innumerable good shots that they can now be relied on. They have a
certain tone or quality which is there even when he is not playing,
just as a mathematician's mind has a certain habit and outlook which is
there even when he is not doing mathematics. In the same way a man who
perseveres in doing just actions gets in the end a certain quality of
character. Now it is that quality rather than the particular actions
which we mean when we talk of "virtue."
You can think of developing virtue as moral strength training: at
first, a
man might be able to bench press forty pounds, but after a few weeks,
he'll be able to press eighty pounds, then later, his body weight, and
so on until, one day, he's stunned to realize that he's become, and
that others see him as, "a strong man." It will happen, like so many
things in life, "gradually, then suddenly" 2: You might
take the gradual steps of putting
$40 in the bank each month, year after year, and then receive a bank
statement that makes you suddenly realize that you now have
enough
money to put a down payment on a house. Or you might
decide to lose weight, going through the drudgery of gradually
eliminating various foods from your diet, and then suddenly find
yourself delighted that you're
able to wear clothes you haven't been able to fit into for years. And
so it is with becoming a virtuous person. But those moments that happen
"suddenly" can't happen at all without starting the journey. An old
Cherokee story to keep in mind as you go along:
An old man told
his grandson, "A fight is going on inside you, me, and every man -- a
terrible fight between two wolves. One wolf is evil: he is lustful,
proud, lazy, angry, envious, greedy, gluttonous, and morose. The second
wolf is good: he is prudent, just, brave, strong, temperate, humble,
merciful, and joyful."
The grandson listened, then asked, "Which wolf will win?"
The grandfather replied, "The one you feed, son. The one you
feed."
Now, let's get on with fattening up the good wolf...
Footnotes:
1 The
reversal of authority from the old to the young is nowhere better
epitomized than by phenomena like the fame of Greta Thunberg or the
goings-on at our universities. Consider the Yale
students screaming in the face of Professor Nicholas Christakis over
the topic of Hallowe'en costumes in 2015. Or the happenings
at Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington in 2017: students
invaded the administration building and held hostage the College's
President, George Bridge. They wouldn't even "allow" the man to leave
the room to urinate. At one point during their takeover, he used his
hands while speaking and was admonished by the students, who told him
to put his hands down, that his raised hands weren't "appropriate."
President Bridge meekly obliged, as he obliged them at every step.
Learn about "the Evergreen story" at Benjamin Boyce's Youtube channel:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLRdayXEOwuMG9DG66Bvx6YbUnhw-buS5K
2 "Gradually, then suddenly" is a line
from chapter 13 of Ernest Hemingway's "The Sun Also Rises":
“How did you go
bankrupt?” Bill asked.
“Two ways,” Mike said. “Gradually, then suddenly.”
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