Sect. 144Elevating Grace Considered as a Supernatural Habit of the Mental Faculties—the Theological VirtuesElevating Grace Considered as a Supernatural Habit of the Mental Faculties—the Theological Virtues

I. The life of adoptive sons of God, the fruit of a new birth, is evidently destined to be permanent, like the fruit of natural generation. Hence the grace which elevates rational creatures to this higher life, must likewise be permanent. At the moment when the adoption takes place, if not sooner, the higher faculties of the mind required for the acts of supernatural life must be endowed with a permanent supernatural power. In other words, the intellect and the will receive new qualities or habits. Considered as an inner vigour perfecting the life of the mental faculties, these habits or qualities belong to the order of mental virtues (ἀρετή). In as far as they specially perfect the will and endow it with habitual rectitude, they are moral virtues. Again, in common with acquired virtues, they are not inborn, but are acquired and superadded to the natural faculties. On the other hand, they considerably differ from virtues acquired by the exertion of our own faculties. They are infused from above as a gift pure and simple; they not merely temper and improve an existing power, but they transform it into a power of a higher order. This, however, applies only to virtues which are “essentially infused,” i.e. which can be obtained only by way of infusion from above; not to virtues “accidentally infused,” ie. to virtues which God infuses, although they may be acquired by personal exertion. Peter Lombard, summarizing the teaching of St. Augustine, defines supernatural virtue as “a good quality of the mind, by which we live rightly, which no one uses badly” (2 Sent., dist. 27).

II. Infused virtues, in as far as they are inherent in the created mind, are indeed distinct from the Holy Ghost Who causes them, but, at the same time, they can neither exist nor exert themselves without the conserving and moving influence of God. Nor is their dependence on Divine conservation limited to that common to all created powers; it acquires a special character from the circumstance that the created mind is not the principle but merely the subject of the infused virtue, and that it is a participation in the Divine Life. Hence the acts proceeding from infused virtues are, in quite a special manner, the acts of the Holy Ghost working in the created mind: just as the rays proceeding from a body illuminated by the sun are the rays of the sun, and the fruit borne by the branch is the fruit of the root (cf. Council of Trent, sess. vi., c. 16). By the infused virtues, especially by Charity, the Holy Ghost dwells, lives, and works in the created soul as the soul lives and works in the body; He is, as ft were, the soul of the soul’s supernatural life.

The natural living faculties of the soul are the subjects of the infused virtues. The conjunction of the infused virtues with the natural faculties is so complete and perfect that the supernatural acts proceed from both, as if they were but one principle of action. So far all theologians are agreed. But they differ as to the explanation of this conjunction. The Molinists (Ripalda, De Ente Supern., disp. 118, sect. 5) hold that the natural faculties cause the act to be vital and free, and that the infused virtues cause it to have a supernatural character. The work done by the faculties is like that done by the eye in the act of seeing; and the work of the virtues is like that of the external light in the same act. Or they compare the conjunction to that of tree and graft: the tree produces the fruit which the graft ennobles. The Thomists, on the other hand, think that it is the infused virtue itself which causes the supernatural act to be vital and free, by pervading and ennobling the innermost root of the natural faculties. They liken the infused virtue to the power of sight itself in the act of vision, or to the influence of the root on the branches, or, better still, to the influence of a noble olive tree on the wild olive branch grafted on it. The Thomistic view is certainly deeper, and explains better how grace is really the mainspring and the inner vital principle of supernatural life.

III. That the three theological virtues—Faith, Hope, and Charity—are infused is beyond doubt (Council of Trent, sess. vi., c. 7). It is, moreover, certain that they are three distinct virtues. Faith can exist without Hope and Hope without Charity; each of them has its own peculiar external manifestation and internal constitution. But it is not so certain whether there are any infused moral virtues. Many theologians admit that the acts of moral virtues performed by the sons of adoption either have no particular supernatural character, or that whatever is supernatural in them is sufficiently accounted for by their connection with the theological virtues. At any rate, supernatural moral virtues are but branches springing from the theological virtues. Their acts consisting rather in a direction or disposition of the will than in a supernatural union with God, they do not distinctly and directly require a physical elevation of the faculties of the soul. Hence, Faith, Hope, and Charity, the marrow and the soul of supernatural life, are pre-eminently the supernatural virtues. On them primarily and directly depends the meritoriousness of all acts of virtue, and they contain the beginnings of eternal life and the participation in, or conformation to, the Divine Life. In the language of the Schoolmen, they are purely and simply “gratuitous virtues”—that is, given freely and for our sanctification and salvation (gratis datæ et gratum facientes), and working freely, i.e. for no other motive than God. Their excellence is, however, best expressed by the term “theological” or “godlike” virtues. The import of this term is, that Faith, Hope, and Charity have a peculiar excellence beyond that of other virtues. They come necessarily from God; they are known by means of Divine Revelation only; they liken the creature to God; above all, they make the life of the created soul like unto the life of God, as it is in itself, because they effect a union with God as He is in Himself, and imply a permanent indwelling of God in the soul.

IV. Faith, Hope, and Charity, taken together, constitute the whole principle of the supernatural life, in such a way as to work into one another like the parts of an organism. Faith is the root and foundation; Charity, the crown and summit; Hope stands midway between them. The organic connection of Faith and Charity is described by the Apostle (Gal. 5:6): Faith is actuated, perfected, animated (ἐνεργουμένη) by Charity, so that he who possesses Charity lives a supernatural life. This implies that Charity ranks highest in perfection, because it completes the union with God in this life, and enables us to perform salutary acts. Supernatural life, therefore, consists purely and simply in Charity, or, better, Charity is the root of it all. Between Faith and Charity, too, there exists an organic relation. Charity presupposes Faith, in the same way as the animation of the body presupposes its organization. The child of God “lives of (ex) Faith in Charity;” that is, the Charity which informs Faith is the fulness and substantial perfection of supernatural life, and all perfect acts of virtue are rooted in Charity.