Conferences on the Virtues

By Fr. Bruno Cocuzzi, ocd

Number 4

Naming Virtues and where they Reside

We have now reached that point in this series of conferences on the virtues that we can begin naming a few. But to help us better understand their role and how they perfect us both as human beings and children of God by adoption (they are defined as good qualities, that is, habits of soul by which we live uprightly and which cannot be bent to evil purposes); we would do well to consider the powers of the soul in which they reside, and how they are distinguished, one from another.

The powers of the soul are many, to wit, Intellect, Will, Imagination, the Memories (of sense experience and of ideas), the Concupiscible and Irascible Appetites and the Faculties of Sense Perception. However, virtues do not reside in all of them, and in some they exist only “after a fashion”, namely, only in so far as they subserve the Will. For it is in the Will alone that the Virtues “simply” and properly reside.

For example, virtues do not reside “simply” and properly in the Intellect because certain habits found in excellent minds can be bent to evil as well as to good purposes. They are excluded from the enumeration of virtues because virtues cannot be bent to evil purposes. They are quasi- or kind-of-like virtues because they cause a person to be “good” in a very narrow, non-moral sense. E.g., a good scientist, a good grammarian, a good artist. Yet there can exist in the intellect a quality that enables it to create a home for virtue within itself, and that is the habitual inclination to take its cues from a Will that is united to God or is tending toward God. Thus the supernatural virtue of Faith can reside in the speculative intellect, and the moral virtue of Prudence can reside in the practical intellect.

Similarly, “simply” and properly speaking, virtues cannot reside in the concupiscible or irascible appetites, but again, it is possible for a person to establish in these appetites a certain quality that makes it possible for virtue to reside there, too, and that is the habit of taking its cues from an intellect informed by supernatural charity. Then Temperance can find a home in the Concupiscible appetite, and Fortitude in the Irascible.

When we say that virtue resides “simply” and properly in the Will we mean that it alone is the faculty that simply and properly causes one to embrace and be united to the “good” that is its proper end and destiny. That “good” is of necessity one that transcends the self and is greater than the self. It pertains to the nature of authentic love (and therefore of the will) to go out of the self and to adhere to an “other” good greater than itself. Actually, whether we realize it or not, we instinctively strive to go out of ourselves and be united to the Supremely Good “Other”. Similarly, we all know, whether we want to admit it to ourselves or not, that we are not the supreme good. Also, because we are persons, we cannot turn inwardly to the exclusion of others without doing violence, if not damage, to our personhood. Therefore those habitual inclinations of the will toward the authentic moral good in others or of others can alone be called virtues simply and properly, and which alone perfect us as moral persons. The highest virtues reside in the will, therefore: Supernatural Charity, by means of which we tend toward God and all that pertains to God, and Justice, the moral virtue by means of which we tend toward the authentic good of our fellow human creatures.

III

There are ways of distinguishing one virtue from another also even when they reside in the same power or faculty of the soul. As an illustration, we consider the quasi-virtues that reside in the intellect, the speculative habits. The intellect can be very good at considering or contemplating truth when it is evident and obvious, as is the case with the “first principles”. I am not sure what all of them are, but certainly the “axioms” or self-evident truths we encountered in geometry are among them. That quasi-virtue is called Understanding. Or the intellect can be good at seeking out and uncovering the truth when it is not self-evident and obvious. That is Intelligence. Again, the intellect can be very good at grasping and understanding things and events in their deepest relationships, and that is the quasi-virtue of (natural) Wisdom. Finally, the intellect can be quite good at retaining vast amounts of data or items of information, and that is the quasi-virtue of Knowledge. If we want to get an idea about how these quasi-virtues operate within the intellect without our even being aware of it most of the time, we might consider how it is that it “adds” new data or items of information to the memory. The intelligence draws on the data already in the memories and the data being presented by sense experience and communication with other intelligent beings, reviews it all in the light of the “first principles” of reason and logic, and comes to a conclusion or judgment. Then the quasi-virtue of Wisdom assigns it to its proper niche in the overall scheme of truth and reality.

It is precisely here where we see how easy it is to go astray even if endowed with the finest intellectual gifts. When the data the intelligence is reviewing in the light of first principles is not complete, and then it is impossible to assert that the judgment or conclusion arrived at is the truth, or, the intellect could come up with more than one conclusion or judgment, all of which, though mutually exclusive, could be the unique “true” judgment. At the same time it often happens that one is obliged to act in such circumstances, and thus obliged to “choose” among the possible alternatives as a basis for one’s conduct. And it is precisely here that the true virtue of Prudence, residing in the intellect, comes into play. It is the habitual, effectual inclination to choose that judgment, which accords best with Charity, i.e., Love of God/authentic love of one’s neighbor. Rash judgment is the imperfection and sometimes sin, which enters in at such a point, by means of which one accepts as true what strictly speaking one cannot so accept because of insufficient data (or an error in logic). Our likes and dislikes have so much control here. So often we accept as true what we “want” to be true, based upon our own sympathies or antipathies and therefore most often “self-interest”. As the late, saintly Cardinal Archbishop of Boston Humberto Medeiros used to say, “The heart has its reasons”. That is why Prudence is called the “queen” of the moral virtues, because without it we would be unable to live uprightly. Of course, there is no Queen without her King Consort, and for the Christian, for the Lay Discalced Carmelite, that King is Supernatural Love, or Charity.

There are certain habitual tendencies that exist in the appetitive faculties of the soul which are virtues not because they perfect those appetites, that is, satisfy their basic, legitimate hungers, but because through those faculties they satisfy a higher, a rational appetite, a hunger for “spiritual good”. Thus Continence (restraint from lawful gratification of sense) and Patience (toleration of unnecessary discomfort) dispose the soul for union with God. They and others accomplish the active purification of the appetites that St. John of the Cross teaches in the Ascent of Mt. Carmel, Book I, which in turn enables the soul to accept the degree of Faith, Love and abandonment necessary to endure the passive purification God is anxious to accomplish so that the soul may be transformed into Himself through Love.

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