Acquired and Infused Virtue
| Controlling authority | Catechism 1803–1845 and 1996–2005; Thomistic synthesis |
|---|---|
| Status | Theological and human virtues are doctrine; distinct infused moral habits are classical Thomistic synthesis |
| School | Thomism |
| Branch | Moral theology |
Acquired and Infused Virtue distinguish, in Thomism, stable good habits generated by repeated human acts from those God infuses with grace to order the person to the supernatural end.
Two generations of a good habit
An acquired virtue is caused by repeated deliberate acts. Justice is learned by just deeds, fortitude by facing due difficulty, temperance by ordered use of pleasure, prudence by judging well in particulars. These are real human goods. Original sin wounds their acquisition; it does not make them fictitious. Infused virtue is caused by God with sanctifying grace, proportioned to friendship with him and to the beatific end, which acquired virtue cannot reach as such.[1]
The theological virtues are only infused. One does not acquire charity by practice as one acquires a craft, though acts of charity increase the infused habit. The moral virtues, in the Thomistic account, exist on both levels. This article therefore includes the theological virtues and is not a duplicate of Acquired and Infused Moral Virtues, which treats the cardinal pair in more restricted focus.[2]
Charity as form
Infused charity commands and forms the other virtues so that their acts are meritorious and ordered to God loved for himself. Without charity, remaining acquired habits or even unformed faith do not constitute the life of justification. That is Catholic doctrine on living faith. The scholastic image of charity as form is the Thomistic way of stating it.
Coexistence and asymmetry
A converted person may have infused prudence while still carrying acquired vices that make good action heavy. Conversely, a pagan may have impressive acquired temperance without the state of grace. Mortal sin destroys charity and the living coordination of infused moral virtue, while acquired dispositions remain. Restoration in Penance restores the infused principles. The asymmetry protects both the necessity of grace and the seriousness of character.
Habitus is the genus. Act and Potency explain why repetition matters and why infusion is not an act replacing all future acts. The Natural and Supernatural Orders explain why the same cardinal names can be analogically doubled without splitting the person in two. One subject acts, sometimes from nature, always, if in grace, from elevated principles.[3]
Formation without moralism
Catholic formation therefore joins training and prayer. Quietism waits for infusion to abolish effort. Moralism treats holiness as a self-made temperament. Aquinas requires both: the sacraments and actual graces, and the labor of repeated acts, counsel, law, and friendship. Veritatis Splendor's insistence on virtue and the moral object sits easily with this school, without canonizing every manual dispute about how infused virtue is lost.[4]
The Gifts of the Holy Spirit, in the Thomistic scheme, dispose the person to the Spirit's motion beyond the ordinary mode of the virtues. That is theology. The Church's preaching of the gifts in Confirmation and in the tradition of Isaiah 11 is doctrine at the level of the gift's reality, not at the level of Aquinas's exact overlay.[5]
Status
Teach as doctrine: faith, hope, and charity are infused; human virtues grow by acts and are purified by grace; charity can be lost by mortal sin; no one meritoriously reaches the supernatural end by nature alone. Teach as Thomistic synthesis: two complete sets of cardinal virtues, their precise causality, and many questions of increase. The adjacent article on acquired and infused moral virtues should be read with this one, not against it.[6]
The distinction is pastoral because it tells the truth about struggle. Grace is already present in the justified; ease may not be. Effort is required; it is not a substitute for the Eucharist or for the theological virtues. Thomism's two origins of virtue keep those sentences from fighting one another.
References
- Back to citation Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1996–2005 — Authoritative teaching on sanctifying grace as participation in divine life, actual grace, the elevation of human powers, and the gratuity of God's gift.
- Back to citation Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae I–II, questions 55, 62, and 63 — Primary account of virtue as a good habit, the infused theological virtues, and the distinction between acquired and infused moral virtues.
- Back to citation Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae I–II, questions 49–54 — Primary analysis of habitus as a stable quality disposing a power, its causes, subject, increase, diminution, and distinction from potency and act.
- Back to citation John Paul II, Veritatis Splendor — Encyclical on the moral law, the natural law, virtue, and the relation of human freedom to eternal and divine law without reducing morality to mere consensus.
- Back to citation Leo XIII, Aeterni Patris — Encyclical restoring Christian philosophy in the school of Thomas Aquinas while distinguishing that commendation from a definition of every Thomistic thesis.
- Back to citation Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1803–1845 — Authoritative synthesis of human and theological virtues, their acquisition or infusion, the cardinal structure, and charity as the form of the virtues.