Religion as a Virtue Staudt Dissertation

almost always think of "religion" as a system of beliefs and hardly ever advert to the fact that it has long been considered a virtue. St. Thomas Aquinas, in fact, speaks of it as the greatest of the moral virtues (cf., II-II q.81 a.6 s.c.). Although similar sentiments were expressed by some of the ancients such as Aristotle and Cicero, in this essay we will enquire into Thomas" treatment of the virtue of religion in particular. As Pius XI pointed out, St. Thomas "brought the whole science of morals back to the theory of the virtues and gifts" (Studiorum Ducem, 21). 1 If, then, we are to understand the Common Doctor"s thought on moral theology, a good place to start may be with the "greatest of the moral virtues" while comparing it with the other virtues and finding its place within the whole.

Copyright © 2013-15 Francisco J. Romero Carrasquillo. All rights reserved. Pre-Publication draft of article by the same title, forthcoming in Goris H., Hendriks L., Schoot H.J.M. (eds.), "Faith, Hope and Love Thomas Aquinas on Living by the Theological Virtues," Series: Thomas Instituut Utrecht 16 (Leuven: Peeters, 2015). EXTENDED ABSTRACT: Today the ternary number of the theological virtues may seem to us to be beyond dispute, as it is solidly grounded in the Pauline corpus and in the Catholic theological tradition. Perhaps surprisingly, however, in the Middle Ages the issue was not so self-evident and it was disputed whether there were more than three theological virtues, and especially whether the virtue of religion, which was known to the pagan philosophers and which inclines man to give to God the worship that is due to Him, is to be counted as a theological virtue. William of Auxerre and St. Bonaventure categorized religion as being in some way a theological virtue. St. Thomas Aquinas, on the other hand, following his master St. Albert the Great, settled the question so-to- speak, at least for the Thomistic tradition, by categorizing the virtue of religion as a virtue that is annexed to justice, and thus locating it solidly within the realm of the natural moral virtues, and as distinct from any theological virtue (ST II-II.81). In his questions on religion Aquinas gives us very fine precisions regarding the nature of the theological virtues, especially when he explains why religion is not a theological virtue— and curiously most of these precisions cannot be found explicitly within his treatises on the theological virtues (cf. ST II-II.1-46). Concretely, here he presents two very helpful principles that shed an enormous amount of light on our understanding of his teaching on the theological virtues—and elucidating these two points is the principal aim of the present paper. The first principle (1) in question is Aquinas’ very technical way of distinguishing the theological virtues from the virtue of religion, which he ultimately draws from his doctrine on the object and end of human acts (cf. ST I-II.18): the virtue of religion has a creature (religious cultus) as its object and God as its end, whereas the theological virtues have God as both their object and their end. As a corollary, the virtue of religion and the theological virtues have in common the fact that they essentially have God as their end, and in this respect the four stand apart from all other virtues. The second principle (2) is the fact that any virtue is capable of ‘commanding’ the acts of other virtues towards its own ends. How this principle is related to the first can be seen from the examples Aquinas uses: both the virtue of religion and the theological virtues are ‘commanding’ virtues. First, the principal acts of the virtue of religion, such as prayer and sacrifice, are directly ‘elicited’ by the virtue of religion, but there are also other secondary or indirect religious acts, such as chastity and martyrdom, which, though directly elicited by other moral virtues (e.g., temperance and fortitude) are ‘commanded’ by the virtue of religion in such a way that religion orders them to a higher, religious end. Thus, the acts of essentially non- religious virtues can all be transformed into indirectly religious acts by being ‘commanded’ to a religious end. Similarly—and this is the main idea that the paper attempts to unpack—the acts of essentially non-theological virtues can all be transformed into indirectly theological acts by being ‘commanded’ by the theological virtues. In this way, the theological virtues can govern the whole system of natural virtues, bringing a supernatural dimension to all of human life. Thus someone interested in studying Aquinas’ doctrine on the theological virtues can gain a better understanding of the theological virtues by going beyond the treatises on the theological virtues and studying why Aquinas thinks that the virtue of religion is a moral virtue and not a theological one. In particular, the doctrinal principles on the distinction of moral and theological virtues and on the commanded and elicited acts of a virtue, both found within the discussion on religion in Aquinas’ Summa, are the basis of a highly technical and philosophically sound account of how the theological virtues, and especially charity, can be as it were the ‘form’ of the other virtues.

Religions, 2023

The aim of this article is to interpret the virtue of religio in the thinking of Thomas Aquinas against the background of his Summa Theologiae. In Summa Theologiae, the issue is placed in the context of justice and injustice; thus, this article seeks to show the deeper reason as well as the possible connections between religio and iustitia. Justice, according to Thomas, is preferably realised where there are differences among people and some debt (debitum) occurs that needs to be settled. The inclusion of the virtue of religio under justice is justified by the existence of a relationship in which a debitum also arises, but settlement is impossible. Aristotle, who inspired Thomas, claims that true friendship rests on similarity and equality. This article wants to present how this opinion of Aristotle could be manifested in Thomas’s description of the virtue of religio. The article posits the question of whether the gift of friendship with God does not permit us to give a new interpretation of the virtue of religio. The authors conclude that, together with love, the virtue of religio is infused into man, thanks to which he can perform deeds commensurate with the goal of ultimate beatitude. For a person who loves God, the act of religio is not only a means of satisfying the demand of justice towards the Creator of all things but also a grace in which he returns his love to God.

This paper seeks to make a highly original contribution to the debate on whether in Aquinas’ natural law ethics requires belief in God. The author gleans from the texts of Aquinas an argument for why living a full life of natural virtue requires that one practice the virtue of religion, a natural moral virtue that inclines us to perform religious actions. The author concludes that lack of belief in God is detrimental for the moral life, even at the natural level, for: (1) the virtue of religion is not only a legitimate natural virtue without which a person’s moral life is incomplete, but is actually classified by Aquinas as the highest of the moral virtues, and thus to lack this virtue is no small moral defect; and (2) most significantly, this virtue ‘commands’ the other moral virtues, ordering them to their ultimate natural end, and thus without this virtue the moral life falls into disorder even at the natural level.

2014

This paper seeks to make a highly original contribution to the debate on whether in Aquinas’ natural law ethics requires belief in God. The author gleans from the texts of Aquinas an argument for why living a full life of natural virtue requires that one practice the virtue of religion, a natural moral virtue that inclines us to perform religious actions. The author concludes that lack of belief in God is detrimental for the moral life, even at the natural level, for: (1) the virtue of religion is not only a legitimate natural virtue without which a person’s moral life is incomplete, but is actually classified by Aquinas as the highest of the moral virtues, and thus to lack this virtue is no small moral defect; and (2) most significantly, this virtue ‘commands’ the other moral virtues, ordering them to their ultimate natural end, and thus without this virtue the moral life falls into disorder even at the natural level.