Kindle Notes & Highlights
When Paul explained to them about the true God, “ ‘In him we live and move and have our own being’; as even some of your poets have said” (Acts 17:28), he was quoting from memory Epimenides of Crete of the seventh century B.C.
“When Paul wrote to the Philippians ‘Whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things’ (Phil. 4:8), he was only taking up a purely humanistic concept proper to that of philosophic wisdom.” Pope Benedict XVI, St. Paul (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2017), 10–11.
So seeking the truth does indeed mean that we must seek to conform our thoughts with the facts of external reality.
We are called to build the habit or virtue of truth within ourselves so that we always speak what we know to be true.
Truth’s nature as a virtue means that it is a habit, a disposition we build in ourselves to tell what we believe to be the truth.
justice, at its core, involves giving others their rightful due.
Thomas emphasizes, echoing Aristotle, that we are social animals and that we owe one another whatever is required to preserve human society.
while every moral virtue consists in a golden mean, it also “inclines to” — or is, in a sense, nearer to — one of the two vices on either side of it in terms of deficiency or excess.
So, while truthfulness about oneself is indeed the golden mean of the virtue of truth, “it is more repugnant to prudence to think or boast that one has what one has not, than to think or say that one has not what one has.”
“Rendering our neighbors their rightful due is precisely the right and just thing to do.”
What we believe or know should correspond to what we say.
We give God our rightful due to the extent that we use our powers for good, as He intended.
In terms of a pithy definition, sanctifying grace is grace given by God to a person to make him holy and to unite him to God as a participant in the divine nature.
Gratuitous grace is grace given by God to a person to enable him to help lead others toward union with God.
Operating grace is grace that directly moves us to will and act, in which our minds are moved, but our minds themselves do not move (as when God gives us the grace to will good instead of evil).
Cooperating grace is the grace that strengthens our will and gives us the capacity to do “meritorious works, which spring from the free will” — thus making us ready to receive operating grace and to put it to good use”
Prevenient grace is grace that precedes and causes a state or act of the soul.
Subsequent grace is the grace that follows as an effect of a prior effect of grace. Thomas lists five effects of grace as follows: (1) it heals the soul; (2) it helps us desire the good; (3) it helps us carry out acts to attain the good; (4) it helps us persevere in striving for the good; and (5) it helps our souls reach glory with God.
“good use of free will” meaning willing in accordance with right reason in service of the intellect, rather than according to unregulated desires at the service of our passions.
Virtues are dispositions and tendencies we work to build in ourselves so that when faced with situations requiring the use of our various powers, we will be inclined to use them rightly to achieve the good.
Just as virtue is essentially a good habit that leads to good or meritorious acts, vice is essentially a bad habit that leads to evil acts of sin.
There are “moral virtues” that help us do the good and “intellectual virtues” that help us know what is truly good,
The most fundamental of the moral virtues have been known as the four cardinal virtues, since they “are about those things upon which a human life is chiefly occupied, just as a door turns upon a hinge”
Temperance (or self-control) perfects our capacity to regulate and rein in our concupiscible appetite, which drives us toward pleasures, so that we can seek what is truly good.
Prudence perfects our ability to determine the proper means to achieve the good and to act upon them.
Justice, as we saw in this book’s third chapter, perfects the capacity of our will to seek and do good, not only for ourselves but...
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Fortitude (or courage) perfects our capacity to harness our irascible appetite to do battle with that which raises our ire, so to speak, to do battle with or to endure dif...
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“Nothing in excess” was a related Greek maxim inscribed in the forecourt of the Temple of Apollo at Delphi. It means that moral virtue lies between the vices of the extremes — between deficiency on one side and excess on the other.
The golden mean is no compromise between virtue and vice but is a golden peak of excellence that towers above deficiency and excess.
The special truths revealed to us by God and believed by us through faith do not contradict reason, but they reveal truths to us that unaided reason cannot reach on its own,
“Faith and reason are like two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of truth; and God has placed in the human heart a desire to know the truth — in a word, to know himself — so that, by knowing and loving God, men and women may also come to the fullness of truth about themselves.”
The love of charity is an active love, expressed not only in goodwill toward our neighbor but in benevolent deeds as well.
True, living hope, then, is informed by the mature understanding and heartfelt conviction of the virtue of faith and made alive by the love of God and others, for their own sakes, that shines forth through the virtue of charity.
Thomas tells us we become fervent lovers by loving fervently!
Sanctifying grace is a gift from God that not only perfects the various powers of the soul, as the natural virtues do, but also permeates and transforms the very essence or nature of the human soul, from which the powers flow.
In terms of a pithy definition, sanctifying grace is grace given by God to a person to make him holy and to unite him to God as a participant in the divine nature.
These seven gifts are listed in the Catechism of the Catholic Church as “wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, piety, and fear of the Lord.”
While natural and even supernatural virtues employ the powers of our human reason to regulate our thoughts, emotions, words, and deeds in service of God, these gifts of the Holy Spirit enable us to receive guidance not merely from our fallible intellect but through the divine inspiration of the infallible Holy Spirit Himself.
Virtues have been likened to oars with which we row ourselves toward Heaven, while the Holy Spirit’s gifts have been liked to God’s wind behind our sails! God’s breezes are infinitely more powerful than our own arms, yet we do have our small part to play.
We must remember, however, that inspired minds and inflamed hearts do not achieve their ends unless they burst forth into loving thoughts, words, and deeds.
When we think about Paul’s eight things internally, within our minds, we must strive to bring them to life in the external world, sharing their fruits with others.
“Even as it is better to enlighten than merely to shine, so is it better to give to others the fruits of one’s contemplation than merely to contemplate.”
