The significance of the two alternative sources for virtue, natural and divine, may be clearer if we go back to the parallel I drew at the start of this chapter between morality and knowledge. It’s a parallel that Aquinas draws too. He points out the similarity between thinking that all knowledge is granted by divine illumination and thinking that all virtue is infused by God (DQV 1 a8 resp). In both cases Aquinas moves away from the strict Augustinian position common in his day. Knowledge and virtue can both be acquired, with some difficulty, as the realization of naturally inborn capacities.
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