Material quoted here is drawn from the paper by Jennifer A. Herdt, Professor of Christian Ethics at Yale Divinity School, which was published in “Cultivating Virtue: Perspectives from Philosophy, Theology and Psychology” edited by Nancy E. Snow, Oxford University Press, 2015.
Professor Herdt opens her paper with an acknowledgement of the importance of virtue in the Christian tradition and an acknowledgment that:
“Christianity was from its inception deeply shaped by pagan reflection on the virtues.”
She calls Christianity
“…a vital context for theoretical reflection on the virtues and their development. Moreover, this theoretical reflection has been the primary historical carrier for the traditions of ancient Greek and Roman ethics, from which contemporary virtue theory derives.”
She makes an interesting distinction between the Greek and Roman traditions, which she sees in direct lineage with that of Christianity, and the influence of earlier Chinese virtue teachings.
“…while Confucianism…may have a strong claim to being best construed as a virtue ethics, the categories of virtue and vice, and specific virtues such as courage and justice, are applied by analogy to concepts within the Confucian tradition. With Christianity, things are different; these concepts from ancient Greek and Roman thought were themselves woven into the tradition from its inception…”
But, just as we saw the idea of the exemplar in Confucian thought, we see it also at the root of early Christian virtue. The exemplars for Christians, though, are initially God and Jesus.
“A central feature of the teachings of Jesus as related in the gospels was the summons to emulate the character of God: ‘Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.’ The requirement of enemy-love is also tightly linked with divine exemplarity.”
As Christianity developed and time passed, the community of exemplars expanded, of course, to include saints, martyrs and other exemplary figures.
A key issue in Christian virtue theory is the ability of man to acquire virtue through his own action; through the same sort of work we’ve seen described in Greek and Chinese virtue theory; versus the idea that (some) virtue acquisition requires a special sort of grace.
Herdt find in this a “productive tension” as she writes:
“A productive tension thus lay at the heart of the Christian tradition: between faith on the one hand and virtuous activity (or, in the classic formulation, works) on the other, between reliance on Christ’s saving power on the one hand and striving for excellence on the other.
Christian practices for the cultivation of virtue were thus from the outset also practices for the formation of Christians, of followers of Christ, and practices of worship. The early Christians regarded the martyrs as figures of exemplary—that is, Christlike—virtue.”
She brings material from an early Christian work called the Didache to illustrate the roots of early virtue teaching.
“The Didache, a brief early Christian treatise that has been traced back to early second-century Syria, reflects this emphasis on distinctive ethical markers of the Christian community. These are framed by a strong emphasis on love as ‘the way of life’: the Didache brings together a statement of the twofold love commandment (love God, and love your neighbor as yourself, given by Jesus in Mark 12:30–31 as a summary of the divine law), a negative statement of the Golden Rule common in the Torah (do not do unto others what you do not want to have done to yourself), and the command to love enemies.”
(Herdt’s reference to the “negative statement of the Golden Rule” as being common in the Torah seems to me unfortunate. As we’ve seen, that formulation is the much more common one across time, culture and philosophy. While it is found in the Torah, it is not “throughout” it, and is most frequently sourced to Rabbi Hillel in a later work.)
In further comment on the Didache she writes:
“The concern is not simply that certain actions be performed, but that persons with certain sorts of character, intentions, and motives be formed. After foregrounding love as the core of the way of life, the Didache enumerates other features of the ‘way of life’: generous giving to those in need, avoiding anger and lust, eschewing astrology and magic, being meek and quiet and humble, and not seeking glory.”
But “by the fourth century shared features have emerged: a widespread set of common practices for Christian spiritual formation, and an emphasis on two virtues, love and humility, interpreted in ways that drew together the ideals of martyrdom, asceticism, and ordinary Christian life.”
Christianity has a strong monastic tradition and some practices adopted for the formation of the monastic and the cultivation of virtue were suited only to that sort of life. However…
“Others were more easily adaptable to those who remained within the ordinary structures of family and community life: alms-giving, fasting, prayer, self-examination, meditative study of scripture, confession of sins, singing of psalms, listening to preaching, penance, catechesis, baptism, and partaking of the Eucharist. Many of these were taken over from pagan philosophical schools or pagan cultic life. Others have more distinctly Jewish roots. All have persisted in recognizable forms up to the present.”
“…Christian thinkers took over the scheme of the four Platonic virtues…and complemented these with the three theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity, it is the virtues of love and humility that were particularly central to Christian identity.”
Regarding love…
“The Christian insistence that love of God, love of neighbor, love of enemy, love of self, and God’s own love for creation are all properly spoken of as love has had profound implications for the cultivation of virtue in the Christian tradition…”
And of humility…
“The ideal of humility informed Christian appropriations of practices for the cultivation of self-control in several ways. First…the accomplishment of self-control was seen as grace-enabled, rather than as an independent achievement. Second, the ideal of humility expressed a strong egalitarian thrust.”
This issue of grace-enablement is a key one as noted above. Without further elaboration it would seem that a person could not acquire at least certain virtues, no matter what steps he might take, if the potential for that virtue had not been bestowed upon him by grace. But that is a problematic argument.
If a person has an ardent desire to acquire a virtue, and diligently works toward it, do we then say that he must have been given the grace to do so? Or, could we say that the grace to acquire the virtue is granted as a result of the work done to acquire it? Can we “attract” grace by our actions? Or, is the very idea of that grace that it is granted freely, but only to some? And, if so, why only to some even to the exclusion of others who desire it?
The answer differs in different eras and for different virtues.
“Christianity offered a way to wisdom, to virtue, to salvation, open to all…there was a chastening of expectations: grace does not erase the effects of sin, and this life remains for Christians one of ongoing struggle; virtuous action is not easy and pleasant in the way envisioned by Aristotle; continence displaces temperance.”
Of the earliest Christian figures, she writes:
“The influence on patristic authors of Platonism and Stoicism (particularly Seneca and Cicero) was especially pronounced. Aristotle became central in the scholastic period, particularly from the thirteenth century onward, as the full text of the Nicomachean Ethics became available in Latin translation. Christian thinkers thus took over and transformed pagan debates concerning the interconnection of the virtues and the unity of virtue, temperance and continence, and eudaimonia.
Patristic thinkers tended to regard all virtue as both acquired by human effort and infused by divine grace. Medieval scholastics sought to develop more systematic accounts, which differentiated between natural, acquired virtues and supernatural, infused virtues.
The virtues are for Aquinas dispositions to act well, dispositions that perfect their possessor and that person’s actions, directing her to happiness. Some virtues are acquired by habituation; repeated actions dispose the appetitive powers to be moved easily in accord with reason’s grasp of what is good.
…other virtues are required in order to direct their possessors to this perfect happiness, and these must be infused by God. The acquired virtues render action in accordance with them easy and pleasant. Virtuous dispositions may be acquired even by those who lack supernatural grace. Unlike Augustine, who judged that in the absence of love of God any virtue was possible.
The infused virtues, as their name implies, cannot be acquired via habituation, although repeated action in accordance with an infused virtue can strengthen that disposition. They are given directly by God through the sacraments of the church, notably baptism and the Eucharist.
It might seem surprising that infused virtues could be regarded as virtues in any proper sense at all, since we tend to think of a virtue as a kind of habit, a tendency acquired through repeated actions. The scholastics, however, due in part to Stoic influences, understood a habitus (properly translated as “disposition,” rather than “habit”) as an inner state that might or might not be expressed in action. There was therefore no conceptual barrier to conceiving of an infused habitus. Something akin to habituation occurs through the process of repeated action in accordance with infused virtues;
Such action does not, in the case of infused virtues, cause the virtuous disposition but, rather, strengthens an already existing disposition, gradually rendering action in accord with the infused virtues easy and pleasant, like that expressing acquired virtues.”
From this description it seems the process of virtue acquisition and its result would look much the same to an observer of the process, and perhaps even seem the same to one pursuing the acquisition of the virtue; the difference being the need for and action of grace in one case and the lack of a need in the other.
Herdt addresses that:
“…while a virtue can exist even if it is not in some particular instance expressed in action, and even if a virtue is not simply a disposition to act but also to attend and feel in particular ways, typically we are not in a position to attribute a virtue to someone unless it makes a reliable difference in how they act.”
And…
“If virtues are helpfully thought of on analogy with skills, rather than as automatic and routine, we will be in a position to note that ‘there are very different ways of being virtuous, ranging from the beginner to the truly virtuous, analogously to development in a practical skill.’”
But even if an observer would be hard pressed to tell whether action is resulting from infused or acquired virtue, the issue of grace remains critical.
“…even an infant, vulnerable and unformed in character, can be saved, as can the most vicious offender; neither an ideal upbringing nor leisure for reflection is necessary. Grace levels the playing field. Humility, as the recognition of virtue’s fundamentally dependent character, is thus central. It is love, though, that has pride of place.”
However, even given the history of virtue theory and teaching that Herdt has reviewed, she notes that:
“…significant strands of the theological tradition have rejected virtue theory, have regarded it as intrinsically pagan and incompatible with core Christian convictions. This tendency is particularly evident within early modern Augustinian thought, including the Protestant reformers; picking up on Augustine’s critique of the ostensibly prideful character of pagan virtue, some went on to regard virtue itself as a tainted category. Martin Luther is the poster child for the Augustinian rejection of virtue. To Luther, Aristotle’s ‘book on ethics is the worst of all books,’ since ‘it flatly opposes divine grace and all Christian virtues.’ It encourages us to think that a good character can be acquired through works, through human effort, through imitating virtuous exemplars. In fact, though, we must relinquish all reliance on human agency, admit our own utter bankruptcy, and accept the gift of justification, allowing God alone to work in us and doing nothing on our own.”
But Herdt does not read Luther in the black and white sense of this apparent position.
“First, Luther protests against virtue-discourse not because he rejects the core features of Christian virtue ethics as identified above— the rejection of elitism, the centrality of humility (acknowledged dependency) and love, the interconnectedness of love of God and love of neighbor, the perfection of Christ, the ongoing difficulties Christians experience in acting well—but precisely because he seeks to defend these.
Second, however firmly Luther rejects pagan virtue-theory and the language of virtue, practices for the cultivation of good character continued in the communities that embraced his way of thinking.”
But the speculations of theologians cannot control the behavior of believers who find value in a concept or practice.
“…even when theoretical reflection on the virtues languished or was repudiated, practices formative of character continued, in forms recognizably continuous with the earliest strands of the tradition. The philosophical retrieval of virtue ethics in the last century was accompanied by a theological retrieval by both Catholic and Protestant thinkers.”
Herdt concludes that:
“Christian practices powerfully bring together a constellation of features conducive to the cultivation of the very virtues most cherished by Christians.
And that:
Christianity has never been simply a virtue ethics, not even simply a school for the cultivation of the virtues. But the very features that might seem extraneous turn out to be those that render it particularly responsive to the challenges of cultivating the virtues in frail and socially dependent creatures such as ourselves.”
Herdt brings an interesting and useful historical perspective to the place of virtue in Christian tradition. The most compelling elements of this analysis are that, when the philosophers and theologians are stood to the side, so to speak, the actual virtue practices of Christians differ from those of the Confucians, Greeks and Romans only in emphasis.
True, the place of love and humility might stand higher on the tree of Christian virtue that they would for Confucius. However, the virtue-desires of one seeking to live as a “good person” would apparently be expressed in actual practices quite similarly whether one is a Christian, Greek, Buddhist or Confucian.
A troubling point left unaddressed is the implication that a person who desires to acquire a certain virtue and works diligently to do so, but has not been given the particular grace required, will find his work in vain. Or, would it be argued that his desire is, itself, evidence of the presence of the grace required? If so, how important is the grace question?
©Charles R. Lightner