How could you not love that face?

Don’t worry, I’m not going all gushy on myself. Nor do I expect you to.

So one of the things I do to escape from stress is to read about the history of philosophy. So far I have a rough knowledge of Western thought from the Greeks up through about the beginning of the fourteenth century, and a couple bits of Muslim, Indian, and Chinese philosophy from various parts of history.

Anyway, I was reading about John Duns Scotus (ca. 1265 – 1308) in Frederick Copleston’s masterpiece, and I came across the following provocative passage:

Scotus often gave a peculiar stamp or emphasis to the elements he adopted from tradition. Thus in his treatment of the relation of the will to intellect he emphasized freedom rather than love, though he held, it is true, to the superiority of love to knowledge….

This helped me to articulate something I’ve known for some time but have never quite managed to say clearly.

Let me ask you a question. What does your will do? What is the action of your will? What is its purpose?

Okay, that was three questions, or at least, three ways of asking one question. Sorry about that. But I hope you have an answer.

I’m guessing your answer is something like, “My will chooses things. It’s purpose is to choose freely, to be free.” And that is a typical modern answer. In fact, in the twenty-first century, it’s hard to consider that there might be another way to answer the question.

But, as you might guess if you’ve read enough of this blog, the medievals would have answered very differently. They would have said, the act of the will is to love, that is, to pursue what is good. And they would have had almost as much trouble understanding our emphasis on freedom as we have understanding their emphasis on the necessity of choosing good.

Getting medieval on you

Here’s how it works, from a medieval point of view: the human mind has certain powers or “faculties” that perform different tasks. The senses apprehend particular objects – colors, textures, sounds, etc. – and understand the objects of the physical world. The intellect apprehends the essence of those objects, that is, it understands that this four-legged yapping creature is in some way the same kind of thing as that four-legged yapping creature; they are both dogs, even though they are distinct individuals. In other words, the intellect sees the nature of a thing.

The intellect also sees the implications of nature. Just as it makes connections between individual things in the physical world, it makes connections between ideas. This aspect of the intellect is called reason, and it allows us to form an argument and to examine our ideas logically. The intellect is able to evaluate both things in the world and ideas in our minds.

Now, both the senses and the intellect have a power that the medievals called “appetites”. The appetite of the senses is, well, the things we call appetites today: desires for things like food, pleasure, comfort. Sensible appetites motivate us to pursue sensible goods. The intellectual appetite, though, motivates us to pursue intellectual goods, like truth and beauty and the common welfare of society. This appetite is the will. The will, by its very nature as an appetite, is necessarily ordered toward choosing good things. In fact, it was taken for granted in ancient and medieval times that we are incapable of choosing evil for its own sake; it is impossible to choose anything unless we see something good in it.

In other words, to know something, anything, led immediately to a desire for the good of that thing. That’s the sense in which to know me – or anyone else, for that matter – is to love me.

Freedom!

But because the will is a power of the intellect, it is able to use rational argument and to see different ways of achieving the good that it necessarily desires. This power is called liberum arbitrium, which is Latin for “free choice” but has traditionally been translated “free will.” It is the ability to choose the means to pursue the good.

For example, it is good for me to be healthy. One necessary aspect of health is regular exercise. But there are lots of ways to exercise: I could ride a bicycle, do pilates, swim laps in a pool, lift weights, take a walk with a friend, and so on. My will is bound to desire health; unless I’m obtuse, I recognize that exercise is necessary to health, but I’m free to choose how I’ll go about getting exercise based on what I enjoy, and what works best for my body type.

I’m also free to choose some other aspect of health as more important, such as getting my diet under control or making my sleep schedule regular. Maybe I need to focus on mental health before physical health. And maybe I’ve twisted my understanding of health so much that all I see is the need for pleasure and comfort. The point is, the will seeks what is good; freedom seeks the ways to achieve that good.

That’s how the medievals saw things, up until John Duns Scotus. Since then, the idea has been growing that freedom, rather than love of the good, is central to the will. It wasn’t long before people began to claim that the will could choose either good or evil with equal freedom, even though the only way medieval people could see to choose something evil was if the will was bound by a kind of slavery. Eventually, the idea that civil laws, and even moral teaching, would try to impose goodness on the will became repugnant to the ideal of freedom. Freedom was exalted as the highest value, even over good.

I can see some reasons for this line of argument; it’s not entirely irrational. But I think it makes a small mistake at the beginning, and leads to disastrous consequences. Freedom cannot itself be good without being one good among many; and freedom is not the standard or definition of good. Rather, the only way freedom can truly be free is to place itself at the service of love.

This is not a natural love

I don’t like to talk much about sex, partly because I’m ashamed of my own weaknesses in this area, and partly because any restriction on sexual “expression” or activity is seen as “backward” (and I’m vain enough to want to be seen as progressive), and partly because sex is just plain everywhere already and I don’t particularly want to add to the mess.

But what with the foolish hooplah over Pope Benedict’s out-of-context statement on condoms, and in light of some personal questions from a few different friends, and considering a fascinating conversation over at Just Thomism, I thought I’d toss my tuppence into the ring.

Human nature

The human person is made for love.

That sentence has many meanings, because “love” has many meanings. Love could mean, broadly, fellowship or relationship with others. Love could mean, figuratively, sexual intercourse. Both these – as well as other senses of love such as philanthropy or friendship or romance – have some truth to them, but it is important not to confuse them.

The fact is that individual people are dependent on one another, both physically and socially. Love allows those dependencies to fulfill our nature, to build us up both individually and together. In terms of virtue, love directs us toward a good that is at the same time personal and universal.

Our interdependence can be abused, though. We can treat each other in ways that denigrate human nature, usually by pitting one need against another, or by substituting one kind of love for another. That is what the vices do, and particularly the vice of lust.

Lust kills love

Lust does for sex what all the vices do: it reduces the world to some small, solitary good, and refuses to acknowledge the connections of that good to everything else. It reduces a person to an object of sexual satisfaction. That sexual satisfaction may be emotional as well as, or instead of, physical; but it still “objectifies” a person, reduces him or her to a mere thing to be used.

Now, it’s one thing to become momentarily lost in the enjoyment of some good thing. For example, when I’m savoring a truly fine wine, or a perfectly spiced pasta sauce, I take a minute to ignore everything else in the world and simply float in that fullness of flavor. But such moments are gifts, and I soon return my attention to my companions at the table.

Lust seeks to control and command the pleasures of sexual interactions, rather than receive them as gifts. It treats a companion as an excuse or as a tool to achieve a solitary ecstasy.

Where natural, virtuous sex profoundly unites a couple, lust isolates. It refuses to relate the pleasure of sex to the joy of communion.

Sex au naturale

Now, one of the first things lust ignores is the intimate connection between sexual intercourse and procreation. This is, of course, where all the controversy around birth control and homosexuality and so on comes from. None of those approaches to sex are conceivable until the bond between intercourse and childbirth are broken.

I have a great deal of sympathy for couples who can’t see how they could afford the expense of a child, or for people attracted to members of their own sex. I have very good friends who fit into both those categories, and their longing for affection and understanding and security is both deep and genuine. I mentioned above my own vulnerability to sexual temptations as well, and (without going into any detail) I will admit that I have myself sought to avoid the natural course and consequences of sex.

The temptation makes sense: sexual passion is intense and is rooted in the depths of both body and soul. It is easy to let it take over.

But human nature is not meant to be dominated by any single passion, no matter how powerful or profound. Freedom lies exactly in being able to say both “yes” and “no”, and in knowing the best time for each. Reason lies, neither in suppressing nor indulging our passions, but in bringing those passions to their fulfillment in the whole person, and in each other.

True love lies in welcoming and respecting every aspect of others, including their minds, their personalities, and even their fertility. Love, when it meets another, always creates something new and beautiful.

How can you mend a broken heart?

So there are a couple people in my life that make lots of bad decisions. (I don’t think they read this blog, but I won’t name names anyway.)

I’m not talking about decisions I disagree with, like choosing the creme brulee when there’s chocolate mousse on the menu. I’m talking about undeniably bad decisions, like burning bridges and painting yourself into a corner.

It’s hard to love someone in that situation, for two reasons. First, their bad decisions put up obstacles to receiving love; and second, I just stop wanting to love that person.

The limits of love

To love is to will the good of the one you love. But I’m not able by my own power to make good things happen for those I love. I’m just a guy, a mere mortal, with not much money or fame or power. So it may be very very good for a friend to get a new car, but I can’t afford to buy it for them. A friend may want a spouse desperately, but I can’t wave my wand and make romance spark. Someone may be suffering from an incurable disease of mind or body, but I’m not God that I can heal them.

So my love is limited by my ability to actually accomplish some good thing for those I love. But sadly that’s not the only limiting factor. Love can also be limited by a refusal to accept the good that I can and do give.

I know I’ve refused love myself in the past. (I probably still do more often than I admit to myself.) An obvious example is my lack of gratitude for the gifts my grandparents gave me when I was a child. I was a Star Wars fanboy, and I was obsessed with getting the Millennium Falcon playset – come on, who wasn’t? And I was so focused on getting the one thing I wanted that, when I didn’t get it, I practically spat on the action figures and Darth Vader carrying case that they did give me. I did return some action figures to the store, not because I had them already, but because I wanted something different.

More subtle refusals arose out of fear, rather than greed. I turn down offers of company when I’m feeling depressed, or I turn down offers of help when my pride is hurt, all because I’m afraid of my own weakness or of some imagined future regret.

So love can be inadequate to the need, or love can be refused. But there’s a third limitation as well: my own heart can grow cold.

All those rom-com superlatives, “I’ll love you forever!” and “Nothing can stop my love for you!” really do describe the ideal of what love is about – both romantic love and charitable love. As St. Paul puts it, “Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.” But my emotions come and go, and there are lots of times I just don’t bear all things, or hope all things. There are times when, as a feeling anyway, my love comes to an end.

And that’s where the virtue of love kicks in.

Loving when it’s tough

Virtue is all about actions; feelings (or “passions”) are important only in that they give information or motivation to act. But an emotion is not a virtue, and a virtuous action doesn’t require feeling in the moment. Most of the time, it’s the action that gives rise to the related feeling rather than the other way around.

So taking the actions of love, even when my own heart is cold, is the way to grow in the virtue of love. It also reminds me that love involves the brain as well as the heart and the gut.

Dealing with my friends who are making bad decisions requires me to think things through: what is actually in my ability to do? what are they able or willing to receive from me? and how can I overcome my own fear or resentment toward them?

It takes practice to look this cool

Anyone who plays guitar (or, as I do, bass guitar,) develops calluses on their fingers where they hold down the strings. It doesn’t take long, maybe a week of playing a little every day; but that can be a painful week, and the strings feel like they’re cutting into the soft flesh at the tips of your fingers. It’s especially bad if you only play occasionally, because any calluses you develop fade away when you’re not playing, so they have to develop all over again.

Whenever I pick up the bass again after neglecting it for a month or so, it’s not just the physical pain I feel. I feel a kind of moral pain, that “I should’ve been practicing all this time.”

But when I do practice regularly, not only do I learn new songs quickly and enjoy the music more, I also find it just plain physically easier to play. My fingers don’t hurt at all – not till I’ve been playing solidly for a couple hours or more. My fingers have calluses to protect them, and they’ve grown stronger through exercise.

Building up habits of virtue

Now, for the past couple weeks I’ve been distracted, pulled in several different directions. I haven’t always been able to get to bed on time, or to eat at normal meal times, and so on. Sometimes I’ve used the difficulty of the day as an excuse to break my habits, to stay up late or to sleep in, to drop my daily prayer and meditation, to skip walking or exercising, to let the dishes pile up, and so on.

So right now, I feel like my soul has lost its calluses, and lost its strength. It’s hard, even a little painful, to do simple things like add appointments to my calendar or fold my clothes as soon as I take them out of the dryer. I know I should, and I know how much easier it makes life; but I’ve let myself go soft, and that means I have to deal with some extra difficulty here and now.

Virtue makes life easier exactly by embracing the difficulty of life. That is to say, developing good habits allows me to do only the actual toil, and suffer only the necessary pain, of the work itself – instead of having to toil at learning how to do the work, and enduring the pain of building strength and resistance, every single time I try to do something.

There’s no avoiding the difficulty and suffering of life; but the habits of virtue build up the ability to keep going, even to do better and better things, with as little difficulty and pain as possible.

The primary virtue of prudence

I find in my own life I keep returning to two virtues: charity and prudence. Charity is called the “form” of the virtues, because it directs us toward what is good; that is, it is the habit of focusing on the goal of virtue. Prudence is called the “first” of the virtues, or the primary virtue, because it shows the means to achieve the good; that is, it is the habit of making responsible decisions.

These two virtues, especially prudence, are the hardest for me to develop. They’re also the most rewarding. They provide the strength and the toughness needed for the other virtues to form and to flourish.

My temptation to neglect prudence usually takes the form: “I’ve done so much already, I deserve a break.” It’s the illusion that there are times or situations in which I don’t have to make a good decision. It’s an attempt to avoid taking responsibility for my own actions.

So, when I find I’ve let myself go soft, as I have over the past couple weeks, I realize the only solution is to start practicing again. Scheduled routine, to-do lists, and journaling are some of the tools I use for practicing prudence. At first, it’s hard, and I keep wondering why I have to do this dull and artificial-feeling work. Don’t I already know what I think, and what I have to do?

But it’s the difference between knowing where to put my fingers and actually playing music.

For me? Aw, you shouldn't have!

I had one of those “a-ha” moments over the weekend. I was thinking about words, as I often do, and I was trying to find a way to articulate the difference between recognizing life (or a friend or a privilege or whatever) as a gift and taking life for granted. And I realized, the phrases look roughly identical.

A grant, after all, is a kind of gift. It is something given to me by someone else.

So I started exploring whether there are any words we use for that sense of entitlement we call “taking something for granted” that don’t in fact refer to receiving something from someone else. Even the word “entitlement” refers to the granting of “title” or ownership of something by whomever has the authority to give it. The only words I could think of are words like “possession” or “ownership”, which really don’t convey the kind of presumptuous attitude I’m trying to describe.

Maybe presumption is itself the word I’m looking for. It literally means “taking something before,” that is, before it is given. It is taking something as if it had been granted, even when it has not. And that’s where the problematic attitude lies: it’s a lack of recognition that something is genuinely a gift. It’s the idea that I am completely and independently capable of getting everything I want or need entirely on my own without any help from anyone else ever. Ultimately, that attitude is founded on falsehood.

Gratitude: recognition of my need for others

I’m concerned about this attitude because it’s one I struggle with all the time myself. I remember as a child needing to be told to say “thank you” at Christmas or on my birthday, and thinking that I didn’t really feel grateful. I felt like I deserved the toys, or maybe even deserved better loot than I’d got. So I went through the motions and held onto presumption in my heart.

But that led me to a bitter and lonely place. I alienated many of my friends. And then something rather odd happened: when a friend did show a kindness to me, even a tiny one, I found myself utterly overwhelmed with gratitude far out of proportion to their act. It was as if all that repressed recognition of others’ gifts to me came bursting out at once. So then I had friends saying, “Enough thank yous, already! It was really nothing!”

Well, it wasn’t nothing. But it also wasn’t the thing I was most grateful for: I was most grateful for the ability to acknowledge my dependence on other people.

My illusion of fierce independence had been (and still is, in parts of my life) a kind of cage that kept me from the real world as it actually is, and from connecting to the real people who live in it. So finding a way to relate – simply by acknowledging the relationship – was a tremendous good that I could never have simply acquired for myself. I am glad my mother taught me how to say “thank you” all those years ago.

Gratitude and justice

It’s interesting that Thomas Aquinas lists gratitude as part of the virtue of justice, while generosity or giving gifts is part of the virtue of charity or love. That is, even though gifts are given freely, the acknowledgment of the gift is something owed by duty.

At first, this seems odd, and a little bit like extortion. But my own experience shows me why it’s a matter of justice. To refuse to acknowledge the gift and the giver is to deny the reality that I have received something I could not have without that other person.

I could not have received life without my parents. I could not have received friendship without my friends. Even in relationships where there is a “business” aspect, there also is a gift; I could not have received my education without my teachers’ willingness to give what they also had received. Gratitude, giving thanks for what has been granted, is simply a matter of seeing reality for what it is.

Mine! You can't have any!

In Christian circles, there are two great commandments (Matthew 22.37-39):

1. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.
2. You shall love your neighbor as yourself.

This is the foundation of the Christian approach to the virtue of Charity, and I’ve mentioned the first one in a previous post. It can be controversial for those who don’t agree with the Christian approach to God.

The second is something we tend to equate with the “Golden Rule”: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. It tends to be accepted in secular and religious ethics alike.

Almost every comment on these commandments raises an interesting point: there are three kinds of love in these two sentences: love of God, love of neighbor, and love of self. You have to love yourself in order to love your neighbor in the same way; you have to know what you want your neighbor to “do unto you” if you’re going to treat them accordingly.

How do I love myself?

Love pursues what is good. So, if I love myself, I’m after what is good for me. That sounds awfully selfish, doesn’t it?

The difference between loving myself and being selfish is in the good that I’m pursuing. So, if I ignore the good things that make me more human – learning, community, health, and so on; that is to say, virtue – and chase after the good things that are mere derivatives of those fully human goods – pleasure, comfort, satisfaction, etc. – then I will basically get what I ask for. I will have short-term pleasures and comforts which will fade when I find myself ignorant and unhealthy and alone.

What is good for me is based on who and what I am. I am a human being, endowed with a mind and existing as part of a community. The good that I must pursue, the love I must show toward myself, is rooted in the community and is discovered by my mind.

Even my emotions come through the filter of my mind. I remember a time in high school when I was mad at my mom because she was late picking me up from school – till I discovered that she’d been delayed by some crisis of her own. My emotions followed my understanding: I was angry when I thought I was being treated unjustly, but grateful when I saw how much my mom went through to pick me up, and compassionate besides when I knew what she was struggling with.

Discernment: the habit of discovering the good

It’s not always easy to sort out what’s really good and what’s a derivative or lesser good. For example, I have a cold right now. It’s hard to focus for very long, and I get these coughing fits. I just want to lie down and sleep – for about three years.

At the same time, I have work to do: commitments I’ve made to others, and projects of my own that need attention. There are friends and family who need me in small ways, and I want to be available to them.

In times like this, I remind myself that the good is always one. What is truly good for me is (at least) not harmful to the community that I’m a part of; and what’s good for them is not seriously harmful for me. Love of self cannot be contrary to love of neighbor, that is, to seeking what is good for those around me.

So today, I’m trying to balance the good things I can do for others (I hope this blog is a good thing!) with the “self-care” I need: the clear liquids, bed rest, chicken noodle soup, etc. I’m pulling back on some commitments, and pushing myself through discomfort on others, based on what I’m able to do and what has a greater urgency to be done.

This blog, by the way, is one of the easiest things I do during the day. It’s a great way to prove to myself that, even if I’m a little uncomfortable, I’m still able to do something. And it lets me know that I can do a little more, still, before I hit the wall.

Classical virtue - very classy

I was talking with a friend this weekend, and she said that she was a little confused when she first visited my blog because it wasn’t clear what kind of virtue I was talking about. So I took another look at the page, and I realize that the words “classical” and “cardinal” are entirely missing from the page.

I’ll rectify that soon, but in the meantime I realized that it never hurts to take another look at the big picture.

The classical virtues

The main reason I’m writing this blog is as a kind of public self-improvement exercise. I’ve found that the classical philosophy of virtue describes my strengths, my faults, and my potential. It also gives a very practical structure to work on overcoming my weaknesses and to work toward my potential.

These virtues are traditionally grouped under the four “cardinal” virtues and the three “theological” virtues:

• Cardinal virtues
  • Prudence, AKA Wisdom
  • Justice
  • Fortitude, AKA Courage
  • Temperance, AKA Self-control
• Theological virtues
  • Faith
  • Hope
  • Charity, AKA Love

Each of these virtues describes a different way to achieve a certain excellence or fulfillment of human life. They are ways to become more human, and more humane.

Habits of life

A virtue is a habit of life, that is, it is an inclination to live and act easily and effectively. It’s not a “natural” inclination, in that no one is born with it. We acquire the virtues, mainly by practicing the kinds of actions associated with them. For example, I develop an inclination to courage by taking standing fast in the face of danger and difficulty, even when I am terrified; as I grow in courage, I find that facing danger is easier and less intimidating – if not actually less frightening. I grow in both confidence and ability.

On the other hand, a virtue is exactly a “natural” habit because it is fulfills my nature as a human person. It is part of human nature to grow, to develop, to learn, to interact with other people, and so on. Virtues are the habits of living a fully human life: wisely, justly, lovingly. Practicing virtue helps me to become more myself.

It is something like the habit of playing a musical instrument: at first, the actions don’t feel natural; but with practice, they become a kind of “second-nature”. Playing music becomes easy and enjoyable. Virtues are habits that apply, not just to a single activity like music, but to every aspect of life.

Vice

A vice is essentially a bad habit: it is an inclination to act less than human, or even contrary to human nature. We all have them. My own main vice (as far as I can tell) is sloth: I’m lazy, and I also tend to be skeptical about whether something is worth doing. It takes a lot to get me moving. This means that I spend a lot of time and energy complaining or looking for escapist entertainment rather than actually facing reality or doing something positive.

Generally speaking, every virtue has at least two vices: too much and too little. Taking courage as an example again, it’s possible to be too timid, or to be to rash. Courage is bold, but not brash; it’s cautious, but doesn’t hesitate.

Overcoming vice and growing in virtue go hand in hand.

That whole “theological” thing

The “cardinal” virtues were taken for granted by the ancient Greek philosophers Plato and Aristotle, and it’s possible to find similar ideas in most ancient cultures. In the middle ages, Christian philosophers like Thomas Aquinas added three “theological” virtues mentioned in the Bible. These virtues are acquired, not only by practice, but by a gift from God.

I include them in this blog, not because I want to push a Christian agenda, but because I think there is a natural aspect to these virtues that fills out the cardinal virtues. Love resolves the conflict between justice and mercy, hope gives purpose to courage and temperane, faith extends rational prudence into deep relationships.

That said, I’m a practicing Catholic myself, and many of the people I read approach these virtues from a Christian point of view. It would be silly to try to hide that. My goal, though, is to propose rather than to impose, to share the wisdom I’m learning without expecting it to be the final word.

It keeps going, and going, and going...

I’m working my way through Thomas Aquinas’s description of Charity, or Love as a theological virtue, and I’m fascinated by the way he distinguishes Charity from other forms of love. For example, he insists that Charity, properly speaking, is more than a natural virtue. It is not something we can achieve by our own power.

As stated above (Question 23, Article 1), charity is a friendship of man for God, founded upon the fellowship of everlasting happiness.

He later notes that Charity applies to other people because they share with us this fellowship of everlasting happiness in God. But God is always first, and is the source and reason for all Charity.

Now, it’s very important to me that my blog be accessible and welcoming to non-Catholics and non-Christians and non-theists even. This is because, even though I’m firmly convinced of the truth of Catholic teaching, I’m just as firmly convinced that I’m only able to understand and act on that truth in the concrete people and situations of everyday life. Even if the Catholic Church is one of the biggest religions on earth, it’s still only claims less than a quarter of all Americans, and less than one-sixth of the people on this planet. In other words, most of the people I meet and connect with and become friends with are not Catholic. And all these people are my teachers in the virtue of love.

Can non-Christians love?

That said, I’m not going to just reject Thomas’ idea that genuine virtuous love is fundamentally the love of God. Thomas is much smarter than I am, and I’m not going to cross him if I don’t have really good reason.

But it does raise the question whether, in his understanding, a non-Christian is capable of love at all.

Now, there are lots of kind of love, according to Thomas; there is the kind of love I have for chocolate or garlic; there is the kind of love I have for my garden or my pet; there is the love I have for my friends, the love of my family, the love I feel toward a benefactor, the love I feel for my home or my country, the love I feel for my spouse, and so on. All of these are natural loves, and what they all have in common is that they guide us toward something good.

Love always recognizes the good, seeks the good, enjoys the good.

What sets Charity apart, for Thomas, is that it seeks and enjoys a good beyond our natural capacity: it loves God, and seeks eternal union with him.

This is a love so great that it is impossible to achieve by human will or effort. This kind of Charity is utterly impossible for a mere mortal; it can only come as a gift from God. That is why Charity is a theological virtue rather than a natural or moral virtue.

Really impossible?

Let’s try a thought experiment: imagine eternity. Unless you’re a high-falootin’ philosopher, you’re probably thinking of an endless extension of time. Now, imagine hanging out with your best friend or your deepest love for all eternity. No matter how lovable that person is, the fact is that at some point you’ll get a little bored, you’ll want some variety, you’ll grow tired of telling and hearing those same old stories over and over again.

In other words, even the sort of heaven that we can imagine – and the Catholic idea of heaven claims that it’s ultimately beyond our imagination – runs up against limits in our ability to recognize and enjoy the good things that we have.

For Thomas, Charity is a new ability: the ability to love infinitely, not bounded by the limits of our time or attention or emotions. It is an ability that reaches its perfection only in heaven; on earth we strive to grow in Charity, by what Thomas calls “earnest endeavor,” knowing we will only find its fulfillment beyond this life.

Gift and giver

Now, a Christian is someone who seeks this gift in Jesus Christ, believing and following and taking up his or her cross, and so on. But a gift is not something anyone can demand. If God is the giver, none of us can force his hand.

The Catholic teaching is that God gives Charity (among other gifts) in baptism. But God is not limited to our rituals; God can give his gifts, including the gift of Charity, well beyond the visible confines of the Church. This is not a perfect Charity, but only for the same reason that no Christian’s Charity is perfect in this life. This life is not for perfection; this life is for growth and “earnest endeavor.”

I don’t expect non-Christians to necessarily agree with this definition or line of argument; but I hope that I’ve been able to express what Thomas is saying with enough clarity that we can discuss (or debate) about it without misunderstanding each other.

Friendship is the language of love

The very first thing Thomas Aquinas says about the virtue of charity is that it is friendship.

Now, when I hear the word charity, “friendship” isn’t the synonym that leaps boldly to the front of my mind, ready to spring from the tip of my tongue. The first words that come to mind, if I’m in a good mood, are words like “altruism” or “benevolence;” if I’m in a less, well, charitable mood, words like “handout” come to mind.

If I’m thinking more philosophically, I might come up with words like “care” or “good will” or “love, in a rather specialized and technical sense.”

But friendship? Nah, that’s just too … too what? Too personal? Too practical? Too simple?

Aspects of friendship

When it comes right down to it, it’s almost as difficult to define friendship as it is to define love itself. But there are a few clear aspects of friendship that Thomas draws on when he explains why charity is friendship.

First, friendship requires a good will toward another. That is, we want what is good for a friend, regardless of whether we get anything out of it ourselves. As Thomas puts it: “For it would be absurd to speak of having friendship for wine or for a horse,” because these are things we use to fulfill our own desires, rather than doing good to the wine or the horse.

Next, friendship has to communicate. We can’t just claim a friendship with someone we don’t have any real connection to; rather, our friends are the ones we actually interact with. This may seem painfully obvious, but it’s foundational to the idea that charity – because it is friendship – can never be simply one-sided.

Finally, that communication has to be mutual. Thomas isn’t talking about some kind of tit-for-tat equality of exchange; he means that friends have to be able to share something in common, to communicate the same kind of thing to each other. In other words, the reason we use wine and horses to fulfill our own desires is exactly because the wine and the horse is incapable of receiving or responding to friendship as an equal. A relationship with wine or a horse is necessarily one-sided.

This is the kind of friendship that describes the virtue of charity.

Yeah, but…

What about when one person is a better friend than another? Where’s the “mutuality” in that?

And what about that Christian command to love your enemies? An enemy, by definition, isn’t going to be your friend!

The answer, I think, is as close as our ordinary way of talking about friendship: so-and-so is a better friend, or is my best friend, or is not a very close friend. Sometimes this is because of circumstance: it’s harder to be friends with someone across the country than with someone I see all the time. But it’s also because of a person’s ability to be a friend.

Charity is a virtue, after all. It’s both a gift we receive, and a skill we need to develop. So the more I practice desiring and seeking my friend’s good, the “better” a friend I will become.

As for enemies, if they absolutely refuse to reconcile and become friends, then Thomas notes that we love them because God loves them, and if we love God we love also whatever and whomever God loves. We don’t have to be buddy-buddy with them, but at least we should avoid getting in the way of them loving in whatever way they are able to. And we still can and should do our best to defend ourselves and others from their attacks: they will never grow in love if they succeed in their acts of hate.

"Have you read my new book?"

I just returned from breakfast with George Weigel – he happened to pick my table to sit at – who was this morning’s speaker for the Catholic Professionals of Seattle. The basic gist of his talk was to promote his newest book: The End and the Beginning, which is a “sequel” and a completion of his 1999 biography of Pope John Paul II, Witness to Hope.

There was a bit of cold war spy drama, and a bit of “Lifestyles of the Holy and Famous,” and a bit of Vatican inside baseball; but one detail from his presentation jumped out at me. He said that he took part of the structure of his book from the process of canonization – the Catholic Church’s process of declaring someone a saint. One of the stages asks witnesses to describe the potential saint’s life in terms of the theological and cardinal virtues: Faith, Hope, and Charity; Prudence, Justice, Courage, and Temperance. Mr. Weigel noted, as an aside, that it’s an interesting exercise to look at life through the lens of the virtues, but that most people don’t do it.

A life out of focus

The virtues really form the only lens that has been able to bring my own life in to focus. But I only stumbled upon them by accident, myself. The classical model of virtue runs almost directly counter to most of twenty-first century American culture.

Now, Americans tend to value daring, or initiative, or valor; and that quality is similar to courage. Americans appreciate cleverness and foresight; those are certainly aspects of prudence. And it goes almost without saying that Americans are passionate about rights, which are a part of the virtue of justice.

However, American culture takes these values for granted, as a collection of qualities whose importance is assumed to be self-evident. In fact, it’s a kind of jumble that ultimately serves another purpose: one’s own interests.

Following the more-or-less normal course of life, I always found myself confused: should I take a risk or should I follow the safe course? Should I insist on my rights or make sure I’m not trampling someone else’s? Should I pursue my own interests or those of my employer/family/country?

Putting life in focus

When I discovered the idea of the virtues, I finally found a principle to help me answer all those questions. Like putting on my glasses, it brought all the fuzzy shapes into focus, and I could see more clearly what to do – and, more importantly, why to do it.

The virtues depend on one another. Love, or Charity, shows us what is good, and drives us to pursue it. Prudence shows us what is real, and sorts out the details of the situation as it really exists. These two virtues form the bedrock and cornerstone of our lives.

Justice and Faith both guide us in knowing what to do: we give to everyone what belongs to them, and we recognize them as fellow children of God, infinite in dignity and worthy of profound respect. These virtues form the framing structure that gives shape to our lives.

Hope, Courage, and Temperance all give us the strength or the stamina to follow through on the loving and prudent actions that Justice and Faith guide us to do. They support us in the face of despair, or fear, or temptation. They are like cross-braces that give a building strength and stability.

Taken together, the virtues describe the whole form of a person’s life.

An end and a beginning?

As Mr. Weigel points out in the life of Pope John Paul II, the virtues allow us to understand the depth and complexity of a man whose actions sometimes appeared confusing or contradictory to American eyes.

But I find virtue is as important at the beginning of each day as it is at the end of a life. I ask, how can I understand my own life; and how can I bring it to be the best life I can carry out, the kind of life I was created to live?