Faith, Hope and Love: Thomas Aquinas on Living by the Theological Virtues

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During the last two decades virtue ethics has become the focal point of

renewed ethical and theological interest. To lead a good life, it proves

useful to watch those who have mastered the art of living. The

conviction that living is an art is at the heart of virtue ethics.

Living a good life requires exercise, and is a question of acquiring a

virtuous character rather than of complying with external ethical and

legal rules. This renaissance partly builds on Thomas Aquinas. He in

turn recovered Aristotelian, Ciceronian and Augustinian thought on

virtue ethics. The interpretation and development of virtues and vices

form the core of his authorship, as the secunda pars of his Summa

Theologiae readily displays. And yet, the most important virtues for

him are not the moral ones, such as Justice, Temperance, Prudence and

Fortitude, but those virtues that are both infused by and aimed at God:

Faith, Hope and Love. These are virtues that the philosophers of

antiquity were not aware of. To account for them, Aquinas had to adapt

the classical understanding of virtues. For Aquinas, the moral virtues

come to full fruition only when they are embedded in a life before God,

a life lived exercising the God given theological virtues. By ignoring

Faith, Hope and Love, the present discussion of virtue ethics not only

ignores those virtues that were for Aquinas of utmost importance, but

also fails to arrive at a complete understanding of his view of the

moral virtues.

The papers contained in this volume address this theme, and were

originally presented at the fourth international conference of the Thomas

Instituut te Utrecht (Tilburg University), at Utrecht in December

2013.