Book contents
- Virtue and Grace in the Theology of Thomas Aquinas
- Virtue and Grace in the Theology of Thomas Aquinas
- Copyright page
- Epigraph
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Abbreviations of Aquinas’s Works
- Introduction
- Part I Virtue and the Developments in Grace
- Part II The Conditions of Virtue Simpliciter
- Part III The Conditions of Virtue Secundum Quid
- 7 The Conditions for the Beginning of Virtue Secundum Quid
- 8 The Conditions for Perseverance in Virtue Secundum Quid
- 9 The End of Virtue Secundum Quid
- Part IV Confirmations and Conclusions
- Conclusion
- Selected Works Cited
- Index
8 - The Conditions for Perseverance in Virtue Secundum Quid
from Part III - The Conditions of Virtue Secundum Quid
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 September 2020
- Virtue and Grace in the Theology of Thomas Aquinas
- Virtue and Grace in the Theology of Thomas Aquinas
- Copyright page
- Epigraph
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Abbreviations of Aquinas’s Works
- Introduction
- Part I Virtue and the Developments in Grace
- Part II The Conditions of Virtue Simpliciter
- Part III The Conditions of Virtue Secundum Quid
- 7 The Conditions for the Beginning of Virtue Secundum Quid
- 8 The Conditions for Perseverance in Virtue Secundum Quid
- 9 The End of Virtue Secundum Quid
- Part IV Confirmations and Conclusions
- Conclusion
- Selected Works Cited
- Index
Summary
While investigating the sources from which pagan virtue can spring, we distilled three necessary conditions for that virtue to count as authentic virtue: ordainability, good source, right reason. Each of these three conditions is necessary, without any one alone sufficient to establish the graceless agent in a virtuous life. Perhaps because Aquinas explicitly discusses it in relation to pagan virtue, most contemporary attention focuses on the ordainability condition. But it is not fair to say this is the only one to which he attends. Not only does he treat of the right reason condition, but it is easily foreseen given the role recta ratio serves in Aquinas’s moral science. It is certainly one of the ways his moral science is so indebted to Aristotelian ethics.
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- Virtue and Grace in the Theology of Thomas Aquinas , pp. 222 - 247Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2020