D. About the Connection of the Theological Virtues with Each Other

114. As to the fourth article, about the connection of the theological virtues with each other [n.10], I say that they are not connected, as is plain of the fatherland, where the habit and act of charity will remain without the habit and act of faith or hope [I Corinthians 13.8-13]. It is plain in the wayfarer, where faith and hope remain without charity in the sinner. There is then, from the idea of the habits in their existence, no necessary connection between them.

115. But what of their coming to be or infusion - are they such that one cannot be infused without another?

116. I reply: All things that can be separated in their being, such that one can exist without the other, can be separated one from another by God in their coming to be or their infusion. And so, as to infusion, they are not necessarily connected of themselves, but they are connected by divine liberality, because God perfects the whole man, according to Augustine On True and False Penance ch.9 n.23: “It is impious to separate off half a favor from God, namely because as he cured no one in body save perfectly, so too he cures no man spiritually unless he cure him perfectly.” But perfect health is when one have faith as to the intellect, and charity and hope as to the will, as is plain in Gratian Decrees, p.2 cause 33 q.3, On Penance.

117. But if it be asked whether faith and hope without charity would be virtues, one can say (as was said above about the virtues [n.105]) that they can be perfect in their species, that is, insofar as they are the principles of their own acts in respect of their own objects. But the ultimate perfection that they have in attaining the end, to which they are ordered by charity, they cannot have without charity. And this indeed is perfection both in morals and in theological virtue, although it is commonly said that it is perfection in attaining the end through some elicited act, or because of some order of these or those acts to the end. However, it can be said that the aforesaid perfection is precisely in the fact of their being accepted by God, through his ordering them to blessedness [Ord. 1 d.17 n.129]. Thus, to be sure, no moral virtue, nor infused virtue, nor moral act even, is accepted without charity, which “alone divides the sons of the kingdom from the sons of perdition” [Augustine, On the Trinity 15.18 n.32; Ord. 2 d.27 n.8].

118. But as to the intellectual habits, it is not necessary to delay over them. For it is plain that there is no necessary connection between them, unless some perhaps are subordinate habits, of which sort are the understanding of principles and the science of conclusions; and in these sorts of cases the prior is without the posterior though not conversely.