C. On the Connection of the Moral Virtues with the Theological

101. On the third article [n.10], Augustine seems to say, Against Julian 4.3 n.17, that true and perfect virtues are not without charity. And his proof is that someone without charity does not glory perfectly in God.

102. Against this is Augustine in a sermon on Patience 26 n.23 (and it is contained in Gratian): “If a heretic or schismatic die in order not to deny Christ, are we to commend his patience?” So such a person has patience but not faith or charity; therefore patience can be without charity.

103. Again, when certain things are ordered essentially, as a disposition and the acquired form for which it is the disposition, the disposition can be without the form though not conversely. The moral virtues seem to be certain dispositions for charity, as natural happiness is a disposition for supernatural happiness, [so they can be without charity].

104. Further, third, the definition of moral virtue [n.80] can be perfectly realized in someone without theological virtue.

105. One can say that no virtues incline one to the ultimate end save through the mediation of the virtue whose per se function it is to regard the ultimate end. And so, if only charity immediately regards the ultimate end, the other virtues do not direct one to the ultimate end save through the mediation of charity. But, insofar as the virtues are certain instruments for perfecting man, they should be instruments for directing him to the ultimate end wherein is supreme perfection, and therefore the virtues are imperfect without charity, and they cannot without it be directed to perfection. Yet because this imperfection does not belong to them in their species (for to none in their species does it belong to direct one immediately to the end); therefore each of them can in their species be perfect without charity. To the extent therefore that they are said to be unformed without charity and to be formed through charity [Scotus Quodlibet q.17 n.8], to that extent charity directs them and their ends to the ultimate end, in which direction lies their supreme and true extrinsic perfection.

106. Hereby is plain the answer to the authority of Augustine [n.101], for the virtues are not true without charity because they do not lead to blessedness without it.

104. But, on the other hand, there is a doubt whether the theological virtues presuppose the moral virtues.

108. As to acts the answer is manifestly that they do not. For if someone who was previously vicious is newly converted, he has all the theological virtues from the beginning, yet he does not have the moral virtues, at least not the acquired ones. For he does not do with delight all the things to which his [sc. infused] virtuous habit inclines him; on the contrary it is delightful for him to act according to the old vicious habit previously acquired, and to be saddened by the opposite.

109. But if it be said ‘this man has at the beginning all the infused moral virtues’ (and the like, as about a child in baptism), and that thus is a connection preserved, for if he does not have them as innate he does yet have them as infused (the proof is that he will have them in the fatherland, according to Augustine [On the Trinity 13.9 n.11], who is adduced in the text by Master Lombard; and it is not probable that he would have them in the fatherland according to Augustine unless he had them as a wayfarer, and he will not acquire them as a wayfarer immediately at death). Although many things may be said about the infused moral virtues, namely that they seem to be necessary because of manner or means or end [Henry Quodlibet 6 q.12], yet because the whole end, which they cannot have from their species, is sufficiently determined by the inclination of charity, while the mode or means is sufficiently determined by infused faith, for this reason there seems no necessity to posit (infused) moral virtues other than the acquired ones in the case of those who have acquired them or can acquire them. But then there is no necessity to posit them in others either, because there is no greater reason why they should be infused in the latter than in the former.

110. And then to the point about children [n.109] one can say either, first, that it is not necessary to posit they have moral virtues in the fatherland, but it suffices that they be well disposed by charity about desirable things (charity, to be sure, disposes one about all wantable things under one idea of wantable) - just as it is not necessary they have science of everything in its proper genera, but it suffices that they know them in the Word, which is perfect knowledge.

111. Or, second, one can say that if they will have moral virtues in the fatherland, these virtues will be infused into them at the moment of blessedness. For it is not more necessary that what belongs to the wayfarer (if ever one is to be a wayfarer in the future) should be given in baptism than that what belongs to the state of a blessed comprehender be given at the moment of blessedness; rather the former is less rational than the latter.

112. Or one can say, third, that if the moral virtues belong to some perfection in the comprehender and it they were not given at the moment of glorification, then it will be possible to acquire them through acts performed in the fatherland. For just as no reason appears why comprehenders cannot learn some knowable things in their proper genus that they did not know before, so no reason appears that, by good choices about other things desirable for the end (and this not only to the extent these things are to be willed for the sake of God in himself, but also to the extent they are to be willed as advantageous for oneself), they will be able to acquire a moral habit inclining them to choice of such desirable things under the proper idea of these things, and so to acquire moral virtue.

113. As to this article then [n.101], I say as was said before [n.105] that the moral virtues do not require the theological virtues in order for these moral virtues to be perfect in their kind, although they would, without the theological virtues, not be perfect with a perfection beyond what they could have otherwise. Thus too it is not necessary conversely that the theological virtues, whether in the wayfarer or in the fatherland, should necessarily require the moral ones.