Necessity of Virtue

Before we go further to my insights and reflections I would like to qualify the word virtue in its original

meaning. It has been depleted and deformed through particular usage by the school of obligation

based morality. Accordingly, virtue is a habitual and firm disposition to do the good.

St. Thomas profoundly divided the study of morality into the theological and cardinal virtues,

adding for each one the study of the corresponding gifts of the Holy Spirit and relevant Beatitude. In the

writings of St. Augustine, he combined the virtues with the gifts of the Holy Spirit as well as the

Beatitudes and the fruits of the Holy Spirit which St. Paul enumerated in Galatians 5:22, the seven gifts

of the Holy Spirit bestowed upon Christians are wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge,

piety and fear of the Lord.

Virtue allows the person not only to perform good acts, but to give the best of himself. The

virtues person tends towards the good with all his sensory and spiritual powers; he pursues the good

and chooses it in concrete actions. According to St Gregory of Nyssa in, De beatitudinibus the goal of a

virtuous life is to become like God. Thus a virtue-based morality covering all the active qualities that

man acquires through intellectual, moral and spiritual faculties has roots in his natural inclination to

goodness, truth and his freedom.

Prudence as the link between the Virtues

Prudence is the virtue that disposes practical reason to discern our true good in every

circumstance and to choose the right means of achieving it. As book of Proverbs tells us, the prudent

man looks where he is going. And St. Thomas also says Prudence is, the right reason in action. It is

prudence that immediately guides the judgment of conscience. With the help of this virtue we apply

moral principles to particular cases without error and overcome doubts about good to achieve and the

evil to be avoided.