The Virtues and the Gifts

 

From Catholicism:

The gifts of the Holy Ghost resemble the infused virtues in a number of ways. Both are operative habits which have God as their efficient cause and the perfection of man as their final cause. Both reside in the human faculties and have right behavior as their material object.

Where they differ is in their motor cause, their mode of action, and their exercise. The virtues are put in motion by natural reason aided by faith and grace, thus making the resulting act “my act.” The gifts, on the other hand, are put in motion directly by the Holy Ghost and will only operate if He so deigns. They are more “His act,” although, by our cooperation with Him, they are truly free and meritorious acts. The mode of the virtues is a human mode of action, whereas the gifts operate in a divine mode. Finally, the virtues are actively exercised by the soul, whereas, the soul is passive under the influence of the gifts, albeit with the necessary conscious assent of the intellect and free cooperation of the will. “Such are the principal differences between the infused virtues and the gifts of the Holy Spirit. The first one establishes the radical and specific differences between the virtues and the gifts; the others are logical consequences of the first one.”[1]

The virtues and the gifts are both necessary elements of the supernatural life (necessary, in fact, for salvation), the former perfecting the faculties of man so that we may live rightly as sons of God, the latter perfecting the virtues themselves so that we may perform their corresponding acts with ease and facility. Each gift perfects one (or more) infused virtue, either because they reside in the same faculty (as faith and knowledge in the intellect) or because, while residing in different faculties, they regulate the acts of those virtues (as temperance and fear).

Father Aumann organizes his subject matter as St. Thomas does, by treating the gifts in connection with the virtues to which they are allied. I shall approach it from the opposite direction, summarizing the gifts in the traditional order and connecting the virtues with them. And since the divine Artist made icons of these virtues and gifts in the saints, I will assign to each gift a saint who exemplifies it. (Read more.)