Summa Theologiae Moralis, vol. I: De Principiis

S. Th. I-II, q. 62 ; De Virt., q. 1, art. 10 et 12.

623. The theological virtues are operative principles by which we are immediately ordered to God as the supernatural end, so that through their acts the soul immediately attains God the supernatural end and is united to Him. They are rightly called theological :

1°) because God Himself, the supernatural end, inasmuch as He exceeds the cognition of our reason, they have both as material object, which is attained by them, and as formal object or motive,

2°) and therefore they are infused in us by God alone,

3°) and can be known by revelation alone (a. 1).

624. Thesis. Theological virtues are necessary, and indeed three. — It is proved :

1°) By the reason of S. Thomas : In the natural order man would be habitually inclined toward the natural end, radically through the soul, immediately through the intellect knowing the end and judging that one must tend toward it, and through the will which of its nature tends toward the end or its proper good. But, since man, by the gratuitous goodness of God, is destined to a supernatural end, the beatific vision, it is necessary that supernatural principles be added to nature by which he may be habitually inclined toward the supernatural end¹. There is one substantive principle : sanctifying grace, in the very essence of the soul, and three operative ones : faith by which the intellect attains God, the supernatural end, as true, and is able to know Him and the other supernatural principles ; hope by which the will tends toward God the supernatural end as its good but arduous ; and charity which is ordered toward Him as the good in itself and thus through love is supernaturally conformed to Him. Therefore there are three theological virtues (a. 3 ; II-II q. 17, a. 6).

2. By Scripture and Tradition, in which these three virtues are constantly enumerated, as requiring to be connected to one another by a peculiar fittingness and to be distinguished from all the others ; whence the Apostle, I Cor. XIII, 16 : « Now there remain faith, hope, charity, these three. But the greatest of these is charity » (cf. I Thess. V, 8 ; Col. I, 4, 5).

3. By the Decrees of the Church. For this is supposed by Innocent III (cap. Maiores), saying that among the learned it is disputed whether faith, charity and the other virtues are also infused to little ones ; and by Clement V in the Council of Vienne, who establishes this opinion as the more probable to be preferred ; he teaches it however as certain for faith, hope and charity, the Council of Trent, sess. 6, c. 7, although he does not define it.

625. Among the theological virtues there is an order :

A) An order of generation, not indeed 1) according to time, for all are infused together, but 2) according to reason faith precedes, hope follows, and finally charity comes a) according to acts : for no one hopes or loves what he does not know ; but what he hopes and loves, he knows through faith ; — and similarly man, hoping for the good from God, also considers Him as his own good and goes forth to love Him ; — b) also according to habits, but in relation to acts : for faith is presupposed to hope and hope to charity, as intellect is presupposed to will, and imperfect love precedes perfect love.

B) But in the order of perfection charity precedes, which is the perfection of all the virtues (a. 4).