Summa I-II Q.68 aa.2–4: Why the Gifts of the Holy Spirit Are Necessary for Salvation, Why They Are Habits, and the Objections to Counting Seven

Orientation #

He begins: “I guess we’re up to Article Two of Question Sixty Eight.” He refers back to “the earlier question” that showed faith is imperfect by definition, and to what “I mentioned last time” on likeness being most slippery (prev. lecture). The gratiae gratis datae (prophecy) “we’ll talk about later on.” The previous class ended on q. 68 a. 1 (how gifts differ from virtues); the next continues through a. 4 and following.

The class, in order #

1. Article 2, the objections and sed contra (“necessary for what salvation”) #

Point: three arguments that the gifts are not necessary for salvation, which he finds “very convincing,” against a sed contra from the extremes.

• Obj. 1: the gifts aim at a perfection beyond the common perfection of virtue; such perfection falls under counsel, not precept. His illustration: the young man asking “what must I do to be saved?” is told the commandments suffice; “if you want to be perfect,” sell your goods and follow me. So the gifts are not necessary.
• Obj. 2: for salvation it suffices to be well disposed about divine things (theological virtues) and human things (moral virtues).
• Obj. 3: Gregory, Moralia II: wisdom against stupidity, understanding against dullness, counsel against precipitation, fortitude against fear, science against ignorance, piety against hardness, fear against pride; but virtues are a sufficient remedy for all these.
• Sed contra: the highest gift (wisdom) and the lowest (fear) are both necessary for salvation (“God loves no one except the one who dwells with wisdom”; “the man who is without fear cannot be justified”), so the in-between ones are too. He notes one might reply “wisdom” and “fear” have more than one sense, “but this makes you stop and think.”
• Aside: in grade school with the Baltimore Catechism you learn only the names of the seven gifts.

2. Body of article 2: two perfections of reason (“the first is had in a more perfect way”) #

Point: the gifts are necessary wherever the instinct of reason does not suffice and the instinct of the Holy Spirit is required.

1. Reason is perfected by God in two ways: natural perfection (natural light of reason, which “poor Aristotle” knew) and supernatural perfection through the theological virtues.
2. The second is greater, but the first is had more perfectly: the first as a full possession, the second imperfectly, “for imperfectly do we both love and know God.”
3. What has a nature, form or virtue perfectly can act through itself (not excluding God’s inward operation in every nature and will); what has it imperfectly cannot act unless moved by another.
   • From nature: the sun, perfectly lucid, illumines by itself; the moon, having light imperfectly, does not lighten unless lit (the dark of the moon).
   • From art: the doctor who perfectly knows medicine acts by himself; the disciple not yet fully instructed must be instructed by another. His anecdote: taken to the woodlot by an experienced worker from his father’s factory, told “we don’t want that one, we bought this one,” without knowing why.
4. So for things under reason ordered to the connatural end, man can act by the judgment of his reason; if God also aids him by a special instinct, this is superabundant goodness. Hence, per the philosophers (Ethics VII, heroic virtue), not everyone with acquired moral virtue has heroic or divine virtue. “Now it makes sense.”
5. But toward the supernatural last end, to which reason moves as only imperfectly formed by the theological virtues, the motion of reason does not suffice; the instinct and motion of the Holy Spirit must be added.
6. Scripture: Romans 8, “who are led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God,” as if one is not fully a son of God by faith, hope and charity alone; Psalm 142, “your good Spirit has led me into the right land,” since no one reaches the inheritance of that land unless led by the Holy Spirit.

• He likes “Spirit of God” as a name of the Holy Spirit, parallel to “Son of God”/“Word of God”; one rarely hears it.

3. A student’s difficulty: are the theological virtues an imperfect work of God? (“likeness is a most what? slippery”) #

Point: the imperfection is on the side of the recipient; supernatural virtue is received in a human way, and this is why likeness is treacherous.

• Student: if God gives faith, why is it not sufficient; “why didn’t He just give us what we need to begin with?” His first answer: in the body’s first part Thomas simply asserts it; the Scripture texts make it clearer, since “led by the Spirit” means moved by instinct. Second answer (with the student): “it has to do with the one receiving it”; the theological virtues perfect us supernaturally but “in a way that is kind of proper to man,” hence a built-in imperfection. Faith is imperfect by definition, as the earlier question said (prev. lecture).
• Student asks whether gifts like understanding or science strengthen faith: “we’re going to see that.”
• Illustration: “whether a man is worthy of love or hate, he doesn’t know” (Bible); one cannot be certain he has charity, because of the likeness between natural and supernatural love.
• Digression on likeness: Monsignor Dionne pointed out that in Plato’s Sophist (“well named” for this) Socrates says likeness is most slippery, in the superlative in the Greek; Aristotle in the Sophistical Refutations says likeness is the cause of deception; among the four dialectical tools, the tool of likeness comes after the tool of difference, and he told one senior the reason is that likeness deceives if you do not first see the difference; the fourth tool is not called finding a likeness but skepsis, a consideration of in what way two things are alike. “You’ve got to see exactly in what way two things are alike, and that’s very, very difficult.”
• Marriage example of the same confusion: emotion for one’s wife vs. love in the will; the vow asks for a choice, an act of will, not “wonderful feelings,” which “is not going to get you married.”
• Student: one of the senses of the Romans text is that they are led or driven, moved by the Spirit. He agrees.
• Heroic virtue tightened: the virtues of Ethics II-VI are fully human virtues; book VII treats bestial vices and heroic virtues, which are “not in a human mode.” So, “careful, careful,” not the same, but the gifts stand to the theological virtues somewhat as heroic virtues to the virtues of II-VI.
• Student: if theological virtues are received in an imperfect human way, why not the gifts too, since the recipient is the same? Answer: the gifts dispose one to be moved by the Holy Spirit in a way above the human mode; faith, hope, charity perfect reason and will “in conformity with our reason.”
• De Koninck thought he had the gift of faith because as a philosopher he could not account for the strength of his assent to the mysteries without having reasoned them out. He adds one can know better that one has faith than charity, since love perfects the will toward something outside, while reason is perfected by having things in it.

4. Article 2, replies to the objections (“quantum ad modum operandi”) #

Point: the impressive first objection rests on a likeness; the gifts exceed the virtues in mode of operating, not in kind of deed.

• Ad 1: the gifts exceed the common perfection of the virtues not as to the genus of things done, the way counsels exceed precepts, but as to the way of operating, according as man is moved by a higher principle, the Holy Spirit. Contrast: with the theological virtues reason has been perfected to move by itself (an act exceeding nature’s powers, but still my reason’s act); with the gifts one is disposed to be moved by an outside mover, like Aristotle’s heroic virtue. A student presses: the theological virtues are still supernatural, and even reasoning about what is revealed is an act of reasoning; he agrees: “it is, it is,” but the difference is the modus operandi.
  • Counsels illustrated: give up wife, bank account and one’s own will; a man entering the Dominicans said “I am now legally dead,” any inheritance would go to the order; Warren Murray’s story of a scholarly man told by a Benedictine there is no guarantee he could continue studies, “tomorrow they can tell you you’re in the kitchen.”
• Ad 2: by the theological and moral virtues man is not so perfected toward the last end that he does not always need a superior instinct of the Holy Spirit, for the reason in the body.
• Ad 3: to human reason, natural or perfected by the theological virtues, not all things are known nor all things possible, so it cannot repel all stupidity etc. mentioned by Gregory; but God, to whose knowledge and power all things are subject, by His motion renders us safe from all of them; hence the gifts, which make us followers of the Holy Spirit, are given against such defects.
• Student closes: faith and hope are imperfect by definition (not seeing God), but there are gifts perfecting charity too, as if charity is not possessed in a way that lets us exercise it; “I find that strange.” His answer: the saints seem “moved in an unusual way”; Flannery O’Connor: “you will know the truth, and the truth will make you odd.”

5. Article 3, whether the gifts are habits: objections and sed contra (“come and go”) #

Point: three arguments that the gifts are not habits, against Christ’s own words.

• Obj. 1: a habit is a quality difficult to remove (Praedicamenta, i.e. the Categories); but it is proper to Christ that the Spirit rests on Him (Isaiah 11; John 1, “descending and remaining upon Him”), and Gregory, Moralia II: the Spirit comes to all the faithful but remains always only in the Mediator. So the gifts come and go; Thomas “has to see some distinction there.”
• Obj. 2: the gifts perfect man as moved by the Spirit of God, so he is a tool of the Spirit, and a tool is not perfected by habit; the hammer partakes of the carpenter’s art when moved but has no habit. “Again, the likeness is deceiving you,” we are an animate instrument.
• Obj. 3: the gifts come from divine inspiration, as does prophecy, but prophecy is not a habit, the spirit of prophecy not being always present (Gregory, first homily on Ezekiel). Aside: Moses and Elijah with Christ on the mountain.
• Sed contra: John 14, the Spirit “will remain with you and will be in you”; He is not in men without His gifts; so the gifts remain, and are permanent habits, not only acts or undergoings. “A pretty good text.”

6. Body of article 3: the likeness of ratios (“as the moral virtues have themselves to the desiring power”) #

Point: the gifts are habits by which man is disposed to obey the Holy Spirit promptly.

1. The moral virtues perfect the desiring power as it partakes of reason, i.e. as apt to be moved by reason’s command.
2. The gifts stand to man, in comparison to the Holy Spirit, as the moral virtues stand to the desiring power in comparison to reason. “Got to be especially careful about likeness of ratios”: they are more distant likenesses, yet Aristotle insists on their importance in the “fourth two” [unclear in recording], and most new theories in physics come from seeing a likeness of ratios.
3. The moral virtues are habits disposing the desiring powers to obey reason promptly; so the gifts are habits perfecting man to obey the Holy Spirit promptly. “A beautiful likeness.”

• Ad 1 (following Gregory): in the gifts without which one cannot reach life, the Spirit always remains in all the elect; in other gifts (prophecy) not always. The seven are necessary for salvation, so the Spirit always remains in the saints as regards them.
• Ad 2: the argument holds for an instrument which only is moved and does not act; man is not such a tool but is moved by the Spirit so that he also acts, by free will, hence needs a habit. Aristotle’s two kinds of tools, animate and inanimate, which Thomas has heard.
• Ad 3: prophecy is among the gifts for the manifestation of the Spirit (gratiae gratis datae, to be treated later), not among those necessary for salvation.
• Aside: he is “starting to have a little idea of the heroic virtues too,” some men moved by God superhumanly.

7. Article 4, the enumeration: objections and sed contra (“I wish there were a gift of art”) #

Point: five objections that the seven are unsuitably enumerated, read but not yet answered; “very unusual” that Thomas has the seven distinguished. Names here “can be equivocal.”

• Obj. 1: four gifts match the intellectual virtues (wisdom, understanding, science, counsel, the last pertaining to prudence), but none matches art, the fifth intellectual virtue. He: “I wish there were a gift of art.” Mozart did not know where his melodies came from; “inspired artists”; perhaps heroic virtue of art. Aside: “a melody cannot be defined; it can only be hummed”; the radio playing Eine kleine Nachtmusik.
• Obj. 2: piety is a part of justice (toward parents; here toward God), but for fortitude the virtue itself is named, so justice itself should be named. “Even I can understand that objection.”
• Obj. 3: the theological virtues most order us to God, so there should be gifts pertaining to them. “It gets more and more confused.”
• Obj. 4: God is loved, hoped in, delighted in as well as feared; love, hope, pleasure are passions divided against fear, so they too should be gifts.
• Obj. 5: wisdom rules understanding, counsel rules fortitude (else foolhardy), science rules piety; so fear needs a directing gift.
• Sed contra: the authority of Scripture, Isaiah 11. He asks whether the seven are listed elsewhere in Scripture, in the other order; a student thinks there is another list, he cannot recall, both perhaps in Isaiah; left unresolved.

His words #

• “instinct of the Holy Spirit”: divine motion the gifts dispose us to follow well.
• “consuls”: his hearing throughout [ed.: counsels], vs. precepts/commandments.
• “heroic or divine virtue”: Ethics VII, not in the human mode.
• “Spirit of God”, “the good Spirit”: names of the Holy Spirit he singles out.
• “most slippery”: likeness, per Socrates in the Sophist, superlative in the Greek.
• “skepsis”: the fourth dialectical tool, a consideration of in what way things are alike.
• “quantum ad modum operandi”: as to the way of operating, where the gifts exceed the virtues.
• “Praedicamentis”: the Latin name for the Categories.
• “likeness of ratios”: Thomas’s argument form in a. 3; more distant, so needs care.
• “animate instrument”: man as tool of the Spirit who also acts by free will.
• “gratia gratis dona” [ed.: gratiae gratis datae]: gifts for manifestation of the Spirit, e.g. prophecy.
• “ipsa justitia”: justice itself, in obj. 2 of a. 4.

Texts #

Read in class

• Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I-II, q. 68, a. 2 (whole article)
• Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I-II, q. 68, a. 3 (whole article)
• Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I-II, q. 68, a. 4, objections 1-5 and sed contra
• Romans 8 (“led by the Spirit of God”); Psalm 142 (“your good Spirit”); John 14 (“will remain with you”); John 1 (Spirit remaining on Christ)

Mentioned

• Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics VII (heroic virtue; II-VI human virtues); Categories; Sophistical Refutations; the four tools of dialectic (Topics, inferred); “the fourth two” on likeness of ratios [unclear in recording]
• Gregory, Moralia II; first homily on Ezekiel
• Plato, Sophist
• Isaiah 11; Wisdom/Ecclesiasticus texts of the sed contra (loci not stated)
• Thomas Aquinas, Quaestiones Disputatae de Potentia (“the most powerful book ever written”)
• Baltimore Catechism; Flannery O’Connor

His questions #

• Are the gifts necessary for salvation, given counsels are not precepts? Yes; they exceed the virtues in mode of operating, not in the kind of deed.
• Why is the natural perfection had more perfectly than the supernatural? It is a full possession; we know and love God imperfectly.
• Why can’t a man know with certitude that he has charity? Because of the likeness between natural and supernatural love; likeness is most slippery.
• Why does Aristotle put the tool of likeness after the tool of difference? Likeness deceives unless you first see the difference.
• If God gives faith, why is it insufficient by itself? Because of the recipient: received in a human way, so imperfect; the gifts move us above the human mode.
• Are the gifts habits, if the Spirit comes and goes? Yes; in the gifts necessary for salvation the Spirit always remains in the elect.
• Isn’t man merely a tool of the Spirit, needing no habit? No; he is an animate instrument who also acts by free will, so he needs a habit.
• Why doesn’t prophecy remain in the prophet? It is for manifestation of the Spirit, not necessary for salvation.
• Is Isaiah 11 the only place Scripture enumerates the seven? Left open.