Faith, Hope and Charity

In "Questioning St. Thomas Aquinas on the Path to Happiness," in the Catholic Times Weekly, a philosophy professor offers readers some thoughts to reflect on. He gives us a drama with the lengthy title <The Story of Manager Kim, Who Owns a Home in Seoul and Works for a Large Corporation>. This story moved many office workers to tears. Those who watched the drama or heard about it were reminded of their own past, present, and future. This is because it naturally portrayed the struggles of an office worker torn between fierce performance competition and the anxiety of restructuring, as well as the conflict between company policies and personal conscience.

Scenes repeat themselves: facing promotion pressure, engaging in subtle power struggles with colleagues, and having his spirit crushed by rumors of restructuring, only to pull himself together again. On the surface, the protagonist, Manager Kim, appears to be a successful middle manager, but deep down, he is someone who constantly asks himself, “What is truly right? What am I working for? What is the ultimate standard for my life?”

Watching Manager Kim, who loses his grasp on the success that seemed almost within his reach and succumbs to frustration, I found myself wondering whether one’s personal abilities and strengths alone are sufficient for a person to attain true happiness. What came to mind then was Thomas Aquinas’s explanation of the “Theological Virtues”—namely, faith (fides), hope (spes), and charity (caritas). What advice might St. Thomas offer to those of us, like Manager Kim, who are frustrated and adrift?

Thomas Aquinas’s theological virtues do not confine the countless frustrated Manager Kims to the narrative of “survival, promotion, and downfall.” Instead, these virtues act as an amazing force that transforms the ordinary day of a modern working person who believes in Christ into a drama of a personality unified by friendship with God. 

Thomas makes a sharp distinction between virtues suited to our natural state as “social animals” and virtues that purify those striving to draw near to God. Thomas emphasizes the need for “other virtues proportionate to supernatural happiness, in addition to moral virtues proportionate to natural happiness,” and calls these virtues “virtus theologiae.” This is because the object of these virtues—which are also translated as “virtues directed toward God” or “theological virtues”—is God Himself. (I-II, 62, 1) These include “faith” in the intellect, “hope” directed toward God in the will, and “true love” that unites us with Him. (I-II, 62, 3)

These virtues are “instilled by God into the human soul” so that humans may become worthy of eternal life. Therefore, Thomas called them “infused virtues” to distinguish them from “acquired virtues” (such as the intellectual or moral virtues proposed by Aristotle), which are obtained through repeated human actions.