Growth in Supernatural Virtue Involves a Close Harmony Between Nature and Grace

[Update: for a related post, see here]

Here is another topic on which I commented over at The Linde (see this post). It pertains to the big and very significant issue of the relationship between nature and grace. And this issue is a very important backbone to any discussion of how we should understand the virtues, natural and supernatural.

From the point of view of a Catholic understanding of the world, natural and supernatural virtue are closely related and yet very different. Natural virtues can be developed with merely ordinary natural human powers and abilities (e.g. courage, patience, generosity, friendliness). Supernatural virtues have a supernatural goal and can only be developed with the assistance of divine grace (e.g. charity, fortitude, chastity).

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There is a close relationship between natural and supernatural virtues and between the growth of natural and supernatural virtues.

As I studied virtue (natural and supernatural) at the Dominican House in moral theology classes, one of the things that was very intriguing and clarifying to me was learning something about how St. Thomas understands the relationship between these two basic categories of virtue.

An overly simplistic view (and not correct according to St. Thomas)—one that I think is often a default sort of understanding for many Catholics—is that natural virtue gets you to a certain point. Then, supernatural virtue takes over and from that point on it is supernature “building” upon nature (i.e. “grace building upon nature”). Sort of like laying bricks to construct a wall. The first ten rows, say, are brown, and represent natural virtue. Then, rows 11 and higher are red, and represent supernatural virtue. The latter continues building upward, taking up where the other left off. Or, like a relay race where one racer (natural virtue) hands off the baton to the next racer (supernatural virtue). The transition from one to the other is such that there is a clean demarcation line in between—a nice, neat borderline between them. One shifts to the other in a way that you can point to it and say, “there is where one ended and the other began.”

Wrong—according to Aquinas. This is not how it really works. Grace comes in and infuses, permeates, transforms, what is already there in natural virtue. They continue on together, intertwined and enmeshed one into the other. One Dominican professor liked to use the analogy of food coloring. You have a container of water. Then you add a single drop of coloring (i.e. grace). The water does not become something else. Yet, it is permeated throughout by the color as it spreads through all the water in the container. However, when you look at it, you cannot observe a clean demarcation or break between the water (i.e. nature) and the coloring (i.e. grace). They are completely intermingled once the grace has been introduced and just a little bit of stirring taken place. Now, the grace might be a little or a lot (or gradually more over time). But the point is that the nature and the grace are very closely allied to each other and ought not be thought of in a compartmentalized way.

The amount of water might be analogous to the amount of natural virtue. The natural and supernatural virtue are closely related, while still being of a totally different nature—yet not clearly distinguishable once they have been brought together.

An example. Let’s take courage (as the natural virtue) and fortitude (as its supernatural complement). Using the water image, say a person has built up one gallon’s worth of courage. Then, he converts, is baptized and becomes a practicing Christian. He now has one gallon of an intimately close mix of courage but now infused with a new color it did not have before—the color of fortitude. The amount of natural virtue effects the operation of the supernatural. The supernatural is not caused by the natural, but it is enabled to work upon a broader field by the larger presence of the natural. If there were one-half gallon of natural courage to start, there would be one-half gallon of fortitude-infused courage after grace came in. Likewise, if there were two gallons at first, and so forth.

The water cannot make itself red. That must be supplied into it from without. But, the more water there is in the pot, the more of it there is to become the new color red when the color is added. And similarly as virtue is increased. A person in grace grows in natural and supernatural virtue in a such a way that they both grow in an intertwined fashion, each being like a stepping stone for the other (but without the natural ever being the origin of the supernatural).

So, it is not accurate to say grace “builds” on nature as though one stops at a certain point and then the other begins. Rather, grace infuses (transforms) nature thoroughly without destroying it or covering it over. (You can still see through colored water; but you see through it in a new way). The nature persists and the amount and character of it remain essential to the way in which the infused, new supernature can be enacted.

The Mind of Man and the Mind of God--A Mysterious Harmony

The topic of how religious people view the interplay between human reason and the mind of God is very important. The way in which the Catholic tradition understands this is one of those things that make me especially grateful to be Catholic. It helps us to steer clear of the two extremes that are rationalism (putting all the weight upon human reason) and fideism (putting all the weight upon what comes to us by faith).

Faith and Reason Together. The most enduring and robust strands of Catholic theology have long grasped a vision of the human person which realizes that the sort of knowledge that comes to us by faith (i.e. by a supernatural self-communication of God to man) should always be received in the context of a human mind fully alive in every way--whose natural powers of reason are always striving to fire on all cylinders.

Thus, we should have no fear or hesitation of simultaneously and vigorously engaging a most devout and pious faith together with the most rigorous and probing rational thought processes! The book of nature and the book of Sacred Scripture come from the same divine source. Our faith, necessarily, brings our minds beyond where our reason alone could go. But, in so doing faith never violates our reason; indeed, faith, in turn, gives our reason more nourishment to feed upon as it turns back to the book of nature enriched with the truths of faith.

Reason by Itself Knows Traces of God in the World. After briefly mentioning faith and reason together, I would now like to narrow my focus just to natural human reason, exploring how natural reason on its own, considered apart from faith, is still involved with God (and this is so regardless of whether a particular person is aware that God is real).

The natural operation of human reason itself has a connection with the knowledge God has of Himself within the Trinity.

If I understand this properly, according to St. Thomas Aquinas, God knows us (in the deepest, most thorough sense of the Creator knowing his creatures) within the same act of knowledge that is His own knowledge of Himself. In other words, as His creatures, God's knowledge of us is contained inside His own self-Knowledge. (Important note: this does not in any way mean that human creatures are a part of God's own nature, which would blur the clear distinction between God and His creation; it has more to do with the fact that God's knowledge of His creation does not add anything new to the knowledge He had of Himself before creation)

Now, what about human nature and our own ability to reason aside from faith? The idea (still using St. Thomas) of 'Image' is very important here. We are "images" of God (Gen 1:26). More specifically, we are images of The Image--who is Jesus Christ, the Son, the Word, the one Perfect Image of the Father. Now this Perfect Image which is God the Son is also the Truth and the Word--the Word which is the Father's perfect self knowledge, "spoken" to Himself.

What impact does this have upon our own natural reason? Because we are in our very nature images of this one Perfect Image of the Father, we, in our own human acts of knowing the created world, share (participate) in the very self-understanding of God within Himself. To gain authentic knowledge--to grow in wisdom and understanding of the world and of ourselves--is, by the very activity of our minds, to come more deeply into contact with the interior "thought" of God Himself. (Note: the new knowledge of God we gain by the gift of faith, opened to us at Baptism, is another thing beyond this and is not attainable by our reason alone; I am trying now to remain on the natural plane that all mankind shares regardless of faith.)

This train of thought leads us to see (though dimly) that knowledge and love--in God--are united. To know is to love and to love is to know, at least from the divine perspective. In the beatific vision knowledge and love will be one in the awesome splendor of each individual person's direct encounter with the Triune God. (The role of grace in our earthly life and how the infused virtues transform and elevate natural reason with a new capacity is another important aspect of all this which I won't try to go into here.)

I find this mysterious interplay between the mind of God and the minds of men fascinating. Without losing sight of the clear demarcation between God and man, creature and creator, it means that exercising the human mind upon the created realm is already to possess an awesome dignity--the dignity of being an image of God in the very operation of our minds as we learn and grow in our understanding of reality. For indeed, even as we know things independently as unique, free, self-possessed thinkers, ultimately it is also the case that we know all that we know in Him (in whom and through whom all things were made; Jn 1:1-5)! How's this for anthropological awesomeness!

Music Performance and Theology--Contemporary Parallels

In the practice of Catholic theology there is an ongoing issue as to how one might successfully achieve being faithful to the tradition--respecting the great patrimony of thinkers of ages past--while also being genuinely contemporary, bringing into play authentic contributions from the modern/post-modern world. (For a related earlier post see here.) The best Catholic theologians I think always strive to do both.

I think that an instructive parallel can be seen with music, especially in live music that includes individual solos against a background of a standard tune.

Think of how this works with a live jazz performance (bluegrass would serve just as well). The whole group of musicians launches into a particular song (e.g. "Devil May Care" as below with Diana Krall and her band). If it is a jazz standard, the song has a traditional structure and melody. Its basic foundation is known--solid, stable. And because the musicians are accomplished, well-practiced, and also know the song well and know how they like to play it as a group (since they have rehearsed it), the foundation of the song's basic structure is secure during the live performance. No one has to worry about the song going off track or anyone getting lost as to where the group is in the song. This provides the context for each individual musician to then be able to stretch his wings and shine in various solo contributions as the song is performed. Each soloist can challange himself more to his highest potential as a soloist knowing he can lean upon/rely upon the secure foundation maintained by his bandmates. You can see this taking place among great musicians as they perform live--the security of the known providing a base upon which the creative can soar without fear. [Less accomplished musicians cannot do this well. They are not secure enough in the basic elements of the music to allow for each soloist to flourish to his full potential.]

With the steady, secure foundation of the rest of the band moving along confidently the stage is set to permit the musicians to take turns shifting out of the role of being part of the supportive musical backdrop, "stepping out" into solo roles. Then, after a solo stint they seamlessly shift back into the group's communal performance of the standard song structure, allowing another member in turn to step out for their solo and then back, and so forth, in a flowing, creative back-and-forth between the song as performed by the group and moments of individual creativity and spontaneity.

And a further observation about how this works: As each musician takes a solo turn, they do not do so as though they were detached from the underlying song structure being played by their fellow band members. Very often, the underlying standard melody to which they are all together attuned and "locked in" as a living community in a united dynamic action, provides creative raw material for the soloist to riff on--augmenting, twisting, inverting, playing with the known melody to put his own unique interpretation on it.

So, it is not by acting as an isolated, lone agent that each soloist creates his own special musical contribution of the moment to the living whole. Rather, he makes his solo contribution by allowing it to somehow shadow, reflect, interpret, and build upon--but in a unique and unforeseen way--the known and predictable form that the others are playing underneath. This playful interaction between the known tradition and the creative output of the moment, informed by years of practice and talent development, makes for the occasion of a great live music performance. It is undergirded by the secure familiarity of the known and beloved, while at the same time made refreshingly alive and exciting by the transformation provided by the creative and the new.

Good theology is very much like this! It is a musical interplay of the tradition with contemporary and creative elements. And it is the very presence of the perennial in the contemporary that enables the new to have confidence as it breathes new breath and stretches its wings beyond what has come before.