We learn a lot from our parents. In countless situations when
my mother was flustered, frustrated or waiting, I’ve seen her sigh deeply and
utter the words, “Patience is a virtue.” Though in many ways, my mom is one of
the most patient people I know, life – especially the life of a parent – is
full of situations that test our patience. Thus my mom’s need to remind herself
that it was a virtue worth cultivating.
My mom’s saying taught me that virtue had something to do
with character qualities we should strive to attain. But that was the extent of
my understanding until recently, when I read N. T. Wright’s excellent book, After You Believe: Why Christian CharacterMatters. Since then, I’ve grown excited about the concept of virtue and
about how its recovery by American evangelicals could revolutionize our efforts
in discipleship.
This post is the last in a series about the process of
spiritual renewal. To recap: spiritual renewal happens when our will and action
join up with God’s will and action to renovate our hearts so that our bodily
life becomes the true expression of the spiritual life God gives us. We
participate with the indwelling Holy Spirit, who generates this change. Our
role is to engage in disciplined training of mind and body, so that our habits
change and our life is marked by Christlikeness through and through.
The purpose of disciplined training is to produce virtue. Broadly
understood, virtue simply means moral excellence or noble character. More specifically,
virtue is good character forged and formed by determined practice. A virtue is
strength of character that we are not born with, but which, when cultivated,
becomes an ingrained part of who we are.
N. T. Wright explains:
Virtue. . .is what happens when
someone has made a thousand small choices, requiring effort and concentration
to do something which is good and right, but which doesn’t “come naturally”—and
then, on the thousand and first time, when it really matters, they find they do
what’s required “automatically”. . . Virtue
is what happens when wise and courageous choices become “second nature.”[1]
In the rest of his book, Wright argues – and this is a
crucial point for Christian discussions of virtue ethics – that virtues allow
humans to do what God designed and created us for: to worship and serve God
aright and to love others authentically. The kind of life produced by virtue,
therefore, fulfills our deepest human longings and leads to a joyful, focused, flourishing
life. It leads to true “happiness,” not in the anemic modern sense of
pleasurable satisfaction but in the deep sense in which ancient philosophers spoke
of happiness: a life well-lived, characterized by goodness, contentment and
peace.[2]
Because the transformation from vice to virtue aligns us
with our God-given purpose, we begin to find pleasure in doing God’s will,
which once seemed burdensome at best and senseless at worst. Like the psalmist,
we learn to delight in God’s Law because we become the kind of people who want to follow it.[3]
We also delight in discipleship, since Jesus’ teaching sums up both Law and
Prophets[4]
and obeying him means doing God’s will and entering God’s Kingdom.[5]
Following Jesus becomes joyful, because we realize that the way of self-denial
and self-giving love is really, paradoxically, the secret to satisfaction,[6]
despite the world’s pressure to assert our power, pursue our “rights,” and do
whatever we want.
So if spiritual renewal aims at virtue, which makes us
flourish as servants of our God and King, then the logical question to ask is: Which
virtues should we strive for? Which character qualities should our disciplined
apprenticeship to Jesus aim to produce?
Aristotle, whose Nichomachean
Ethics is the seminal work on virtue, believed that a truly happy life hangs
on four “hinge”[7] virtues:
courage, justice, prudence and temperance. The Apostle Paul entered the
discourse on virtue by commending nine kinds of “fruit,” which the Spirit
produces in believers who are being transformed. Paul’s list is quite comprehensive:
love – the paramount Christian virtue – joy, peace, patience, kindness,
goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.[8]
The apostle James, too, defines the qualities God’s heavenly wisdom, which we
can embody. It is “first pure, then peaceful, gentle, willing to yield, full of
mercy and good fruits, without a trace of partiality or hypocrisy.”[9]
The overlap of these qualities with Jesus’ beatitudes is striking. Jesus
follows lead of Israel’s great prophets by highlighting virtues that are
foundational to faithful obedience under the reign of God. Chief among these
are righteousness and justice,[10]
simplicity,[11]
and humility.[12] All
the virtues are rooted in humility, because it is the heart orientation that
makes them all possible.
These virtues are the stuff of Godliness. They are God’s own
character traits that we are called to embody in our relationships with God and
others.
They are, of course, not natural,[13]
but, through discipleship to Jesus, they can become “second nature.” That is
why Paul urges Timothy, “Train yourself in godliness.”[14]
Our training joins with and makes way for the powerful work of God’s Spirit,
who renews our minds, renovates our hearts and reactivates our bodies. The goal
is character transformation. God
makes us mature and complete, so we can see him as he is, worship him as we
ought, and reflect his glory as he made us to do.
[1] N.
T. Wright, After You Believe: Why
Christian Character Matters (New York: HarperCollins, 2010), 20-21.
[2] On
which, see J. P. Moreland and Klaus Issler, TheLost Virtue of Happiness: Discovering the Disciplines of the Good Life.
Colorado Springs: NavPress, 2006.
[3]
Psalm 1:2; 119:69-70
[4]
Matthew 7:12; 22:35-40
[5]
Matthew 7:14, 21, 24
[6]
See, e.g., Luke 9:24-25
[7] We
know them as “Cardinal Virtues,” from the Latin cardo, which means “hinge.”
[8]
Galatians 5:22-23
[9]
James 3:17
[10]
E.g., Matthew 5:6, 10, 20; 6:33
[11]
E.g., Matthew 5:8; 6:19-24, 33; 13:44-46; Luke 6:43-45
[12]
E.g., Matthew 5:5; 18:4; Mark 9:35; Luke 18:9-14
[13]
In fact, John Dickson argues in his recent book, Humilitas, that Jesus was the first moral teacher to make humility
a positive virtue. But that same virtue is at the heart of our salvation, for
Jesus did not consider equality with God something to be clung to, but made
himself nothing, became a servant, humbled himself, and obeyed God even to the
point of death (Phil 2:5-8)!
[14] 1
Timothy 4:8
