In Christian tradition stemming from the fathers and doctors of the Catholic church, through studying of scriptures distinct virtues were discerned. Due to their basis in the Catholic church some various other Christian churches, through a bias, may not see the correctness in teaching virtues as their own study of correct behavior. Or in Catholic upbringing the individual virtues might not even be drilled down on. The virtues tend not to be emphasized in preaching, although maybe they should be. In any case, the church you go to or may wind up going to might not really cover the virtues. You may be left to your own inquisitive study to go further. Hopefully you will benefit from the discourse of the virtues that I intend to cover here and in future posts.
The Church writes: A virtue is a habitual and firm disposition to do the good. It allows the person not only to perform good acts, but to give the best of himself. The virtuous person tends toward the good with all his sensory and spiritual powers; he pursues the good and chooses it in concrete actions.
So what we have here is starting to get more into the minutiae of what it means for a person to be good and do good. It’s all in the hopes that it helps a person mature in the goodness of their character.
Multiple lists can be arrived at with a varying count, however we’re going to stick with the common count of seven. The virtues are described as either the seven heavenly virtues, or the seven capital virtues. The seven heavenly virtues combine the four cardinal virtues of prudence, justice, temperance, and fortitude with the three theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity. Charity can be thought of as love, or as generosity.
The seven capital virtues are those opposite the seven deadly sins. They are often enumerated as chastity, temperance, charity, diligence, kindness, patience, and humility.
The seven deadly sins are lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, envy, wrath, and pride. These vices, you might think of as an excess – having a feeling, but taking it too far into negative emotion.
This is just broaching the topic. We’ll go deeper going forward.