February 6, 2012
Can Virtue Be Taught?
While the question may strike some as more philosophical than practical, growth in virtue is one of the keys to becoming more fulfilled in every aspect of life. In the following reflection, Fr. Robert Spitzer discusses common hurdles found along the path to virtue, and he highlights the interdependence of virtue and faith.
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| St. Augustine and St. Monica |
Great thinkers, including Socrates, have made the case that virtue cannot be taught. I don’t agree with that view because I’ve seen firsthand how education can help people to grow in virtue. But saying that virtue can be taught doesn’t mean it can be imposed. To attain virtue, you must first desire it. It has to be freely chosen.
Christians have a great example in St. Augustine. Even though Augustine had a mother, St. Monica, who probably gave him a wonderful foundation, he threw it all away. He just decided one day, “I’d rather steal pears. Mom’s a nice person but she doesn’t know what’s she’s talking about.” And he went off into his own very decadent domain for quite some time before he decided to work his way back to virtue.
In Christian thinking, there are two schools of thought on how people reach the point of wanting to be virtuous. There’s negative motivation, where you go down to the depths and experience so much pain, you have to make a choice. Either you’re going to Level 3 or Level 4 – the contributive or the transcendent – or you’re going to fall into despair and destroy yourself. It’s very similar to the AA model, where there are so much negative stimuli in your life that you’re forced to make a decision.
On the other side, there’s positive motivation, where you’re inspired to seek virtue because you feel drawn toward something beyond yourself that’s attractive and desirable. If you have faith, you feel drawn to God – not out of a desire to escape anything, but because you perceive God as good and magnificent, holy and loving, and you want to be with Him. This desire may arise from an encounter with an admirable person, a good church community, or from reading Scripture. Or perhaps you had a prayer life when you were young, and you feel compelled to resume it, even after a long Augustinian period.
It can take some people an awful long time to realize they need both faith and virtue, and without both, extreme problems can arise. You can get very religious people who will do anything under the sun – very unethical things – and do them for the sake of their religion. |
In my opinion, the vast majority of people who decide to pursue virtue have a mix of negative and positive stimuli, just like Augustine himself. On the negative side, he felt a real emptiness and lack of meaning, but he also had the positive influence of his mother and St. Ambrose to draw on. Before his conversion, Augustine had been a follower of Manichaeism, which taught that the material world was evil. The Manicheans did give Augustine some sense of transcendent ideals, but Ambrose was the one to show him that he needed Emmanuel – “God with us.” He’d never be satisfied just pursuing these ideals in the sky. He needed to be helped by the God who is willing to come to us despite our imperfections.
Cosmic loneliness and radical incompleteness
Not everyone who decides to pursue virtue decides to take the God route. Some pursue a path that’s stoic and autonomous: “I’ve made up my mind and I’m going to do it myself. I’m going to be true to my authentic self and pursue a life that is worthy of me.”
I think at some point, most people go through a period of extreme autonomy. But what winds up happening frequently is a sense of cosmic emptiness or loneliness, and a feeling of being radically incomplete. You reach a point where you realize, “There is something I don’t have,” and most people then conclude that what they’re lacking is a relationship with God.
However, it’s also possible – common, in fact – to pursue God without pursuing virtue. And here is the crucial fact: When you get religion, you will need virtue to go along with your faith, because virtue helps you to find your authentic self and live your faith fully. It can take some people an awful long time to realize they need both, and without both, extreme problems can arise. You can get very religious people who will do anything under the sun – very unethical things – and do them for the sake of their religion.
One goal of the Spitzer Center’s curriculum is to help people get to the point where they want to be virtuous. We help people to see the consequences of not pursuing virtue and higher levels of happiness – the egomania that results, leading to the Comparison Game, anxiety, loneliness, and emptiness. We help them to recognize the symptoms of a Level 2 outlook on life, and we get them motivated to make a decision to become more Level 3, or contributive. And in our faith-based curriculum, we help them to strive for Level 4 happiness – to go transcendent and go with God.
Next: Building virtue through prayer and contemplation.
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Last changed: Aug 27 2010 at 12:13 PM