theological virtues
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October 9th, 2025
- I've been reflecting on how I've recently been grokking faith on a level that's as core as the level on which I've grokked trust, and it has me wondering about some of the other Christian virtues. Not even virtues, but what are the things in the category with faith and trust and joy and love and hope? I feel like I'm somehow getting something really core about what each of these basic psychic mechanisms is.
- like "the greatest of these is love" - these what? what's the noun?
- Claude says these 3 are the theological virtues
- > they're distinguished from the cardinal virtues (prudence, justice, fortitude, temperance) because they're seen as directly oriented toward God rather than achievable through human effort alone.
- to just gesture briefly at what I know of each of some others — top level bullets are Claude, not necessarily canon
- Faith (trust/confidence in what you can't see)
- my recent reflections have me thinking that no, this is about confidence in what you can't CONTROL
- and maybe I would have been able to say that before, too. with trust, your will kind of flows through something?
- eh, that doesn't exactly match, with other people
- but there's something there
- but I think the "can't see" really is a red herring and a confusion from the secular age
- faith is about choosing; trust is NOT about choosing. choosing your wife, your husband, your projects, your particular god, again and again
- and someone could be a faithful atheist materialist scientist, while someone who waffles and is uncommitted and doesn't take seriously that these worldviews mean something, is not faithful
- or even a faithful agnostic! devoted to the limits of their own knowing
- oddly I'm struck by a sense that Hephaistos Fnord actually has a lot of faith, despite not having a lot of trust in the world. but his faith contains a lot of the things he's afraid of; he's placating the punisher, in part
- Hope (orientation toward future good)
- seems basically right. vibes a little with don't crash into the tree / focus on what you want
- but my sense is that there's more to it. probably in order to really get it, I'll need to connect with a person who really gets it
- Love (self-giving connection)
- this one is already super overloaded. Paul was talking about agape... yeah
- Joy (intrinsic gladness regardless of circumstances)
- unclear about this! I once heard joy described as the feeling you have when you're doing the lord's work, and that resonated with something
- Peace (deep okayness/settledness)
- yeah, something about still water here
- people don't feel NEARLY as confused about this one as trust/faith
- equanimity?
- still, there's a really interesting connection worth exploring between the basic psychic stance of peace, and the state of nations not being at war
- like, is there a sense in which the psychic stance somehow undergirds the possibility of non-war?
- acceptance, not needing things to be different than they are
- Gratitude (recognition of gift)
- recognition that you live in something larger?
- there's also gratitude to other people though, which I've recently been learning more about
- recognizing that others are paying costs that they could... not pay, to help you or participate or whatever
- haaaa something else that just occurred to me is that if I get these clear enough, I might notice that there's some sort of missing one, like the periodic table (but not THAT systematic) or like the 2×2 with anxiety depression mania where the fourth quadrant (things are good but I'm not sure how) sure seems super great