Truth & Tech

I recently have been digging into the concept of virtue. I started off by reading How to Think Like a Roman Emperor by Donald Robertson and then have moved on to The Virtues: A Very Short Introduction by Craig A. Boyd. I’ve also been listening to Ryan Holiday’s Podcast called Daily Stoic. Each has forced me to think through what virtue really is and what virtues I want to focus on pursuing and developing in my own life.

The base question of what a virtue is probably doesn’t need a lot of explanation. I think we have all heard phrases like “patience is a virtue”. It essentially is a particular excellence in a specific way over time. And while we tend to consider virtues in terms of the moral variety, some would argue that you can have intellectual virtues and productive virtues. My main emphasis as of late has been on the moral virtues and is primarily what I want to focus on.

Ancient Virtues

Aristotle lists eleven moral virtues: courage, moderation, liberality, magnificence, greatness of soul, ambition, gentleness, friendliness, truthfulness, wittiness, and justice.

Stoic philosophers focused on four: courage, discipline, justice, and wisdom.

Modern psychologists emphasize six: courage, justice, humanity, temperance, transcendence, and wisdom.

Each of these virtue lists seem to emphasize courage, justice, and wisdom. From there, there is some variation. But as a Christian, my main source of truth comes from Scripture. It is there that we find an incredibly large list of virtues.

Scripture

I consulted passages such as 2 Peter 1:5-10; Matthew 5:2-16; Galatians 5:18-24; Titus, and Ephesians 6:13-17 to see if I couldn’t come up with a summary of virtues found in these passages. I found love, righteousness, holiness, godliness, obedience, good reputation, gentleness, brotherly affection, faith, wisdom, truth, peace, joy, thankfulness, faithfulness, patience, goodness, steadfastness, kindness, humility, meekness, merciful, forgiving, compassion, and contentment. A rather large list of virtues and that’s with me trying to condense the descriptions of people’s actions into virtues from those passages.

Condensing

I took all that I found in Scripture and tried to condense them into general categories and eventually narrowed in on the virtues that I think summarize all the other virtues and also lead me to focus on the areas that I want to develop in my own life. I then created an acronym from them (F.L.O.W.S.S.) which ended up being a rather helpful acronym. As I list each of the virtues, you’ll find that the first virtue naturally flows into the next virtue, with each virtue feeding into the next.

F.L.O.W.S.S.

Faith

Love

Obedience

Wisdom

Self-Control

Steadfastness

Faith obviously is the foundation to the Christian life. It is a gift given to us by God which is the foundation of everything else we do. Faith then as a gift inspires a love for God and a love for our neighbors. That love takes on many forms (storge, philia, eros, agape), but ultimately we want to be marked by that love. Jesus even said that the whole law could be summarized by ‘love God and love your neighbor’. Love feeds into obedience in that when you love God, you WANT to do the things he calls us to do. He calls us to be obedient to the authority figures he puts over us unless they call us to do something contrary to God’s will. So, we are to be an obedient people. Knowing God’s will to be obedient requires wisdom; wisdom from Scripture, wisdom from an abundance of counselors, and wisdom in terms of discernment.

As faith inspires us to love, love develops an attitude of obedience, and to be obedient we have to seek out wisdom. Once we know how God wants us to behave, we can ask him for the self-control we need to live that out, as temptation often seeks to distract us from God’s will. Finally, steadfastness is simply seeking to pursue these virtues consistently throughout the rest of our time as we await Christ’s return.

There are many other virtues I’m obviously not mentioning here; joy, humility, and merciful being just a few. But I believe that each of those can fall under one or a couple of the virtues listed above. For instance, joy is a result of faith, love, and wisdom. Faith inspires us to see how much we’ve been given and confidence in the promises God has made. Love for God and love for neighbor allows us to remain committed to His purposes and to share the Love he has given us. Wisdom allows us to see a bigger picture that goes beyond our present circumstances.

Humility is simply an honest assessment of ourselves and others in light of God’s character and truth so is a result of love of neighbor and wisdom. Mercy comes from faith and love, knowing that what we’ve been shown in mercy can be shared with others. And as a bonus, justice is a desire to see God’s kingdom established in every thought, decision, and action. It is a result of love and wisdom.

Limits to Virtues

Are there limits to virtues? Are there times when truth shouldn’t be shared? When obedience to the authorities set over me is no longer a virtue? I believe the answer is yes. If my employer asks me to do something against God’s will for me, it would no longer be virtuous to obey. If my children ask me for information on how to set fire to a local building, it would not be virtuous for me to share that truth as it may very well lead to arson. I believe the limit to virtues are when practicing that virtue would conflict with God’s will for us to exhibit all the other virtues he shares in Scripture. So, when Christians during the holocaust helped shelter Jews from their governments and were not truthful about where the Jews were or whether or not they were sheltering them, they loved their neighbors both in protecting the lives of their Jewish neighbors and preventing their Nazi neighbors from murdering the Jews and failing to love their neighbors.

The Journey Ahead

I have much to learn about virtue as I’m only just now really thinking through this from this perspective. I am confident that love and faith are the primary virtues that fuels all the other virtues. But perhaps I’m over-emphasizing a virtue in “F.L.O.W.S.S.” that really should be replaced with something better. Or, perhaps, it can be simplified more. Ultimately though, emphasis on virtue, rather than on becoming more like Christ might be more of a distraction than a help since what we really want is to just be more like Jesus. What do you think?