Background
1 Corinthians 13
The first mention in Christian literature of the three theological virtues is in St. Paul's first letter to the Thessalonians 1:3, "...calling to mind your work of faith and labor of love and endurance in hope..." In 1 Thessalonians 5:8, he refers to this triad of virtues again, "But since we are of the day, let us be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love and the helmet that is hope for salvation." InAquinas
Aquinas found an interconnection of practical wisdom (''prudentia'') and moral virtue (e.g. courage without prudence risks becoming mere foolhardiness). This is frequently termed "the Unity of the Virtues." Aquinas stated that theological virtues are so called "because they have God for their object, both in so far as by them we are properly directed to Him, and because they are infused into our souls by God alone, as also, finally, because we come to know of them only by Divine revelation in the Sacred Scriptures".Delany, Joseph. "Hope." The Catholic EncyclopediaTeaching by denomination
Catholic Church
The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that faith, hope and love "dispose Christians to live in a relationship with the Holy Trinity. They have God for their origin, their motive, and their object -- God known by faith, hoped in, and loved for His own sake."Moravian Church
Among essential beliefs, theAnglican Communion
Churches of the Anglican Communion also follow Augustine and Aquinas. "Faith is a matter of knowledge of God which perfects the intellect...Hope is a matter of the perfection of the will...Love is a matter of perfection itself as love is the perfection of all powers."'principal object is that eternal verity which hath discovered the treasures of hidden wisdom in Christ'; of hope that its 'highest object is that everlasting goodness which in Christ doth quicken the dead'; of charity, that its 'final object is that incomprehensible beauty which shineth in the countenance of Christ the Son of the Living God'.(''Ecclesiastical Polity'', bk.i, chap. xi)
Moral theology
A person receives the theological virtues by their being "infused"—through Divine grace—into the person. The theological virtues are so named because their object is the divine being (theos). * ''Faith'' is the infused virtue, by which the intellect, by a movement of the will, assents to the supernatural truths of Revelation, not on the motive of intrinsic evidence, but on the sole ground of the infallible authority of God revealing. According toComparison of Cardinal and Theological Virtues
The moral virtues are acquired by practice and habit. Catholic moral theology holds that the theological virtues differ from theSee also
*References
Further reading
* ''Paradise Restored: The Social Ethics of Francis of Assisi, A Commentary on Francis's "Salutation of the Virtues"'', by Jan Hoebrichts, Franciscan Institute Publications, 2004. . *External links