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Objection 1: It would seem that charity is not the most excellent of
the virtues. Because the higher power has the higher virtue even as it
has a higher operation. Now the intellect is higher than the will,
since it directs the will. Therefore, faith, which is in the
intellect, is more excellent than charity which is in the will.
Objection 2: Further, the thing by which another works seems the
less excellent of the two, even as a servant, by whom his master
works, is beneath his master. Now "faith . . . worketh by
charity," according to Gal. 5:6. Therefore faith is more
excellent than charity.
Objection 3: Further, that which is by way of addition to another
seems to be the more perfect of the two. Now hope seems to be
something additional to charity: for the object of charity is good,
whereas the object of hope is an arduous good. Therefore hope is more
excellent than charity.
On the contrary, It is written (1 Cor. 13:13): "The
greater of these is charity."
I answer that, Since good, in human acts, depends on their being
regulated by the due rule, it must needs be that human virtue, which
is a principle of good acts, consists in attaining the rule of human
acts. Now the rule of human acts is twofold, as stated above
(Article 3), namely, human reason and God: yet God is the first
rule, whereby, even human reason must be regulated. Consequently the
theological virtues, which consist in attaining this first rule, since
their object is God, are more excellent than the moral, or the
intellectual virtues, which consist in attaining human reason: and it
follows that among the theological virtues themselves, the first place
belongs to that which attains God most.
Now that which is of itself always ranks before that which is by
another. But faith and hope attain God indeed in so far as we derive
from Him the knowledge of truth or the acquisition of good, whereas
charity attains God Himself that it may rest in Him, but not that
something may accrue to us from Him. Hence charity is more excellent
than faith or hope, and, consequently, than all the other virtues,
just as prudence, which by itself attains reason, is more excellent
than the other moral virtues, which attain reason in so far as it
appoints the mean in human operations or passions.
Reply to Objection 1: The operation of the intellect is completed
by the thing understood being in the intellectual subject, so that the
excellence of the intellectual operation is assessed according to the
measure of the intellect. On the other hand, the operation of the
will and of every appetitive power is completed in the tendency of the
appetite towards a thing as its term, wherefore the excellence of the
appetitive operation is gauged according to the thing which is the
object of the operation. Now those things which are beneath the soul
are more excellent in the soul than they are in themselves, because a
thing is contained according to the mode of the container (De Causis
xii). On the other hand, things that are above the soul, are more
excellent in themselves than they are in the soul. Consequently it is
better to know than to love the things that are beneath us; for which
reason the Philosopher gave the preference to the intellectual virtues
over the moral virtues (Ethic. x, 7,8): whereas the love of the
things that are above us, especially of God, ranks before the
knowledge of such things. Therefore charity is more excellent than
faith.
Reply to Objection 2: Faith works by love, not instrumentally, as
a master by his servant, but as by its proper form: hence the argument
does not prove.
Reply to Objection 3: The same good is the object of charity and of
hope: but charity implies union with that good, whereas hope implies
distance therefrom. Hence charity does not regard that good as being
arduous, as hope does, since what is already united has not the
character of arduous: and this shows that charity is more perfect than
hope.
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