RT Article
T1 Aquinas's ‘Integral Parts of Prudence’ as a Resource for Human Formation
JF New blackfriars
VO 100
IS 1090
SP 698
OP 714
A1 Love, John D.
LA English
PB Wiley-Blackwell
YR 2019
UL https://www.ixtheo.de/Record/1780359365
AB Aquinas's articulation of the eight ‘integral parts’ of prudence can serve as a manageable, practical focus for ongoing human development. Although Aquinas holds that there is an infused Prudence, this does not render acquired prudence redundant, because (1) God moves things in ways that befit their natures, and it is our nature to have dominion over our actions; (2) human beings have free will, characteristically exercised in electio, choice of means; (3) grace perfects nature; (4) some scholars have defended the complementarity of the acquired and infused virtues, and there is widespread agreement that the psychological structures needed by acquired virtue persist in the life of graced virtue. The ‘integral parts’ of a Cardinal Virtue must concur for its perfect acts. Aquinas examines them in detail, and offers methods of building ‘memory’ through human effort; he leaves to our diligence the discernment of how to build other parts of prudence. He explains how the parts are deployed in the acts of deliberation, judgment and command. Aquinas's consideration of the vices opposed to prudence and its parts enables him to warn us about what impedes prudence, and to help us distinguish false from legitimate concerns for bodily goods, superfluous from proportionate solicitude, etc.
K1 Formation
K1 solicitude
K1 Deliberation
K1 Memory
K1 Prudence
K1 Aquinas
DO 10.1111/nbfr.12504