‘Spiritual Training’ and Growth in Infused Virtue: Aquinas’s Model in Historical Context
This article examines the important role and historical context of spiritual ‘training’ (exercitium) in St. Thomas Aquinas’s account of infused virtue growth. The traditional practice of spiritual training or discipline confronted the dangers of mediocrity, lukewarmness and relapse in the moral life...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Sage
2023
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| In: |
Studies in Christian ethics
Year: 2023, Volume: 36, Issue: 2, Pages: 287-310 |
| IxTheo Classification: | CB Christian life; spirituality KAE Church history 900-1300; high Middle Ages KCA Monasticism; religious orders NCA Ethics |
| Further subjects: | B
Spirituality
B Dominican Order B Grace B Aquinas B Virtue B Asceticism B Medieval History B Moral Growth |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | This article examines the important role and historical context of spiritual ‘training’ (exercitium) in St. Thomas Aquinas’s account of infused virtue growth. The traditional practice of spiritual training or discipline confronted the dangers of mediocrity, lukewarmness and relapse in the moral life, seeking further to train us into virtuous conduct through prayer, fasting, vigils, recitation of psalms, examination of conscience, meditation on Scripture, and so forth. Thomas strongly advocated this praxis as crucial to growth in infused virtue. I examine the concept of spiritual training as he knew it, and in particular bring into view the unfamiliar context and landscape which gave it intelligibility. To this end I articulate the patristic and medieval sources which he relied upon and show what is distinctive in his account relative to that of his contemporaries. While his account is not parochial to Dominican life, I argue that the Order's literature regulating the formation of friars sheds crucial light on how Thomas conceived of spiritual training in practice, and conclude by suggesting some implications for moral theology and virtue theory. |
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| ISSN: | 0953-9468 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Studies in Christian ethics
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1177/09539468221148420 |