The Beatitudes and Fruits of Fr. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange

Dear Friends

I have some questions about the work of Fr. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange rather than St. Thomas himself. I hope that this is an acceptable topic for discussion.

In the course of my research I have become increasingly convinced that the virtues, Gifts, Beatitudes and Fruits form an organic whole in the ST 2a2ae. The patterns and interconnections are complex, fascinating and often somewhat counter-intuitive. To take one small example, courage as an infused virtue is linked to courage as a Gift. Courage as a Gift is linked to the Beatitudes of meekness and ‘hungering and thirsting for righteousness’. The beatitude of meekness in turn leads to the Fruits of patience and long-suffering. I am beginning. I believe, to understand some of underlying principles of these interconnections. This study will form the basis of my doctoral dissertation.

When I read Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange, however, I do not see any awareness of the existence of these patterns in his summaries of Aquinas's work. He does, of course, claim that the infused and acquired virtues are different, because that is what Aquinas says. But even here, however, his definitions do not in practice establish grounds for supporting the assertion of a distinction. In his "Reality - A Synthesis Of Thomistic Thought", for example, Garrigou-Lagrange writes that “Justice, either acquired or infused, is a virtue residing in man's will, a virtue which destroys selfishness, and enables him to give to each neighbor that neighbor's due.” [51.2] The phrase ‘either acquired or infused’ in this definition conflates the acquired and infused modes of justice and fails to establish any obvious principle of distinction. Nevertheless, such a principle of distinction must exist given that the former without the latter leads to hell, not heaven.

Garrigou-Lagrange adopts the same approach for the remaining cardinal virtues. For the acquired and infused modes of each virtue, he proposes the same, essentially Aristotelian definition. The only principle of distinction he suggests is one of degree rather than kind, and the scale by which such distinctions of degree are established is left undefined. In practice, therefore, Garrigou-Lagrange validates an essentially two-tier approach. The philosophical virtues continue to be treated in an Aristotelian manner, while the theological additions are treated separately.

Furthemore, by the theological additions, Garrigou-Lagrange refers almost exclusively to the Gifts (following the pattern, perhaps, of John of St. Thomas); he does not mention the Beatitudes or the Fruits. So Garrigou-Lagrange seems to treat the acquried and infused versions of the cardinal virtues as essentially the same, although different in terms of their source. The Gifts give some sort of boost to these virtues. The Beatitudes and Fruits do not seem to feature.

My reading of Garrigou-Lagrange is still somewhat limited, so my questions are:

(1) Does G-L have a theory of the Thomistic virtues which includes Beatitudes and Fruits?
(2) Does G-L distinguish acquired and infused virtues in any way except source and degree?
(3) What, actually, does G-L think that the Gifts give to the virtues?

I would find this helpful for my dissertation, as well as for understanding the history of the interpretation of St. Thomas in the twentieth century.

Yours in the Lord

Fr. Andrew Pinsent