Abstract

There are several interpretations of how Aquinas views the moral virtues connected through prudence and possessed through our natural powers. One is the traditional view. As described by Thomas Osborne, the traditional view holds that two supernatural conditions are ‘necessary’ for united acquired virtue. One is ingratiating grace (gratia gratum faciens), which heals and elevates the soul. Another is supernatural finality, that is, an orientation to God through charity. My main objective is to show how we can meet an objection to the traditional view, one that uses Aquinas’s own words on necessary and per se predication: eodem modo praedicantur necessario quo per se. I proceed with three distinctions from Scholastic metaphysics. The first is between absolute and moral necessity; the next two are between per se and per accidens efficient causes and between intrinsic and extrinsic finality. Failing to make any of these distinctions risks repeating the error of the objection I address, which is to misunderstand how Thomists have historically related the supernatural order to the virtues united in the natural order. The overall purpose of these distinctions is to help us avoid doing this.