Prudence

Long before Jesus came, people were already asking what it meant to live well. The ancient philosophers said that a good life isn’t just about rules or avoiding bad behavior. It’s about becoming the kind of person who naturally chooses what is good. They spoke of four key habits—prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance—that together form what they called the “cardinal virtues,” the path of moral excellence.

Centuries later, Christian theologians saw that this ancient insight lined up beautifully with the life of Jesus. He didn’t just teach the right way—He lived it perfectly. Jesus saw the truth clearly (prudence), lived for the good of others (justice), endured suffering for the sake of love (fortitude), and remained total self-control and peace (temperance). The virtues, then, aren’t a rival to Jesus’ way—they describe His character and show what His Spirit forms in us as we follow Him.

Josef Pieper, a twentieth-century Christian philosopher, brought this old wisdom to life again in his short book The Four Cardinal Virtues. He called it “the wisdom of the ancients” that had “inexhaustible contemporaneity,” a perpetual relevance (xii). Let’s walk the path together.

Continue reading “The Ancient Path of Moral Excellence (The Four Cardinal Virtues)”

Introduction
The tradition of the four cardinal virtues was already old when Plato wrote about it in his Symposium. This ancient wisdom contained three aspects. Fist, morality was about a person’s character, the type of person he was, as well as the rules he followed. Second, the goal of morality was not merely following rules but to be a person of excellence, which is the meaning of the word “virtue.” Third, a virtuous act requires four key virtues: prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance.

In his book, The Four Cardinal Virtues, the Catholic theologian Josef Pieper explains the meaning of these four virtues. He does this in interaction with the ancient philosophers, Christian theologians, and modern philosophers. The result is a unique and helpful discussion of these four categories. Pieper believed that such a discussion was extremely fruitful. He said, “we may well turn to the ‘wisdom of the ancients’ in our human quest to understand reality, for that wisdom contains a truly inexhaustible contemporaneity” (xii). In this article, I want to summarize and highlight his discussion of the virtues of prudence and justice. Continue reading “The Four Cardinal Virtues, Part 1: Prudence & Justice”

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