How to Be Virtuous Against the Grain
What to do when your models of virtue are vicious
Virtue doesn’t happen in a vacuum.1 We cultivate virtue in community, in relation to other people. The virtuous are inherently communal. Prudence requires other parties for you to make careful decisions about or with. Courage often involves suffering for the good of a community, whether that be a city or a family or a church. Even temperance, which is intensely focused on the individual’s inner order, affects the community and its wellbeing. And of course the theological virtues are communal: faith, hope, and love. Love especially is communal. Even when you practice loving yourself by caring for and protecting yourself, you are also loving God! Which raises an important question: what happens when your community is not virtuous? What happens when those closest to you are not nurturing, but vicious? But let’s be more specific. What effect does the greatest of all virtues, love, have on the cultivation of virtues? When those closest to you fail to be loving presences, how can you learn to be virtuous?
As I’ve argued in On Getting Out of Bed, we each have an obligation, by virtue of being human, of standing as a moral model for others, whether we like it or not. Simply by existing we will communicate to others how to live and why we should live and what it means to live. And that is an awesome responsibility. Few of us take it seriously. Probably the most important aspect of that modeling of life is in how we love one another (John 13:35). Whether that is between friends or in church or in the workplace or in the home, how we love one another communicates to others how they ought to love. It models the virtue of love. And how we fail to love, how we hate our brother or sister, even in our heart, communicates to others how we ought to live for ourselves.
In a loving home, the presence of a father, mother, spouse, or friend who knows us and models love for us can stir us up to love and good works. It can provide the space for us to try and fail at the other virtues and not give up (which is courage). It shows us what love looks like through hard times and good times so that we don’t grow weary in doing good. It comforts us when we are discouraged and exhorts us when we are growing slothful. A loving home reflects the love of God for us, reminding us that we are beloved children of God, united to Christ through the cross, righteous because of his sacrifice, called to walk in a manner worthy of the Gospel. And therefore we ought to cultivate virtuous habits, behaviors and thoughts that are oriented toward our telos in Christ. For that is what we are made for! And the loving presence of those closest to us ought to remind us of that, friends, family, and the church.
But we live in a broken world. And not everyone has the privilege of a loving home and models of love to turn to for support. For many people, their model of love in family or friends is disordered. “Love” is a selfish thing, a possessive thing, a consumptive thing. Not self-giving. Not selfless. Not reflecting God’s love. They are taught that love is power or manipulation. Rather than stir them up to love and good works, the people in their lives pressure them to perform for approval. Rather than give them space to try and fail at the other virtues, they shame or criticize them for being imperfect. Rather than remind them of who and what they were really created for, these presences teach people that they were made for themselves, and that the only hope they have is to protect themselves.
The great danger of not having positive, loving presences in your life to model virtuous living is despair. You may grow so weary of trying to please or to protect yourself or to live for yourself that you give up hope and fall into despair. The fear is that you can never be good enough, never be affirmed enough, never be virtuous or loved enough to be at peace. And according to your models, if you live in a disordered space, that may be true. So what are you to do?
The first thing to recognize is that the ultimate model for love is always Christ, not your family or friends. And while the church should be a model of love, and I believe the Church is a model of love, sometimes local churches fail. So your task is to model your virtuous living and your understanding of love not after the disordered presences in your life, but first and foremost after Christ. How does Christ love you? What does Christ think about you? How does Christ want you to live? Those are the relevant questions. And you’ll find these answers by turning to Scripture.
Second, if you recognize that your primary models for love have been deeply disordered, seek out alternatives to reorder your vision of what love is. Look first to the church. The church should be a place where you can find people who show you love and remind you of your union with Christ and your hope in him. They should be people who stir you up to love and good works and remind you that you were created for good works which God made for you to walk in (Ephesians 2:10). Look for Christian friends who can build you up and walk alongside you and model love.
Third, choose to be a loving presence in the lives of others. Consider what it means to be loving, to affirm God’s love for others and to sacrifice for them. Make a practice of being that kind of person for others, the kind of person you did not have in your life. I suspect that what you will find is that in seeking to understand how to love others, you will, over time, learn many of the other virtues. You will have to learn how to love temperately, for example. Loving others but still making time to rest and care for yourself so that you can love them later (selfless self-preservation).
Fourth, be intentional about cultivating the virtues in your life. Understand their definitions and seek to practice them. I recommend pre-ordering To Live Well for help in this.
It’s not fair that some people have wonderful models of virtue in their lives and other people are afflicted with vicious ones. But we live in a fallen world. And each of us has the responsibility to seek to live virtuously despite our circumstances. We’d all do better to remember the solemn responsibility we have to love one another and be models of virtue for each other. It’s a difficult world we live in. We depend upon each other for support and inspiration.
The following is in response to this question: