Manhood, Masculinity, and Christian Characterনমুনা

Adding Virtue

I like the way Peter speaks of supplementing faith. In Peter’s mind, faith is the clear foundation. There is no starting over with something else, no changing lanes or detours. Peter anticipates his readers have dedicated their lives to Christ, that they have made faith in Jesus the foundation of everything they do and who they are, but Peter can speak of supplementing.

Peter speaks of adding. We build our character on the foundation of faith. It’s another way of saying that our lives, the characteristics of who we are, get built upon the foundation of what we most honestly believe. The shape of any building, no matter how tall, has its form established in its foundation. There is no moving on from faith, but we build on that faith as we grow in Christian character.

That first supplement is the addition of virtue. Peter speaks of a life of virtue built upon faith. From there, Peter adds knowledge, self-control, steadfastness, godliness, brotherly affection, and love. How does the gospel, and our faith in it, set us on the path of virtue, knowledge, holiness, and love? That is the pursuit Peter wanted to urge his readers into. We are to be diligent in seeing their increase.

Virtue is a word I wish we used more often and paid more attention to. We tend to think more about personality types and individual talents. We can easily believe that who we are destined to be is somehow fixed in our characteristics. Virtue imagines that we can become more than just our instincts or impulses.

You can think of virtue as an acquired taste for what is good. An acquired taste does not always come naturally. Instead, it must be learned and cultivated through discipline and exposure. What this path of virtue has long sought to offer men is a path by which morality could be acquired as a taste and so by its accusation become second nature, as true as our personality or characteristics. It is no longer outward attention to rules or calculations but a new character and a new kind of authenticity.

Learning anything new is hard and sometimes initially awkward. When you are six and learn to play Twinkle Twinkle Little Star on the recorder, it's cute. When you're thirty-three, and you learn to play it on the guitar, you're weird, and no one is impressed. But you must continue. You must press on knowing there are better things to come. There's no other way to get better. You can't skip these awkward first steps. You don't know for how long. Some learn faster. Some take years. But eventually, something happens. Hours and hours of difficult practice develop a kind of freedom. Eventually, the chord positions become muscle memory, and the precision of your picking speeds up. You can play faster, and you begin to improvise, to create new melodies. You're playing becomes authentic.

It is this way with so many meaningful endeavors: painting and sports, cooking and learning to ride a bike, picking up a second language, solving complex equations, even falling in love. Many of our greatest philosophers understood morality to be the same. They referred to this joy of mastery by the Greek word eudaimonia. It is often translated as happiness, but that's a cheap translation. It's the fullness and contentment of having mastered something meaningful.

I think Peter says it best that faith and virtue set us on a path toward a greater love.

How is the acquisition of virtue and character related to growing as a man?