GRATITUDINE

GRATITUDE. -

I. NOTION

From Lat. gratitudo, it is the virtue that inclines man to acknowledge (with mind and words) benefits received and, at least in some way, to requite them. St. Augustine calls it “the virtue by which the will to remember benefits and friendships is manifested” (De diversis quaest., 83, p. 31; PL 40, 21). It is connected with the virtue of justice. Unlike obedience and piety, which entail an obligation commonly called “legal,” gratitude entails only a duty of propriety or morality; that is, an obligation whose fulfillment cannot be strictly demanded by justice, but only by a certain honesty or equity. The transgression of this duty is rarely so grave as to constitute a mortal sin; nevertheless, its practice is of great importance, not only for spiritual life, but also for peaceful and joyful human coexistence.

Gratitude arises only from a benefit received; yet, as a special virtue, it arises only from benefits received from equals or inferiors. Indeed, gratitude toward God for benefits received is called the virtue of religion; that owed to parents belongs to the virtue of piety; and that which is due to superiors, from whom one receives benefits of governance and the common good, is reduced to the virtue of observance.

Three elements constitute the virtue of gratitude: a) to acknowledge and remember benefits received; b) to manifest with words gratitude for the benefit received; c) to requite it in deeds, as far as possible (Sum. Theol., 2-2a, q. 107, a. 2). These might also be called the three degrees of the virtue of gratitude.

II. QUALITIES

Gratitude must be: a) prompt, meaning it must manifest immediately upon receiving a benefit (cf. ibid., 2-2a, q. 107, a. 2); b) internal, not merely external; it must proceed from sincere, intimate affection and not be expressed solely through cold words; c) humble, meaning one must recognize that the benefit is something useful; for whoever despises the gift cannot be said to possess the virtue of gratitude; d) disinterested; the gratitude expressed must not aim to procure new and greater benefits, as often happens with beggars.

not claim new proofs of His existence but only to deepen and render unassailable those already given, presents some of his characteristic theories, such as that of the dialectical process and divine sense. For G., the existence of God is reached not only through classical proofs but also through the dialectical process. This is already initially operative in infinitesimal calculus and consists precisely «in passing without any intellectual process, though adhering to a more than legitimate impulse of reason, from the finite to the infinite, from the finite being that one is, that one sees, that one actually touches, to the infinite being really and actually existing, which the existence of the finite implies and supposes» (op. cit., I, p. 59). However, this process, in which the necessary distinction between mathematical infinity and metaphysical infinity is neglected, is not sufficient to affirm the existence of God. «Will reason need external data of the world to know the world, internal data of the soul to know itself, and will it need nothing to recognize God? Will it not rely on God to know Him and will it not need any data of God to rise to God?» (Logique, I, p. 100). This is precisely what is offered by the «divine sense», which G. defines as «the irresistible attraction of the supreme good in every soul» (Comm. de Dieu, I, p. 69). A living experience of God operating within us, which depends on us to heed or betray, this divine sense is not a mysterious sense that replaces reason but is ultimately clarified as an impulse, a stimulus of reason itself.

Whoever engages in philosophical inquiry with his whole being, uniting reason, will, and heart—because “thoughts are great when the heart expands them” (Sources, p. 8)—cannot fail to arrive at God; nor can he fail to crown his search with the assent of faith, which, by the possession of God, grants a full and lofty happiness that, for G., is almost identified with the beatific vision. Prepared by natural faith in the indissoluble principles intrinsic to reason itself and anticipated by it, supernatural faith presents itself as the legitimate crowning of our limited thought, which also sees faith’s necessity as the indispensable condition for avoiding spiritual decline.

Union with God brings peace, makes one intensely human, and, through the aid of grace, truly free and capable of understanding, despite suffering, the living beauty of the universe—on its way not toward death but toward a state of wondrous unity and stability where present dispersions and changes fall silent, and blessed souls, united to their transformed bodies, find their place. For immortality belongs not only to man but, in a different form, to the entire universe, intimately bound to our life as immortal beings.

G.’s thought unfolds rich in life and motifs, though at times a victim of over-vivid sentiment and excessive symbolism. For example, when he recalls analogies between the life of the soul and the life of the universe, or in his theory of language—where G. partly follows the traditionalists, arguing that speech arose from a conspiring of God’s activity, Adam’s, and the things themselves, and that it expresses the essence of things. Nor is his theory of induction and deduction exempt from criticism, for it overemphasizes the distinction between the two procedures, reducing the principle of causality to that of sufficient reason and the principle of identity to that of substantial identity.

Yet even these positions help clarify G.’s true personality: one who combines an at times over-fervent imagination with a soul passionate for God and for man, a yearning for salvation and self-giving rich in educative power. G. knew how to speak to the men of his time; his teaching, Olle-Laprune (v.), exerted influence in 19th-century French religious philosophy, and it cannot be said to have entirely faded.