The Centrality of Virtue in the Christian Life
The Centrality of Virtue in the Christian Life
by Michael W. Austin
How do we reflect God to a world that desperately needs him? How can we partner with God in bringing his kingdom to the world? These are not simple questions, and complete answers would fill up a library. Yet there is one thing that is sometimes forgotten, often neglected, occasionally rejected, and yet is clearly essential: Christian virtue.
Christian virtue should matter to us for many reasons, but primarily because it matters to God. Dallas Willard is helpful here:
The revolution of Jesus is…a revolution of character, which proceeds by changing people from the inside through ongoing personal relationship to God in Christ and one another. It is one that changes their ideas, beliefs, feelings, and habits of choice, as well as their bodily tendencies and social relations. It penetrates to the deepest layers of their soul.[1]
Willard’s convictions about character are grounded in the Bible as well as his vast study of character and Christian spiritual formation. It is clear that Christian virtue is essential for those who seek to love God with all of their heart, soul, mind, and strength (Mark 12:30). Christian virtue is central to what it means for Christ himself to be formed in us (Galatians 4:19). There are also several virtue lists in the New Testament that reveal the centrality of Christian virtue (Galatians 5:22-23; James 5:17-18; Colossians 3:12-17; 1 Timothy 6:10-12; 1 Peter 3:8). One of the most telling passages in Scripture related to character transformation, 2 Peter 1:3-11 (NRSV), lists several virtues in a challenging and revealing way:
His divine power has given us everything needed for life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. Thus he has given us, through these things, his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may escape from the corruption that is in the world because of lust, and may become participants of the divine nature. For this very reason, you must make every effort to support your faith with goodness, and goodness with knowledge,and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with endurance, and endurance with godliness, and godliness with mutual affection, and mutual affection with love. For if these things are yours and are increasing among you, they keep you from being ineffective and unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. For anyone who lacks these things is short-sighted and blind, and is forgetful of the cleansing of past sins. Therefore, brothers and sisters, be all the more eager to confirm your call and election, for if you do this, you will never stumble. For in this way, entry into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ will be richly provided for you.
A key insight from this passage is that knowing God and being transformed by God are two sides of the same coin.[2] Our knowledge of God, our union with Christ, is not just about experiencing God for ourselves. It is that, but it goes beyond that as well. The above passage from 2 Peter is clear that through our knowledge of God we can become participants in the divine nature, exemplifying goodness, knowledge, self-control, endurance, godliness, and love. Our knowledge of God is essentially transformative. If we truly know him, we will see change. This happens in the context of our relationship with God and others, especially those in our Christian community, the local church. In this context, by the power of the Holy Spirit, and with our effort as well, we can have a progressively transformational and loving relationship of union with Christ that overflows into our character and the lives of those around us. It may be slow, it may happen in fits and starts, but Jesus really did come to transform us (Rom. 12:1-2), and we can trust him to do so while relying on his mercy and grace to cover our failures.
But how do we do this? How do we become like Jesus? How do we cultivate Christian virtue?
In short, we must be with Jesus. Not only must we be with him, but we must do so in particular and intentional ways. We must be with Jesus with this as a central focus: “to learn from him how to be like him.”[3] When we do this, we discover that Jesus’s inner life was nurtured and formed in a particular way by how he spent time with his Father. In the New Testament gospels, we find evidence of Jesus practicing and teaching about numerous spiritual disciplines: studying God’s word, prayer, solitude, silence, fasting, service, celebration, and fellowship. These and the other disciplines of the spiritual life that he practiced can be practiced by us as well. They must be, if we are to be more like him. We can only do all of this by God’s grace. But we have to do something. We engage in these practices as a means of opening ourselves up to that grace. We simply must make our hearts and minds available to God through the spiritual disciplines.
We need to be intentional.[4] God will help us become more like Christ, but he won’t do it all for us. He will make it possible for us to do it, in reliance on the Holy Spirit and the other members of his body, the church. But we must do our part, opening ourselves up to his Spirit. Apart from practicing the spiritual disciplines with an eye towards character, there are other things we can do to cultivate character. I’ve found that meditating upon particular virtues can be extremely helpful. For instance, when I was writing a book about humility several years ago, I became convinced that one unique thing about Christian humility is that it involves putting the interests of others ahead of our own interests (Philippians 2:1-11). I had spent most of the day working on this, and as I drove home one night I realized I just didn’t want to be “on duty” that night as a dad. I wanted to go home, eat dinner, and sit on the couch in front of the television. But just as I became aware of that desire, an awareness of the Philippians passage and its implications immediately followed. This enabled me to intentionally engage, love, and serve my family that night.
Meditating on compassion, love, patience, hope, or any other Christian virtue can be helpful here, as long as one is willing to apply the content of such meditation to daily life. There is a long tradition of Christian wisdom that we can tap into if we truly want what Paul hoped for the Galatians, and what God hopes for us, namely, that “Christ is formed in you” (Gal. 4:19). There are also several helpful resources for those who are interested in intentionally cultivating Christian virtue.[5]
And we must pursue Christian virtue. C. S. Lewis puts it succinctly, straightforwardly, and memorably, as he so often does: “Every Christian is to become a little Christ. The whole purpose of becoming a Christian is simply nothing else.”[6] Lewis is right. To become a Christian is to become like Christ. To become a little Christ is to be like him in all of life. This change in us will likely be slow. Even very slow. Perfection is not the issue. Progress is. We should be moving towards becoming a little Christ. This should be the overall orientation of how we live. This is what it means to be a follower of The Way (Acts 24:14). In fact, for us, we could even say that “This is the Way.”
Notes
[1] Dallas Willard, Renovation of the Heart: Putting On the Character of Christ (Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 2002), 15.
[2] See my “The Doctrine of Theosis: A Transformational Union with Christ,” Journal of Spiritual Formation and Soul Care 8 (2015): 172-186.
[3] Dallas Willard, The Divine Conspiracy: Rediscovering Our Hidden Life in God, 1st edition (San Francisco: Harper, 1998), 276.
[4] This can be done through everyday activities. For an example of how it can be done in sports, see my “Sports as Exercises in Spiritual Formation,” Journal of Spiritual Formation and Soul Care 3 (2010): 66-78.
[5] See Dallas Willard, Renovation of the Heart (NavPress, 2002); James Spiegel, How to Be Good in a World Gone Bad: Living a Life of Christian Virtue (Kregel, 2004); and Michael W. Austin and R. Douglas Geivett, eds. Being Good: Christian Virtues for Everyday Life (Eerdmans, 2012). For those who are interested, I have a podcast and YouTube channel dedicated to this topic. Links to both can be found at michaelwaustin.com.
[6] C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (San Francisco: HarperOne, 2015), 177.
— Michael W. Austin is Professor of Philosophy at Eastern Kentucky University. He is the author of numerous books, journal articles, and online writings on ethical and religious questions and believes that Christian ethics is relevant to all of life. He lives in Richmond, Kentucky with his family.
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