Faith, Love, and the Stoic Assent: Reconsidering Virtue in the Reformed Tradition

Abstract

The Protestant tradition typically prizes faith above the virtue of charity, seeing faith technically as not a virtue as a prerequisite for pursuing virtue. However, an understanding of the relationship between the two as interdependent can be helpful in seeing faith as a virtue. An interaction with Roman Stoicism can be helpful in illuminating a Protestant understanding of faith as more than a cognitive act and as a virtue orienting one and one’s actions more towards God.