Examples of fortitude abound, but not quite so many as people may think. The virtue of fortitude is easily misapplied to those who are brazen, brash, and bold but who lack the prudence to aim their ferocity at the good. Simply being brave, in the sense of willing to risk personal harm for some purpose, is not necessarily fortitude. The person who risks his well being by jumping from one building to another for an audience’s approval may be bold, but he is not exhibiting fortitude. The man who leaps from one building to another in an attempt to save someone from a burning building, on the other hand, is exhibiting fortitude. The difference comes from the fact that in the latter case the action is directed at a genuine good. The former case is directed at vanity and personal glory and since the dangerous action is not justified by the good it is recklessness rather than courage.
All virtue is ultimately one, namely participation in the good by means of some moral excellence, and therefore no one virtue can operate contrary to any of the other true virtues. The virtues work together in concert. There are, of course, distinctions to be made between the virtues. It is right to say “Fortitude is not Love, nor is it Temperance, nor is it Faith, etc.” But we must not say “Fortitude can be devoid of Love, of Temperance, of Faith, etc.” The human body is made up of many parts and it is good and right to say that fingers are not toes and noses are not ears. Nevertheless, as Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 12, their differences do not negate their being genuinely part of one and the same body. The connection of each part to the body creates an interdependence of the parts even while acknowledging meaningful distinctions between them. In the same way, fortitude is connected to all of the other virtues because all of the other virtues are connected to goodness itself.
In light of this, any example of Fortitude must be in harmony with Prudence, Justice, Temperance, Faith, Hope, and Love. Prudence tells a person when courage is necessary and to what end our actions should be directed. Justice demands that courage take into account what is owed to our fellow man and what we would want them to do to (or for) us if roles were reversed. Temperance teaches us to control our passions and not to act out of hate or anger nor to desire the approval of men, but only to take action if it is good and right to do so. Faith fuels our courage with the truth that God is with us and so we need fear nothing because we are in Christ and Christ is in us. Hope tells us that this life is not all there is to look forward to and therefore sometimes life itself is worth risking to do what is right. Love reminds us that someone died for us while we were still sinners and so we ought to courageously love not only our friends but also our enemies with our actions.
Indeed, we could spend a great deal longer thinking about how each of the other six moral virtues should inform and impact this virtue, Fortitude. Nevertheless we can see the basic idea well enough in these examples. Perhaps, in light of all of this, we can now offer a proper definition for fortitude as the willingness to risk one’s own personal well being for the sake of what is good.
Aristotle tells us that every virtue resides as a mean between two corresponding vices. In fortitudes’ case we can see clearly that the lack of true fortitude is cowardice and the excess (if it may be so called) of fortitude is recklessness. In other words, the virtue is the straight and narrow path, the vices are ditches on either side that people tend to fall into rather than observing the true virtue.
The person who is never willing to risk their own well being at any time or for anyone is a true coward. The person who risks his well being without thought or reflection on what deserves such sacrifice is a reckless fool. But the person who takes account of the value of his own life, and the value of his neighbor’s life, and judges prudently about when taking risk is worthwhile for the sake of preserving some genuine good end, that man is courageous and practicing fortitude.
One of my favorite philosophers, Josef Pieper, addresses the concept of true fortitude stating,
“The one who puts himself in harm’s way uncritically and indiscriminately is not brave….Not just any giving of oneself for anything amounts to the essence of fortitude but rather only giving of oneself that corresponds to reason, namely, to the true essence and value of real things. True fortitude requires a correct appreciation of things, both of those that one “risks” as well as those that one hopes to protect or to gain through one’s effort.”1
A few examples from history will reinforce Pieper’s point nicely that true fortitude involves “a correct appreciation of things”.
Consider Leonidas and the three hundred Spartans who held off the 5,000,000 man invasion into Greece by the Persian king Xerxes. At the narrow pass of Thermopylae they formed a bottleneck defense, knowing that in the end it would cost them their lives, but their action allowed the rest of Greece sufficient time to prepare a more ready defense. Because of their efforts and courageous example the Greeks were able to rally their defenses and eventually send Xerxes back to Persia in defeat.
Of their tragic but courageous last stand Herodotus wrote,
“By this time the spears of the greater number were all shivered, and with their swords they hewed down the ranks of the Persians; and here, as they strove, Leonidas fell fighting bravely, together with many other famous Spartans, whose names I have taken care to learn on account of their great worthiness, as indeed I have those of all the three hundred.”2
The Spartans had an adequate appreciation of reality. They knew that the defense of Greece would cost them everything but they also knew that the preservation of the freedom of their countrymen and the safety of their wives and children was worthy of that sacrifice.
The apostle Paul at Lystra is another fantastic example of Fortitude. In Acts 14:19-23 the historian Luke wrote,
19 But Jews came from Antioch and Iconium, and having persuaded the crowds, they stoned Paul and dragged him out of the city, supposing that he was dead. 20 But when the disciples gathered about him, he rose up and entered the city, and on the next day he went on with Barnabas to Derbe. 21 When they had preached the gospel to that city and had made many disciples, they returned to Lystra and to Iconium and to Antioch,22 strengthening the souls of the disciples, encouraging them to continue in the faith, and saying that through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God.23 And when they had appointed elders for them in every church, with prayer and fasting they committed them to the Lord in whom they had believed.
Despite having just been stoned to the point that his persecutors believed him to be dead3 Paul gets back up and walks right back into the same city. Though he leaves Lystra shortly after this he also returns once again not long after to continue ministering and preaching the gospel. He clearly counted the danger worth facing for the sake of telling the people about their need for Christ. Paul was certainly not being cowardly but neither was he being reckless because his brave deeds were aimed at a great good, the salvation of souls.
It would be all too easy to think that Fortitude is all of this kind, risking of bodily harm, but that is not so. C. S. Lewis tells us in his book Mere Christianity that fortitude comes in two forms.
“Fortitude includes both kinds of courage—the kind that faces danger as well as the kind that “sticks it” under pain. “Guts” is perhaps the nearest modern English. You will notice, of course, that you cannot practise any of the other virtues very long without bringing this one into play.”
This pain that one “sticks it” under may be physical but it may easily be emotional, mental, or even spiritual. The person who willingly endures the mocking of his peers as he or she does what is right and treats others with kindness is also being courageous. The person who tells the truth about the missing funds at work when his co-workers begs him not to is also being courageous. Enduring the ridicule of man for doing or believing what is right requires guts just as much as facing the possibility of physical pain or death. In fact some would rather die than be ostracized.
It is for this reason that Lewis also tells us that “Courage is not simply one of the virtues but the form of every virtue at the testing point, which means at the point of highest reality.”4 To do what is just, prudent, temperate, and loving, to have faith and to hold on to hope, takes fortitude. The path of vice is always so much easier and often more popular and approved of by our fellow man. What will we do when the only one who will be pleased by our actions is God alone? What when our just actions put us at odds with friends, family, or government? Fortitude is the conviction to do what is good and right before the sight of God and him alone no matter what it costs and no matter what man thinks of it.
We like to think of ourselves as living in unprecedented times of difficulty and moral confusion and we like to think that this somehow offers us an excuse for when we choose not to be courageous. This, however, is a lie. Whether it was in the time of the World Wars or during the Barbarian invasions of Rome or in the times of Sodom and Gomorrah, God’s people have always faced difficult situations where it would be easier to compromise with the world than to do what is right. Since the fall of man in the Garden of Eden God’s people have always lived in a broken world full of sin and vice. Doing what is wrong has always been easier than doing what is right. But there is no excuse for doing what is wrong when we know what is right. Those who knowingly do what they ought not do (and those who refrain from doing what they know they ought to do) are rightly to be labeled cowards. Such people lack the fortitude to keep with what is good. They have valued ease more than holiness. They have valued the approval of man more than the approval of God. They have valued themselves more than their neighbor.
But Christians, empowered by the Holy Spirit, are not to be like that. Christians are to live as the new creation in Christ Jesus because that is who they really are. Paul urges his fellow believers to “Be watchful, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong.”5 He writes this to a mixed audience of men and women, by the way. All Christians are called to act manfully in their stand against evil and in support of what is good. Christians should be those best equipped to be courageous because we have something that even Leonidas lacked, namely faith in the one true God, the hope of the resurrection and the world to come, and Spirit infused love granted to us by a Savior who loved us first and loved us best and showed us the way.
Our Lord and Savior knew the excruciating death that awaited him if he followed his Father’s plan. Jesus knew the scorn of rejection he would face from his own people. Even so, “When the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem.”6 Jesus resolved to lay everything down to do what others could not do for themselves. He gave his life for the good to the one who is the Good, so that we might be made good in his sight and begin to walk in goodness after him.
So go forth, Christian, be strong and courageous. Act like men in the face of evil.
Josef Pieper, A Brief Reader on the Virtues of the Human Heart, 24.
Herodotus and Thucydides. (1990). The History of Herodotus and The History of the Peloponnesian War (M. J. Adler & P. W. Goetz, Eds.; Second Edition, Vol. 5, p. 256). Robert P. Gwinn; Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
Indeed many commentators suggest he may actually have died and been given back life because of the prayers of the saints.
C. S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters: And Screwtape Proposes a Toast, 160.
1 Corinthians 16:13 (ESV).
Luke 9:51 (ESV).
Excellent write up.