Virtues of the Human Heart 3
Study Guide Questions for pg. 24-32
If you are looking for the beginning of the study on Josef Pieper’s “A Brief Reader on the Virtues of the Human Heart” then you can go HERE for a brief introduction. At the bottom of the introduction you will find the links to each section of the study guide as it becomes available. If you would like to see the growing list of book studies available for free on this site you can go HERE. Enjoy!
Last Line of Reading Ends: “…self-preservation becomes manifest.”
Virtues/Vices/Great Ideas: (Find them in the Text)
Fortitude, Recklessness, Patience
Grammar Questions: (The Information of the Text)
What does Fortitude “presume” according to Pieper?
What is being “brave” not the same as?
What does the brave person not do concerning “secondary and transient evils?”
What three kinds of people do “not yet have the virtue of fortitude?”
Who is “truly courageous” in contrast to those three kinds of people who are not?
What other two virtues accompany true fortitude?
What two definitions of patience are given?
From what does the virtue of fortitude “protect” the person exhibiting it?
What did Pieper say of “the one who puts himself in harm's way uncritically and indiscriminately?”
Morally speaking, what does Fortitude require in order to be true fortitude?
What must “every virtue…always be tied with?”
What did Pieper call “a distortion of meaningful order?”
What are “discipline” and “indiscipline” in relation to fortitude?
What does all discipline aim towards?
Logic Questions: (Interpreting, Comparing/Contrasting, Reasoning)
Why is vulnerability a thing which is required for real fortitude to exist?
What did Pieper mean when he wrote, “every brave deed draws sustenance from preparedness for death?”
When Pieper stated “fear and love limit one another” what did he mean?
Why might it be critically important for the virtue of fortitude that the brave person does not “falsify reality or alter its value?”
Why is an appropriate fear of evil a prerequisite to fortitude?
What does it mean to seek “to accomplish the good?” What is the good?
How is steadfastness related to fortitude?
How is patience related to fortitude?
What did Piper mean when he wrote, “The virtue of fortitude protects a person from loving his life in such a way that he loses it?”
What was Pieper’s point about asceticism and how it relates to the topic of fortitude?
Why does fortitude disappear in cases where someone enters into danger “uncritically and indiscriminately?”
Connect Pieper’s claim that “True fortitude requires a correct appreciation of things” with what he has said in the first reading of the book about “conformity to reality” and its importance. How is this a continuation of the same theme and why is it important to each virtue?
Why is it necessary for fortitude that it have a “just cause” to work toward?
What did Pieper mean when he said “the interior order of a man is not – like glass, a flower, or a beast – a merely given and obvious reality?”
Rhetoric Questions: (The Analysis of Ideas in the Text)
Pieper wrote, “That person is brave who does not allow himself to be brought by the fear of secondary and transient evils to the point of forsaking the final and authentic good things and thus of taking on himself the ultimate and unlimited horror.” What are some examples of “secondary and transient evils?” What does he mean by “the ultimate and unlimited horror?” Give an example of a situation (either from history, literature, or your personal life) where someone feared a lesser and more temporary evil only to meet with a greater and more permanent evil as a result? How might the virtue of Fortitude have protected that person (or others) from greater evil?
Pieper wrote, “Whoever in such a situation of unqualified seriousness, in the face of which any miles glorious (glorious soldier) falls mute and every heroic gesture becomes crippled, nonetheless advances toward the horror and does not allow himself to be prevented from doing the good, specifically for the sake of the good and thus finally for the sake of God, not out of ambition or out of fear of being taken for a coward: that person is truly courageous.” Explain what it means to face horror for the good and not out of selfishness. What is an example from history or literature which truly meets this standard of fortitude, where a person did what was right, because it was right, in the midst of extreme danger. How does one prepare to have this kind of fortitude if ever it is called for in our life?
Theological Analysis: (Sola Scriptura)
Read Joshua 1:1-9 and Matthew 28:18-20. How do these passages relate to our current reading and discussion? How do they impact your thinking about the virtue of fortitude in the Christian life?
Read Daniel 3 and evaluate the words and deeds of the men in this story. In light of what Pieper has said in his book, were these young men truly courageous or not? Explain your reasoning and demonstrate how they did or did not meet the requirements of genuine fortitude according to Pieper’s criteria.
Read Mark 15:42-47. What are some reasons why it might have taken real fortitude to do what Joseph did in this passage?
Consider the life and ministry of Jesus of Nazareth (make use of the four Gospels). In light of what Pieper has said of Fortitude and given who Jesus is as both God and man, should we see Jesus as courageous? Why or why not?