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“In Search of Virtue”
Categories: Add To Your Faith | 2025
Is moral excellence an end in itself? Should it be a person’s highest goal to achieve moral purity?
Ancient philosophers talked themselves dizzy trying to define virtue. They often saw it as a rigid idea—a truth that should apply equally in every case—so they constantly tried to perfect their understanding of it. But the concept remained elusive. The plane just kept circling, never quite touching down on the runway. Why? I think there are two reasons: 1) Because they looked only to themselves and the societies around them for this knowledge, and 2) because they thought that virtue was life’s ultimate end.
That approach might sound perfectly natural, but Christians see two problems in it: 1) Virtue doesn’t come from within humanity, but from God. 2) Virtue isn’t an end in itself; it’s the fruit of a life lived for an even higher purpose.
Some of the Greek sophists lived within a century or two of the prophets. But the prophets saw the world through a very different lens. They understood, “that the way of man is not in himself, that it is not in man who walks to direct his steps” (Jer. 10:23). They realized that searching for virtue within humanity leads us astray, so they taught people to seek God “that HE may teach us HIS ways and that we may walk in HIS paths” (Isa. 2:3). They understood that virtue—whatever is just, noble, and excellent—isn’t defined by man, but by God.
And that helps us to understand why arete is not portrayed as the goal of faith in God: it’s the fruit of faith in God—something we “add to our faith.” In Deuteronomy, Moses repeatedly emphasized loving God first, and then he turned his attention to serious teachings about keeping God’s rules. The greatest command is not, “Obey God’s laws,” but rather, “You shall LOVE the Lord your God.” The fruit of THAT will be our obedience to his commands (Jn. 14:15).
Moral excellence is not life’s ultimate purpose. It’s the fruit that grows out of a heart that actually, completely, lovingly, humbly trusts in God. Life’s purpose is to love him, and only from him can we find out what arete really is anyway.
- Dan Lankford, minister
