In Part I of this article, we looked at the question, “Why do I exist?” as answered by the legendary Fulton Sheen. Admittedly, Sheen’s answer was framed within a specific philosophy and religious faith, but that takes nothing away from its universality. To summarize, the meaning and purpose of life is to become more fully human by conforming yourself to human nature.
Of course, that raises a plethora of questions among the different faiths and philosophies as to what, exactly, human nature consists, but that can be discussed. The basic answer remains the same: the meaning and purpose of life is to become more fully human, that is, virtuous.
What is virtue? Literally, virtue means “man-” or “male-ness.” We don’t need to construct awkward neologisms to get around the coincident etymology, however. We need only note that in common usage virtue signifies human-ness. In the philosophy of Aquinas (based on that of Aristotle), every human being has an “analogously complete” (think of it as the “same,” although that isn’t strictly speaking correct) capacity to acquire and develop virtue, that is, human-ness.
It is critical to note that it is not the acquisition and development of virtues (or vices) which defines human beings as human (i.e., being virtuous or vicious), but the capacity to become virtuous — or vicious. This capacity being the “same” (see above) in every human being, each human being is equally human and human in the same way as all other human beings. As noted in our bloviation in the first part of this article, this is consistent with the first principle of reason, on which the entire philosophy of Aquinas is founded: “That which is true is as true, and is true in the same way, as everything else that is true.”
Aristotle
(For any philosophy majors, the other, “negative” way of expressing the first principle of reason is to say that nothing can both “be” and “not be” at the same time under the same conditions. This is called “the principle or law of (non) contradiction.” The “positive” way of expressing the first principle of reason, i.e., that which is true, etc., is called “the principle or law of identity.”)
All this is a rather pedantic way of introducing the specific virtues, of which in the Thomist framework (i.e., the philosophy of Aquinas) there are two types. First, there are the natural virtues, those for which the capacity to acquire and develop is built into human nature itself. These are prudence, temperance, fortitude and, above all, justice.
Then there are the supernatural or “above (human) nature” virtues. The capacity for the supernatural virtues is not built into human nature — that would be an oxymoron — but in the Thomist framework is “infused” into each human being by the Creator as a gift. Don’t worry about that distinction, since for all practical purposes the capacity to acquire and develop the supernatural virtues is indistinguishable from the capacity to acquire and develop the natural virtues. The supernatural virtues are faith, hope and above all, charity.
This ordering of virtues as well as the separation into natural and supernatural causes a great deal of confusion these days. In the rush to create what some have called “the Kingdom of God on Earth” (which in many cases puts human fantasies above the Creator’s reality and in some instances attempts to remove the Creator entirely), innovators have declared that the supernatural virtues somehow replace the natural virtues. Faith and hope, so some claim, abolish prudence, temperance, and fortitude, and — worst of all — charity replaces justice and in extreme cases all other virtues, natural and supernatural; “love is all you need.”
There is enough truth in the claim that charity replaces all other virtues to be utterly disastrous. It is therefore important to note that charity in no way replaces or abolishes justice or any other virtue but fulfills and completes all virtue. Justice alone, for example, may be absolutely pure and strict (“commutative”) . . . and absolutely heartless.
For example, A owes B a debt of $5 due on a certain day. A cannot pay, and in strict justice has the right to exact a penalty of some kind for non-payment of the debt. B can send A to debtors’ prison or — in charity — give an extension on the loan until A can pay or even forgive the debt altogether. Charity is not replacing justice, i.e., does not say the debt never existed, but rather is adding something to the case, not taking anything away.
In our day, however, far too many people have declared in such cases that even though A borrowed $5 from B, the fact B had $5 to lend proves B should not have had it in the first place, because it belonged in justice to A anyway. A needed $5 that happened to be in B’s possession; therefore, A is the rightful “owner” of the $5 and B is a thief for demanding repayment. Justice has been redefined as a pseudo-charity, and charity redefined as a counterfeit justice.
Given this little bloviating discourse, we are now prepared for the second part of Guy Stevenson’s essay on Fulton Sheen’s view on the meaning and purpose of life. Again, we issue a caveat: CESJ is not a religious organization, and the Just Third Way is not a religious movement. Brother Stevenson is simply noting the congruence of Fulton Sheen’s thought, and that of the Catholic Church as he understood it, especially as expressed in the “Just Third Way edition” of Sheen’s Freedom Under God, with the principles of the Just Third Way:
Augustine of Hippo
The Question That Burns
II. Justice as Love
By Guy C. Stevenson
“To love and serve God alone.” These words echo with divine authority, mirroring Christ’s own declaration in Luke 4:8: “You shall worship the Lord your God and serve Him only.” In an age where justice is often reduced to policy or protest or confused with false charity, this phrase reclaims its sacred orientation.
St. Augustine’s definition — justice is love serving God alone — is deceptively simple, yet spiritually seismic. It shifts justice from the courtroom to the heart, from legislation to devotion. If love, in its purest form, is directed solely toward God, then justice completed and fulfilled by love is not merely an ethical outcome — it is a metaphysical overflow. God is not just the source of justice; He is justice itself.
This reframing demands a deeper reckoning: Can complete and full justice exist apart from rightly ordered love?
If love is misdirected — toward ideology, identity, or influence — then justice becomes distorted and not completed or fulfilled by charity. Love and thus justice bends toward power, not truth. It serves preference, not holiness or even reality.
Hippo of Augustine
Mere justice is not what we do to balance scales. Rather, what balances the scales is who we become when our love is rightly placed to complete and fulfill the foundation laid by justice. Love which completes and fulfills justice is the fruit of worship, the consequence of consecration, and the result of acquiring and developing justice, the highest natural virtue, and completing justice with charity, the highest supernatural virtue.q
“To love and serve God alone” is therefore not a slogan — it is a summons. It calls us to reorder our affections, to anchor our activism in adoration, and to remember that justice begins not with systems, but with souls.
That, of course, is the operation of justice and charity at the individual level. Many people today, however, seem convinced that something they call “social justice” somehow transforms charity into justice, abolishing the demands of individual justice and replaces them with the demands of a “divine justice” that claims to fulfill justice and charity while contradicting both.
And that is what we will look at in the third part of this article.
Or did they refer to this? Hippo Regius