Theoretical Framework

The Christian Context

Throughout centuries of moral reflection, the Christian tradition has recognized that there is significant overlap between Christian accounts of human virtue and those of other philosophical and religious traditions. At the same time, Christian theorists have also held that Christian virtue will sometimes appear distinct from other forms because it directs the person to a specific vision of human flourishing, namely a life characterized by love of God and neighbor. Christians look especially to Jesus, God incarnate, as the perfect embodiment of virtue and, by imitating Jesus in our own time and place and with our own unique personhood, seek to “reflect in our finite way some limited aspect of God’s inexhaustible perfection.” ³

VirTue at Hope

Given Hope’s mission “to educate students… in the context of the historic Christian faith,” the Character Forward Steering Committee wants to highlight the ways in which the college has already committed to a specifically Christian formation of our campus community through our Christian Aspirations and the Virtues of Public Discourse.

• Christian Aspirations
• Virtues of Public Discourse

Furthermore, as the Character Forward Initiative is specifically focused on the virtues of gratitude and generosity, it will be helpful to provide descriptions of these virtues.

Gratitude

Conceptual Foundations: As humans, none of us is responsible for our existence. Instead, we receive our being from outside ourselves. We enter life as infants with minimal agency and a profound dependence on others. Throughout our lives we continue to receive and to depend on others, even as we grow in our own agency. Our regular acts of eating serve as a reminder that we cannot sustain ourselves but must receive sustenance from others and from creation. Gift, in other words, is basic to human life. In Christian theology, this foundational receiving of life is from God — in our initial creation, in our daily lives and experience of providential care, and in our experiences of redemption. As Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 4:7, “What do you have that you did not receive?” Literally everything is a gift.

Definition: The virtue of gratitude is an orientation to life by which we recognize and appreciate both our basic human rootedness in gift and the specific gifts we regularly receive from others through our dependence on human community and the natural world.

Generosity

Conceptual foundations: Like gratitude, generosity is rooted in the fundamental recognition that life is a gift. Human generosity is modeled after and made possible by God’s generosity (Philippians 2:1-4). God continually brings creation into existence and lovingly cares for it. In Jesus, God has entered into creation and suffered and died on behalf of humanity. These gifts of God are reflected in the many gifts we receive in human community, which in turn make possible our own generous giving in imitation of Christ.

Definition: Generosity is the act of giving some benefit to others in a manner that exceeds minimum necessity or expectations. Generous giving does not operate through contractual stipulations of what one owes or deserves.

¹ Michael Lamb, Jonathan Brant, and Edward Brooks, “Seven Strategies for Cultivating Virtue in the University,” in Cultivating Virtue in the University, ed. Jonathan Brant, Edward Brooks, and Michael Lamb (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2022), 116-117.

² Michael Lamb, Jonathan Brant, and Edward Brooks, “Should Universities Cultivate Virtue?” in Cultivating Virtue in the University, 4.

³ Jennifer Herdt, Putting on Virtue: The Legacy of the Splendid Vices (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008), 8.