For St. Thomas Aquinas, we are masters of our actions.
It's what makes us human.
Actions are deeply personal, not just the intention for which we choose to do what we
do, but even the activities we choose to achieve those intentions and the deliberation we engage
to make those choices.
All of this is deeply personal and for St. Thomas, all of that has an effect on us and
our choices, our intentions, the activities we choose and the circumstances we choose
them.
All of them over the long haul can create what we might call dispositions in us.
St. Thomas calls these dispositions habitus in Latin, it's where our English word habit comes from.
So we're talking about habits but habits in a deeper way than what we're used to.
We usually think of habits as getting used to things, used to a routine.
But habitus is more than that for St. Thomas, a habit for him is "A quality,"
he says, "whereby that which is disposed is disposed well or ill either in regard to itself
or in regard to another."
Habitus is a mode of self-possession.
It's a deep characteristic in us.
It's how I relate in particular choices in particular ways, not only to myself, but how
I relate to others, how I relate to God.
Let me give you an example.
The college student who chooses week after week to go out on Friday night, to stay out
until two in the morning, to sleep Saturday away, and cram Monday's schoolwork all into Sunday . . .
for St. Thomas, this college student is developing a habitus, a disposition.
It's more than that this is just his routine.
It becomes a part of him.
It becomes something he craves.
It's how he is self-possessed, something he looks forward to.
It's something he can't resist doing even when he knows he has a major exam on Monday
that he needs to pass in order to pass the class so that he can graduate.
He has a habitus of going out on Friday nights and staying out until two in the morning.
He's built up a disposition and so it's harder to choose to stay in on Friday
even when he knows he needs to.
His repeated choices leading up to that point have given him a disposition to make similar
choices in the future.
That's what St. Thomas is talking about when he speaks of habitus.
It works the other way too.
The person who routinely makes courageous choices, who routinely does courageous things--
think of the soldier in bootcamp and then his early days on the battlefield--
eventually he builds up a habitus to continue to do courageous things.
It becomes hard for him, even impossible, to do cowardly things or be less than courageous
in every situation in which he finds himself.
When he sees, for instance, those who are suffering, those who are in trouble, he springs
to action quickly because this is his self-possession.
The fact that this happens to us is a part of the gift of free will that God gives us.
We become what we choose.
We are configured to the goods we seek and the intentions we have, and we're configured
to the choices we make, the activities we choose.
We become more and more disposed to make similar choices.
Those dispositions are habits and habits are not neutral.
Some make us good persons.
Some make us evil or vicious persons.
There's a line here and the line is this:
It's whether a habitus, a habit, a disposition is aligned with our highest nature.
Does a habit make me more in line with reason, with truth, with being good, with being human,
or does it make me more like an animal?
Make me less than human, less than a child of God?
This is the line between virtue and vice.
This is the line which we must always consider.
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