The Theological Virtues and Participation in Active and Passive Spiration

I have been attempting for some time to work out the meaning of Bernard Lonergan’s statement that sanctifying grace may fittingly be understood as a created imitation of and participation in divine active spiration, that is, in the Father and the Son as together they breathe the proceeding Love that is the Holy Spirit, and that charity may fittingly be understood as a created imitation of and participation in divine passive spiration, that is, in the Holy Spirit breathed as the proceeding Love of the Father and the Son. The particular precision that I wish to bring to this theological hypothesis in the present paper has to do with the place of the theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity in our participation in active and passive spiration, that is, in divine life. That development occurs in section 3 of the paper. What precedes and follows it is a restatement of positions that I have suggested more fully elsewhere, including in previous papers presented at this Workshop.