Catholic Candle note: The article below is part sixteen of the study of the Choleric temperament. The first fifteen parts can be found here:

1. Mary’s School of Sanctity – Lesson #36: About the Temperaments – Beginning our Study of the Choleric Temperament – Part I: https://catholiccandle.org/2024/08/27/lesson-35-about-the-temperaments-the-choleric-temperament/
   

2. Mary’s School of Sanctity – Lesson #37: About the Temperaments – Continuing Our Study of the Choleric Temperament– Part II: https://catholiccandle.org/2024/09/26/lesson-37-about-the-temperaments-continuation-of-the-choleric-temperament/
   

3. Mary’s School of Sanctity – Lesson #38: About the Temperaments – Continuing our Study of the Choleric Temperament – Their Spiritual Combat – Part III:: https://catholiccandle.org/2024/10/24/lesson-38-temperaments-choleric-temperament-their-spiritual-combat/
   

4. Mary’s School of Sanctity – Lesson #39: About the Temperaments – Continuing Our Study of the Choleric Temperament – That Temperament’s Spiritual Combat – Part IV: https://catholiccandle.org/2024/11/26/lesson-39-temperaments-choleric-temperament-their-spiritual-combat-part-iv/
   

5. Mary’s School of Sanctity – Lesson #40: Temperaments – Choleric Temperament – Their Spiritual Combat – Part V: https://catholiccandle.org/2024/12/30/lesson-40-temperaments-choleric-temperament-their-spiritual-combat-part-v/
   

6. Mary’s School of Sanctity – Lesson #41: About the Temperaments – Continuing Our Study of the Choleric Temperament: a Choleric’s Spiritual Combat — Part VI: https://catholiccandle.org/2025/01/27/lesson-41-temperaments-choleric-temperament-a-cholerics-spiritual-combat-part-vi/
   

7. Mary’s School of Sanctity – Lesson #42: About the Temperaments – Continuing Our Study of the Choleric Temperament – a Choleric’s Spiritual Combat – Part VII: https://catholiccandle.org/2025/02/21/lesson-42-temperaments-choleric-temperament-a-cholerics-spiritual-combat-part-vii/
   

8. Mary’s School of Sanctity — Lesson #43: About the Temperaments –Continuing Our Study of the Choleric Temperament — Their Spiritual Combat Part VIII: https://catholiccandle.org/2025/03/27/lesson-42-temperaments-choleric-temperament-a-cholerics-spiritual-combat-part-viii/
   

9. Mary’s School of Sanctity – Lesson #44: About the Temperaments – Continuing Our Study of the Choleric Temperament – Their Spiritual Combat, Part IX: https://catholiccandle.org/2025/04/23/lesson-44-temperaments-choleric-temperament-a-cholerics-spiritual-combat-part-ix/
   

10. Mary’s School of Sanctity – Lesson #45: About the Temperaments – Continuing Our Study of the Choleric Temperament – The Choleric’s Spiritual Combat Part X: https://catholiccandle.org/2025/05/20/lesson-45-temperaments-choleric-temperament-a-cholerics-spiritual-combat-part-x/
    

11. Mary’s School of Sanctity – Lesson #46: About the Temperaments – Continuing Our Study of the Choleric Temperament – The Cholerics’ Spiritual Combat – Part XI: https://catholiccandle.org/2025/06/28/lesson-46-temperaments-choleric-temperament-a-cholerics-spiritual-combat-part-xi/
    

12. Mary’s School of Sanctity – Lesson #47: About the Temperaments – Continuing Our Study of the Choleric Temperament – The Choleric’s Spiritual Combat – Part XII: https://catholiccandle.org/2025/07/24/lesson-47-temperaments-choleric-temperament-a-cholerics-spiritual-combat-part-xii/
    

13. Mary’s School of Sanctity – Lesson #48: About the Temperaments – Continuing Our Study of the Choleric Temperament – The Choleric’s Spiritual Combat Part XIII: https://catholiccandle.org/2025/08/29/lesson-48-temperaments-choleric-temperament-a-cholerics-spiritual-combat-part-xiii/
    

14. Mary’s School of Sanctity — Lesson #49: About the Temperaments – Continuing Our Study of the Choleric Temperament – The Choleric’s Spiritual Combat Part XIV: https://catholiccandle.org/2025/09/24/lesson-49-temperaments-choleric-temperament-the-cholerics-spiritual-combat-part-xiv/

15. Mary’s School of Sanctity — Lesson #50: About the Temperaments – Continuing Our Study of the Choleric Temperament – The Choleric’s Spiritual Combat Part XV: https://catholiccandle.org/2025/10/26/3050/
    

Mary’s School of Sanctity

Lesson #51: About the Temperaments –
Continuing Our Study of the Choleric Temperament –
The Cholerics’ Spiritual Combat Part XVI

Note: When referring to a person with a choleric temperament in this article, we simply will call him a choleric.

In our last lesson we explained the basics about the passions and how they work in the soul. With this preparation finished, we now begin our look at the passion of fear in particular.

Using St. Thomas Aquinas as Our Guide

Because St. Thomas is so thorough in his treatment of everything, he is called the Doctor Communis, that is, the Common Doctor of the Church, because he is the one, most of all, to guide and instruct us in anything.¹ We will let St. Thomas, greatest Doctor of the Church, be our guide in our study. It is very valuable to look at St. Thomas’s explanation because he shows us so clearly how we are affected by our passions – in this case, by fear.

Where do we begin?

First, after showing that fear is indeed a passion in the soul (as we saw in our last lesson), St. Thomas then addresses two important questions, “Whether Fear is a Special Passion?” and “Whether There is a Natural Fear?

To the first question he answers simply that, yes, fear is a special passion – and explains why this is true. Here are his words:

The passions of the soul derive their species² from their objects; hence, that is a special passion which has a special object. However, fear has a special object, as hope has. For just as the object of hope is a future good, difficult but possible to obtain, so the object of fear is a future evil, difficult and irresistible. Consequently, fear is a special passion of the soul.³

To the second question (Whether There is a Natural Fear), St. Thomas begins by having us first understand what he means by the word “natural” in this context. Summarizing St. Thomas, movements can be called natural in two ways:

1. A movement is said to be natural simply speaking when the movement occurs without the involvement of the senses or the intellect. Some examples of this are the movement of fire which naturally inclines upward, the movement of a stone which tends to fall downward, and nutritive powers of animals and plants which tend to growth and life.
   

2. A movement is also said to be natural when nature inclines in a certain direction but man (or a different animal) does not move invariably. Such movement involves the senses or the intellect. St. Thomas remarks, “In this way, even the acts of the apprehensive power, such as understanding, feeling, and remembering, as well as the movements of the animal appetite, are sometimes said to be natural.”⁴

In this quote St. Thomas is acknowledging the fact that animals and man both have an animal nature. However, St. Thomas makes an important distinction that, for irrational animals, God put in them the ability to act in an ordered, reasonable way, and this is called instinct. By contrast, God created man to want the good and created man to use his reason to seek the good. Nevertheless, man is able to delude himself about what is good and in this way, St. Thomas tells us, that man is able to pursue the apparent good instead of the true good. So, for example, a tired student is able to pursue the apparent good of sleeping longer in the morning instead of the true good of attending class.

In a future article, we will discuss man’s ability to deceive himself. We will discuss this later, as we proceed with our study of the temperaments in general and in our focus on how fear affects each of the temperaments.

With these basic concepts in mind, let us now turn to St. Thomas’ division of the types of fear and apply them to the temperaments with a special focus on how fear hinders the intellectual life of the soul.

The Types of Fear

St. Thomas divides fear into six kinds. Here are his words:

Fear regards a future evil which surpasses the power of him who fears, so that it is irresistible. However, man’s evil, like his good, may be considered either in his action or in external things.

In his action, he has a twofold evil to fear.

1. First, there is the toil that burdens his nature: and hence arises laziness, as when he shrinks from work for fear of too much toil.

2. Second, there is the disgrace which damages him in the opinion of others. And thus:
   

   1. If disgrace is feared in a deed that is yet to be done, there is shamefacedness;
      

   2. If, however, it be in a deed already done, there is shame.

On the other hand, the evil that consists in external things may surpass man’s faculty of resistance in three ways.

1. First by reason of magnitude; when, that is to say, a man considers some great evil the outcome of which he is unable to gauge; and then there is amazement.
   

2. Second, by reason of its being unwonted;⁵ because, to wit, some unwonted evil arises before us, and on that account is great in our estimation. And then there is stupor, which is caused by the representation of something unwonted.
   

3. Third, by reason of its being unforeseen; thus, future misfortunes are feared, and fear of this kind is called anxiety.⁶
   

Some Considerations Regarding the Kinds of Fear Listed and Some Practical Applications

When St. Thomas is speaking of laziness here, he is referring to a man recoiling from the “toil of external work.” This pertains to a person who fears excessive toil. Anyone of any temperament could have this fear. This kind of person does not want to work but rather seeks to have fun or be idle. Of course, there are degrees of this kind of fear. In the worst case scenario, this fear prevents someone from being able to function in society and in his life. This displeases God very much.

We will discuss the various aspects of fear as we proceed with our investigation. In our study of the temperaments, one crucial thing to remember is that, in all of the difficulties people face, God expects man to use his reason to deal with all of his dilemmas. Indeed, when a person uses his reason properly – including when he forces himself to step back to consider his situation – then there is no problem that he cannot solve the way God wishes.

Shamefacedness is the fear of a base action.⁷ In other words, one anticipates that if he were to act in a low or base manner, he would bring embarrassment upon himself. If one uses shamefacedness properly, he would avoid doing bad deeds.

On the other hand, as St. Thomas explained above, when one does not think ahead concerning the consequences of an action, he is not using shamefacedness and is “leaping” into a bad deed. Then afterwards, he has the shame of having done the disgraceful deed. St. Thomas tells us here that shame is a kind of fear because a person fears that the past deed will be the occasion of future reproach or disgrace.

The amazement and stupor that St. Thomas is speaking about here are in regard to evil. Here are his words.

Not every amazement and stupor are species of fear, but that amazement which is caused by a great evil, and that stupor which arises from an unwonted evil. Or else we may say that, just as laziness shrinks from the toil of external work, so amazement and stupor shrink from the difficulty of considering a great and unwonted thing, whether good or evil: so that amazement and stupor stand in relation to the act of the intellect, as laziness does to external work.⁸

Here we find how St. Thomas aptly describes the fear of intellectual effort that affects so many people of all temperaments. We had discussed how the choleric who has bad will does not make the necessary efforts to think. One reason for this is because he does not want to take the time necessary to do a good job (by thinking carefully). Yet, the underlying cause is his fear of the mental toil. If he were to build the habit of thinking carefully, then he would no longer fear the effort required. As we will see in future articles, it is not only cholerics that fear intellectual efforts.

The devil certainly does not want anyone to enjoy using his highest faculty, viz., his intellect. Thus, the devil has been tempting man from the time of Adam’s fall until now, to believe that thinking is too hard. Of course, we must counteract this wretched falsehood of the devil and do everything we can to promote careful thinking in ourselves and in others and foster the further development of our minds.

One more consequence of the devil dissuading a person from thinking deeply and carefully about high truths is that he misses a valuable opportunity for humility through considering how ignorant he is, and comparing the little he knows to all the high and wonderful truths that there are to learn. God and His creation are marvelous and should fill us with a sense of awe! We could never learn enough to completely satisfy our natural thirst for knowledge! Therefore, thinking well promotes humility because we can better assess our limitations objectively. This is one reason why Satan does not want humans to think!

Anxiety is the last type of fear mentioned above. This fear certainly wreaks havoc on many fronts in our lives. Countless examples could be found of things that cause man anxiety. There is so much talk of stress in our lives but we rarely consider how our trusting dependence on God is a key remedy to all stress.⁹ This anxiety also has a direct connection to the concept of thinking deeply (discussed above). When one thinks carefully, he can be more objective in assessing his circumstances and is therefore less prone to anxiety and worry.

Something to Keep in Mind

So as we said in our last lesson, the passions are not bad in themselves. However, they must be used properly. Here we can see that fear in itself is a very important passion and when used well, it helps the moral life, and hence the spiritual life of a man.

A Preview… In our next lesson we will begin considering the Objects of Fear and will apply our understanding of fear to the temperaments.