Catholic Candle note: The article immediately below is part eleven of the study of the Choleric temperament. The first ten 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/
Mary’s School of Sanctity
Lesson #46 About the Temperaments – Continuing Our Study of the Choleric Temperament – The Cholerics’ Spiritual Combat – Part XI
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 delved further into the typical form of pride a choleric has. Now we begin a more in depth look at the core of the choleric pride. We mentioned that the source of the choleric pride is a lack of mental discipline, that is, an unwillingness to force himself to reason deeply and carefully.
In order to discuss this unfortunate failure to use his intellect – which leads to pride – we need to have a basic understanding of how God expects us to use our intellect.
In his Spiritual Exercises, St. Ignatius explains that man is created to praise, revere, and serve God.[1] The Baltimore Catechism refers to these actions as knowing, loving, and serving God.
The highest faculty a man possesses is his intellect and so it makes sense that the more a man knows, the better he will be able to praise, revere, and serve God. This is true even if he knows about God merely through observing God’s creation.[2] The more someone knows the truth, the more he is inspired to love God and consequently to serve God better.[3]
The Purpose of the Intellect
Man is intended to use his God-given reason to know his proper goal, namely, the happiness of enjoying God in heaven, and to take the proper means to accomplish this goal. However, because of original sin, man’s mind has the wound of ignorance and his body has the wounds of the concupiscence of the eyes and the flesh. In addition to this, man is prone to inordinate pride (i.e., the pride of life, as St. John the Evangelist calls it, 1 St. John, 2:16).
St. Thomas explains that the goodness of an action depends on the will of a man being directed to his proper end, that is, to God. He explains how God intended man’s reason to direct and inform his will about the end (i.e., goal) of man and about the proper means he should take to obtain his end. The whole of the moral life involves man listening to the voice of reason (also known as his conscience).
God has set down His laws plainly and His Catholic Church, in her Divine Element, has expounded upon the moral life in detail. Nevertheless, the law of God, the Natural Law, is written in the heart of each man – as Genesis tells us that we are made in the image and likeness of God.[4]
So When Does the Failure to Use the Intellect Cause Sin to Occur? Whenever a man does not listen to his reason.
Every conscious thought, word, or deed is either good or is a sin – there is no “in between”.[5] Whenever a man is acting voluntarily,[6] it is a sin for him to not act according to his reason. In other words, he sins whenever he voluntarily does something unreasonable.[7]
Pride is a type of unreasonableness because it is an unreasonable exaltation of oneself.[8] Thus, pride is inherently a sin because it is inherently unreasonable.[9]
The Importance of Good Will in Using Our Reason
One must be of good will. That is, a man’s will must follow the good shown by the reason. The will pursues the good or the apparent good. Thus, man has the grave moral responsibility to find out if a particular object is really good or is only apparently good. If something is only apparently good and not truly good, then we are obliged to avoid it. Because use of reason is the center of the moral life, a man has a duty to properly inform his conscience/reason.
Further, St. Thomas tells us that even if the will listens to (i.e., follows) the reason in a situation where reason is erroneous, there is no sin provided that there is no bad motive on the part of the will and provided that the will (i.e., the man) is not blamable for his ignorance.
This explanation shows how crucial the use of reason is in the moral life of the soul.
A preview…
We have more work to do to examine the subject of the choleric temperament and reasoning. What would motivate cholerics to not think deeply and carefully? Here are some possible motives:
Ø They do not want to take the time necessary to think things through because they want to accomplish things quickly or they want to race forward to act in a way that would cause them to be perceived as heroes (or heroines).
Ø Or, they believe that it is too difficult to think carefully and deeply. (This fear of mental effort is what St. Thomas Aquinas calls stupor.)
Ø Or, they believe that they do not have the ability to think deeply.
Ø Or, they falsely view thinking deeply and carefully as “proud”.
Using these or other rationalizations, cholerics are fooled by the father of lies.
[1] Read these articles which examine this essential truth of our Faith and of human existence:
† https://catholiccandle.org/2022/05/24/lesson-9-the-principle-and-foundation-part-i/
† https://catholiccandle.org/2022/06/27/lesson-11-the-principle-and-foundation-part-ii/
[2] St. Paul teaches how man knows of God’s existence and goodness through looking at the world around us:
For the invisible things of Him, from the creation of the world, are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made; His eternal power also, and Divinity: so that they [atheists] are inexcusable.
Romans, 1:20 (bracketed word added to show context).
[3] Here is one way that St. Augustine, great Doctor of the Church, teaches this truth, addressing himself directly to God:
Heaven and earth and all that is in them tell me, wherever I look, that I should love You [i.e.¸God], and they cease not to tell it to all men, so that there is no excuse for them.
St. Augustine, The Confessions, Bk 10, Ch.6 (bracketed words added to show context).
[4] Genesis, 1:26-27.
[5]
Here is one way this truth is explained by St. Thomas Aquinas,
greatest Doctor of the Catholic Church:
It belongs to the reason to direct; if an action that proceeds from deliberate reason be not directed to the due end, it is, by that fact alone, repugnant to reason, and has the character of evil. But if it be directed to a due end, it is in accord with reason; wherefore it has the character of good. Now it must needs be either directed or not directed to a due end. Consequently, every human action that proceeds from deliberate reason, if it be considered in the individual, must be good or bad.
Summa, Ia IIae, Q.18, a.9, Respondeo, Whether an individual action can be indifferent? (emphasis added).
[6] St. Thomas contrasts voluntary (human) action with involuntary action proper to brute beasts:
If, however, [an action] does not proceed from deliberate reason, but from some act of the imagination, as when a man strokes his beard, or moves his hand or foot [e.g., in his sleep]; such an action, properly speaking, is not moral or human [but is the type of action a brute beast could perform], since this [moral and human action] depends on reason. Hence [an act proceeding only from imagination] will be indifferent, as standing apart from the genus [i.e., category] of moral actions.
Summa, Ia IIae, Q.18, a.9, Respondeo, Whether an individual action can be indifferent? (emphasis added; bracketed words added to show the context).
[7] St. Thomas explains this truth by quoting and following Pope St. Gregory the Great, Doctor of the Church:
Gregory says in a homily (vi in Evang.): “An idle word is one that lacks either the usefulness of rectitude or the motive of just necessity or pious utility.” But an idle word is an evil, because “men . . . shall render an account of it in the day of judgment” (Matthew 12:36): while if it does not lack the motive of just necessity or pious utility, it is good. Therefore, every [voluntary] word is either good or bad. For the same reason every other action is either good or bad. Therefore, no [voluntary] individual action is indifferent.
Summa, Ia IIae, Q.18, a.9, Sed Contra, Whether an individual action can be indifferent? (emphasis added; bracketed words added to show the context).
[8] This article pertains to the unreasonable pride which is a sin. We are not treating the proper and reasonable pride that a parent might have for his child or a citizen might have for his country.
[9] St. Thomas explains the unreasonableness of pride in this way:
Right reason requires that every man’s will should tend to that which is proportionate to him [i.e., he recognizes the truth about himself]. Therefore, it is evident that pride denotes something opposed to right reason, and this shows it [pride] to have the character of sin, according to Dionysius (Div. Nom. iv. 4), “the soul’s evil is to be opposed to reason.” Therefore, it is evident that pride is a sin.
Summa, IIa-IIae Q.162, a. 1, Respondeo (bracketed words added to show the context).