The Gift of Counsel, Infused Prudence, and the Natural Law

Abstract

This article deals with the Gifts of the Holy Spirit, with infused prudence, and with the natural law. Prudence has an intimate connection both with the natural law and with the Gift of Counsel, and is thus pivotal to the argument made. In brief, it is argued that the Gift of Counsel perfects reason’s grasp of the demands of the natural law. This Gift, which proportions the believer to the instinctus of the Holy Spirit, guides him in all that pertains the attainment of ultimate beatitude. It does so, moreover, by actually enhancing human freedom rather than by undermining it. In order to make this argument, this article, in the first instance, turns to a treatment of the content of natural reasoning, dealing in particular with the primary and secondary precepts of the natural law.