This happend to be my today’s evening reflection, which I meditated while it was raining. I pose a question and leave it for you. As Christians should we not follow the footsteps of Jesus, which was a life of ‘Kenosis’. that is of constant ‘self-emptying’ than of filling oneself. So as Christains should we throughout our life want to fill our selves with virtues or should we constanly empty ourselves so that God could fill it. Thus God’s glory will be proclaimed and not our glory of acquired virtues.

JB, if you want more on a kenotic approach to the virtues, see Nancey Murphy’s book “Why Psychology Needs Theology.”

To begin with, I agree with Amanda that “which virtues” is an important question, as there are some virtues (e.g., Aristotle’s virtue “megalopsychia”, which might be considered a “justifiable pride”: if I have this virtue, I’m full of myself but only because I’m THAT awesome.) that serve the self’s desire for glory.

Most virtues endorsed by Christian thinkers can be seen as self-emptying in their nature and function. I’ll roll with the Cardinal Virtues for the purposes of this discussion. My own ego says that nothing is more important than myself, so courage empowers self-emptying by empowering me to accept real or potential loss or harm to myself in the name of something more important than me. My ego hates justice, since justice puts us all on equal footing and requires me to treat people with the respect due to one create din the image of God. Temperance requires silencing the demands of the self, while the self wants uncontrolled gratification. As for wisdom, Robert Sternberg’s psychological research on wisdom and foolishness indicates that failure of wisdom most often involves allowing egocentrism to unbalance one’s thought processes.