Balancing Pride and Humility
Fight against pride’s perils, the armour padding of Temperance brings full value to Magnanimity and Honour. Like Conservation and Excellence, Temperance in the Propriety moment enables the work of the virtues in Awareness and Morality moments. In the case of Temperance, it enables comfort in the armoured boots of Magnanimity, and gauntlets of Honour. More than restraint, it is spiritual wisdom balancing arrogance and apathy extremes. Where Magnanimity and Honour primarily operate in Kratos moving into Telos. Temperance operates mostly in Telos, verging upon and preparing for Eros, where relationships transform, in the last virtue upon the aspect of Honesty: Loyalty.
Temperance: The Balancing Act
Structural Virtues Theory (SVT) posits Temperance as a balancing art, acknowledging excess leads to ruin while insufficiency and obsession make for stagnation. Rooted in Honesty aspect and Propriety moment, it protects our weak mortal bodies against our pride and arrogance, which become corrosive forces. It protects us from falling victim to thinking we are above improvement or don’t need the armour. Temperance enables self-limitation recognition, ambition tempering with humility, service cultivation over self-aggrandisements.
“The greatest among you will be your servant.” (Matthew 23:12). No passive submission here, this is absolute humility in understanding our place, and only boasting through Jesus. The soldier in Christ must pad themselves for the armour to work, lest Honour turns to pride and becomes self-destruction rather than protection.
Complementing Temperance most are Honour and Loyalty, standing firm against degeneration and injury through ‘completion’ in the foundations of Honesty. In SVT, Honour shields the doer from the fires of temptation, converting dishonourable experience and disgust into a righteous pride and trust in God, and all that is good. Despairing over evil turns into determination for God’s plan, and Temperance is the step above this making it easier while bridging our path toward greater Loyalty.
Resurrexit Spiritus: Opposites’ Wisdom
Resurrexit Spiritus offers profound insights, emphasising “wisdom from opposites” as one important key to overcoming spiritual defeat, in moderation, which is the mother of all reason. Temperance and Honour are not solitary but balanced pillars countering pride, apathy, and hubristic extremes. Like a storm-bound ship needing rudder, sail, and anchor, the soul requires all virtues to endure peacefully.