Dear Apologist, Where do Catholics get the idea for the three theological virtues? Are they in the Bible?
A virtue is a habit of human excellence which perfects a person's spirit and helps him/her get on in the world. The theological virtues are a special type because they come from God and orient us back to God - which is why they are called "theological". There are three of them; faith, hope, and love. Faith is the virtue by which we believe things which God has revealed to us. Hope is the virtue by which we keep our eyes set on Heaven and persevere to the end. Love (or "charity") is the virtue by which we forsake sin and love God and neighbor.
The two most explicit mentions of the theological virtues in the New Testament come from Paul's writings. In 1Corinthians 13, Paul is explaining the primacy of the virtue of charity and says: "Now these three remain; faith, hope, and charity. The greatest of these is charity." He also mentions them in 1Thessalonians 5:8, where he says: "Let us be sober, having put on the breastplate of faith and love, and the hope of salvation as a helmet."
Knowing the theological virtues is useful because they shed light on what God does in us when we are in a state of grace. For adults, they start out in seed form when the Holy Spirit is moving the person toward conversion. When a person is Baptized, these virtues come alive and begin blooming. As the person grows as a Christian, they grow and deepen. Conversely, if a person rejects one of these virtues either by leaving the Christian faith or committing a mortal sin, the result is a scuttling of the person’s Christian faith.
"For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love." - 1Corinthians 13:12-13
"We always give thanks to God for all of you and mention you in our prayers, constantly remembering before our God and Father your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ." - 1Thes 1:2-3
"Since we belong to the day, let us be sober, and put on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation." - 1Thes 5:6-8
"In our prayers for you we always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, for we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love that you have for all the saints, because of the hope laid up for you in heaven." - Col 1:3-5
"Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us." - Romans 5:1-5
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