As we study the seven virtues in this book, we will seek Christian formation that is conformed to divine revelation and transformed by divine grace. Apart from divine revelation, we are in danger of sinful rationalization and satanic deception. Our loves are disordered: We do not esteem God rightly or honor his design.[1] Instead, we invert the order of reality and idolize created things (Rom 1:21-23). Though we might perceive in part the goodness, truth, and beauty of God’s creation, we are like a building misaligned with its cornerstone. We do not rightly relate these goods to the ultimate good-God-and therefore cannot rightly relate these goods to each other or to ourselves. Christian formation, however, is taught the order of reality in Christ, the treasury of wisdom and knowledge in whom “all things hold together,” who reconciles creation to God as God in a created human nature (Col 1:17, 20; 2:3). Christian formation is a way of being and becoming human that is conformed to divine revelation.
Apart from divine grace, we are in danger of self-help legalism and the self-pitying despair. We may, through flawed-yet-functioning faculties of the soul, order our appetites to obey our intellect through the mediation of our willpower. (Without the benefits of moderate health and decent education, even this prospect seems unlikely.) We do not need knowledge in general. We need the knowledge of God that takes root through faith in Jesus and produces good fruit by the Spirit. The argument is not that Christian formation “works,” whereas sub-Christian or anti-Christian formation do not. There are many natural practices that can help humanity to, for example, become physically fit, gain expertise in particular subjects, or even cope less destructively with the horrors of a fallen world. But what profits us partially and temporarily cannot perfect us, because being and becoming human requires an everlasting unit with God and his people. Christian formation is the carrying on of the process of beholding Christ that culminates in the transformation of the human nature into the heavenly glory of Christ on the last day (2 Cor 3:18; Phil 3:21). Christian formation is a way of being and becoming human that is transformed by divine grace.
Through faith in Christ, the incarnate Word, “with all those in every place who call on the name of Jesus Christ our Lord,” Christian formation is a way of being and becoming God’s new humanity (1 Cor 1:2). This eschatological orientation of Christian formation—already inaugurated and not yet consummated—means that it must be pursued under Scripture and, therefore, as the church.[2] If Christian formation is both a conforming to revelation and a transformation by grace, then theology and spirituality depend on the Spirit’s Word (Scripture) and the Spirit’s people (the church). It is the Spirit, after all, who reveals the mind of God to us as we behold the Son in the Scriptures (1 Cor 2:11; 2 Cor 3:18). Further, the spirituality of theology necessitates that we seek to learn alongside Christians from around the world and throughout the ages. Because this Spirit unites believers in one body, we are to make “every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit,” including in our theology, “until we all reach unity in the faith” (Eph 3:3–4, 13).
Though there are “necessary … factions” that distinguish us from those who undermine the faith (1 Cor 11:19), and “sharp disagreement” leads brothers to part ways temporarily (Acts 15:39), we must humbly recognize that God’s Word did not originate with us. The Word has “reached” us through the millennia-long relay race of believers preserving and proclaiming it (1 Cor 14:36).[3] From the Father, in the Son, by the Spirit, and under Scripture, the church is God’s school of theology and spirituality, through which God forms his new humanity so that we are “mature and complete, lacking nothing” (Jas 1:4). The gift of perfection comes from above, through trials, with the new humanity (Jas 1:4, 17–18).
Editor’s Note: This is an excerpt from Every Perfect Gift: Classical Virtues for Christian Formation by Travis J. Montgomery and Joseph Lanier, released by B&H Publishing (August 2026).
[1] As we will discuss more, especially in chapter 4, Augustine defines virtue as “ordered loves” in his City of God, XV.22. C. S. Lewis succinctly summarizes Augustine, Aristotle, and Plato on the idea of ordo amoris (order of love) in his Abolition of Man, 16–17. See also Oliver O’Donovan, The Problem of Self-Love in Augustine (Wipf & Stock, 2006).
[2] John Webster, Word and Church: Essays in Christian Dogmatics (T&T Clark, 2001), 196.
[3] As will become clear throughout this book, we are approaching the topic from the perspective of Reformed. catholicity. Often, catholicity will take center stage, emphasizing the common ground of Christian thought through the ages. At certain points, however, our decidedly Protestant, Reformed, evangelical, and Baptist convictions will be apparent. On the biblical, historical, and dogmatic basis for this term, see Michael Allen and Scott R. Swain, Reformed Catholicity: The Promise of Retrieval for Theology and Biblical Interpretation (Baker Academic, 2015).
