Sacred Energy

A vow of chastity, Aquinas wrote, is more excellent than a mere act of continence, because it fixes the will permanently toward God

A one-time act of restraint and a permanent vow are not the same discipline, according to Aquinas, because only the vow reorders the will itself for good.

In Question 88, Aquinas argues that a vow of chastity surpasses an isolated act of continence because a vow binds the will in advance, making every future choice already an expression of a settled commitment rather than a fresh negotiation each time temptation arises. He compares this to the general superiority of a vowed act over an unvowed one: doing a good deed once is praiseworthy, but consecrating one's whole future capacity to that good is a more complete gift, since it offers God not just an action but the will's own permanent disposition. This is part of why Aquinas ranks the religious life, built on vows including chastity, poverty, and obedience, as objectively more excellent than an equivalent good deed performed outside a vow. The distinction gave medieval monastic and religious orders a theological rationale for why permanent commitment mattered more than sporadic virtue.

Summa Theologica

Written about in

• What the celibate traditions say about making a hard decision

  Aquinas's case for the vow is about what it does to every later decision: it binds the will in advance, so each temptation stops being a fresh negotiation. A single good act and a permanently consecrated capacity, he argues, are not the same gift.