Aristotle explain in his book Nicomachean ethics, book IV, that "virtue is a way of being relative to choice, and the choice is a deliberate desire." The virtue, explains Aristotle, is a middle term between excess and defect. The goal of virtue is happiness, virtue naturally leads man to happiness. Greater is the virtue, greater is the happiness.
Happiness is for Aristotle a state of harmony between the faculties of the soul. Happiness is the desire of the soul, because we have a soul we want to be happy.
Thomas Aquinas following the ideas of Aristotle, summarize the 4 human virtues: temperance, fortitude, justice, prudence and add three theological virtues that relate man to God: faith, hope and charity.
This work that Thomas Aquinas does in an attempt to reconcile the teachings of the kingdom of God with the works of Aristotle.
The spiritual gifts are define differently. God is the perfection itself, we cannot attribute imperfections to God. The spiritual gits are perfections: "Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect" Matthew 5:48
Something is perfect when it is mature, complete.
The goal of the spiritual gifts is the communion, the common good, the eternal life and the sanctity: "the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good", 1 Corinthians 12:7
The kingdom of God is the empire, the reign, the predominance of the perfections of God: the empire of the continuous improvement, the reign of the counsel.
Live the spiritual gifts is to search the correct and the best, the correct for the spiritual gitf of counsel and the best for the mercy.
What is the correct equivalent of the kingdom of God according Aristotle's thinking? A virtue is a spiritual gift when that virtue is complete, when that virtue cannot be improved or exceeded in it genre. For example in the genre of the judgments we have the prudence (practical reason) and the counsel (listen, meditate with intuition and inspiration, decide with discernment). What is the perfection in the genre of the judgments? The virtue of counsel, for this, is called the spiritual gift of counsel.
The counsel, the mercy, the perseverance are according to Aristotle "perfect virtues" or "ethical virtues", not gifts. The equivalent of the kingdom according to greek philosophy is the "dominion of the perfect virtues" or the "empire of the ethical virtues"
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