Temperance

Sherbrooke Village is a tourist attraction which is part of the village in which I was raised.  It is a part of town that has been restored to the 1860s - an open-air museum they call it.  One of the features of the Village (as locals call it) is the Temperance Hall, a building which is testament to the movement beginning in the late 18th century and continuing into the 20th century where its most famous fruit was Prohibition.  The Temperance movement encouraged and lobbied for the regulation and, ultimately, the banning of the sale of alcohol.

The funny thing about the Temperance Hall in Sherbrooke Village is that the Royal Canadian Legion met in the basement.  For those unfamiliar with "the Legion" as we call it in Canada, it is famously a watering hole for armed forces veterans.  For those unfamiliar with the term "watering hole" because, perhaps you are part of the 21st century Temperance Movement, it is a bar - a place to buy the very thing to which the builders of the Temperance Hall were opposed.

All this to say that "temperance" in current usage is almost always taken to mean abstinence from alcohol.  And we lose the broader and more helpful understanding of the word.

Temperance is one of the cardinal virtues - cardinal not because they are associated with Roman clerics in red, nor less the similarly colored bird, but because they are of chief or central importance.  This is the original use of the word cardinal.  Temperance's cardinal siblings are justice, prudence and fortitude or courage.

Temperance as a virtue is the practiced capacity - and it does rather need practice - to curb one's own desires and appetites.  Curb is the operative word here.  We do not say eradicate.  The interesting thing about Christian moral theology is that it, unlike other approaches to the problems of excess, affirms the good of things, like drink or food or sex, and believes virtue is not in total denial of these good things, but in their enjoyment in good order, in temperance.

Temperance is particularly important because without restraining our own desires and passions we are not able to act rightly in all circumstances (prudence) or give each person what is due him or her (justice) or stand firm in the face of opposition and trial (fortitude).  Intemperate love of our own good and comfort clearly gets in the way of these other virtues.

Temperance, like much moral virtue, has the reputation of being a killjoy.  Temperate people are rather dull.  No excitement or drama.  But that is to misunderstand temperance as that which tells us always to say "no".  The truly temperate are those who have the self-command to say both "no" and "yes".  The intemperate always say one or the other.  The spendthrift is always saying "yes" and the miser, "no".  Both are intemperate, even if only the former appears that way.

There is no good thing absolutely prohibited by the Christian Scriptures - unless you consider the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil to be a good. (Genesis 2 & 3)  But neither is there a good thing whose use or enjoyment is permitted without limit or boundary, God Himself excepted.  The Goods given are for our enjoyment and benefit - as are the limits.

When we love things intemperately, use them intemperately we lose their good and often become bound or addicted to them.  And at that point, if we are ever to be free, we then need to always say no.  In this we see the wisdom of temperance.  It gives us the capacity to continue to enjoy all the good things God has given.  No excitement or drama, but a lifelong enjoyment and satisfaction.