90 Ducere Est Servire: THE LEADERSHIP JOURNAL OF DALLAS BAPTIST UNIVERSITY the age to come is internal and not external, just as it is in Aristotle. It is of course this parallelism which allows Aquinas to synthesize Aristotle and the New Testament.74 Gregory Peterson highlights the significance of MacIntyre’s contribution when he states, It is only in the late 20th century that we find a revival of interest in the classical accounts of virtue, reacting both to the perceived failures of the standard normative frameworks of deontology and utilitarianism and to the abandonment of normative thought altogether in mid-20th century analytic philosophy. ... Here, Alasdair MacIntyre’s account of the virtues has had particular influence, and his account of the communal aspects of the moral life has, in particular, resonated with theologians and their ethical understanding of the church.75 Central to this conception of virtue is habituation. Habit is the conceptual link between virtue and the spiritual disciplines (also called practices). William Spohn defines practices as “committed exercises, activities that we deliberately set time aside to do regularly. … These spiritual practices form the capacities of Christians by being both pedagogical and transformational.”76 Spohn suggests that the analogical imagination accessed through these practices produces meaningmaking images that increase one’s capacity to cope with adversity.77 These images within a living tradition of faith tutor the emotions and the heart toward a virtuous disposition.78 Dallas Willard similarly discusses the disciplines as habit-based practices for the purpose of formation. He states, “In essence, an individual’s character is nothing but the pattern of habitual ways in which that person comports his or her body—whether conforming to the conscious intentions of the individual or not.”79 Discipline as defined by Willard “is activity carried on to prepare us indirectly for some activity other than itself.”80 These definitions speak generally to the common understanding of the disciplines. But, for the modern evangelical, what of the power of the Spirit, and what about justification by faith? One need not assume, however, that the practice of the disciplines are substituted in Christ’s place.
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