What is the difference between the Fruits and the Gifts of the Holy Spirit?

What is the difference between the Fruits and the Gifts of the Holy Spirit?

Its a good question to dissect philosophically. Gifts of the Holy Spirit are Supernatural Dispositions, and the fruits are the consequences or effects of us responding to or cooperating with such supernatural dispositions.

This little paragraph packs a lot of meaning – so below I try to unpack it a bit.

<<<DISPOSITION>>>

First, all people have good, natural dispositions.  And in some ways these tend to get conflated with the gifts of the Holy Spirit – we have to make a distinction between a natural disposition and a supernatural disposition.  Natural dispositions deal with the temporal sphere of things.  They are not disconnected from God, but are limited and relegated to the sphere of reason, and human experience.  Supernatural dispositions are those which raise our mind, our awareness, and our will to the things of God.  So if we speak about someone having “courage” we could mean it in either a natural or supernatural sense.  The courage to die for God in martyrdom is different than the courage to go to war, or die for one’s family.  Both are good, but one has a supernatural character.  In this way, we see that such dispositions are contradictory, but one is oriented toward God, the other toward the natural order of things. 

A disposition means a type of inclination or prompting.  It is as though the will leans towards not only the natural goods, but more so towards the Divine-Good (God Himself).  Thus, counsel, courage, knowledge, wisdom, and all such sort things integrate nature into God’s providence, God’s mindset, God’s wisdom. 

It is true that the unbaptized and unconfirmed may experience these prior to their initiation.  However, through the sacraments these dispositions become capacities that are permanent. 

<<<Fruits>>>

As mentioned, these gifts, while they bend the will and inform the conscience, they do not necessarily imply that we act on such dispositions or prompts.  If we do, in the right “SPIRIT” or rather the same movement of love that the Holy Spirit has, then they bear the fruit of Joy, Self-control, Peace, etc.

Fruits are not so much willed decisions as they are consequences of willed decisions.  In this sense, they are what naturally comes about when we listen, heed, and obey the promptings of the Holy Spirit, understood through the 7 gifts of the Holy Spirit.

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