Character: An Intense Conscious Sense of Living Morally Before God

In his book Losing Our Virtue, in the course of discussing the disastrous move from virtues to values in the modern era, David Wells gives this definition of character: "the intensely conscious sense of living morally before God" (16).

And in this sense, all talk about "character counting" (and similar empty speak) devoid of reference to God stays in the merely horizontal plane and thus never ascends to talk of true character. Which calls to mind Jonathan Edwards' magnificent treatise on The Nature of True Virtue.