Treatise on Charity
Question 24: The subject of charity Question 25: The object of charity Question 26: The order of charity Question 27: The principal act of charity: love (dilectio) Question 23: Charity in itself (General note: Some of what St. Thomas says in question 23 is further clarified in later questions. This is especially true of talk about the subject, object, and order of charity.)
First, St. Thomas notes that friendship adds to love a mutual benevolence--i.e., willing good for one another-- which friends have for one another by virtue of what they share in common. So I can have friendship only with persons who love and are loved by me, i.e., who will good to me and to whom I will good. But, as the first objection asks, how can there be sharing or something common (communicatio) between God and us, given our status as creatures and the fact that we are infinitely lower in degree of dignity and eminence? Well, it's a purely divine initiative that serves as the foundation of our friendship with God, viz., God's sharing his own happiness with us. And the love that is founded on this sharing or communication of happiness to us is just charity itself. As for the objections, St. Thomas makes it clear that
charity is first
and foremost friendship with God, which serves to direct our love to
others
(including angels, as it turns out) for the sake of God our
friend.
So out of charity we love everyone whom God loves and wills us to love,
"even those who offend us or hate us." Likewise, those
gratuitously
endowed with charity and supernatural virtues are called upon to love
sinners
(those not so endowed) out of friendship with God. And the good we will
for others is just the good that we will to ourselves and that God
wills
to all human beings as such because of His Son, viz., eternal
beatitude.
But St. Thomas will have none of this. The Holy Spirit moves our mind in such a way that our minds are also active principles; otherwise, our acts of charity would not be voluntary or meritorious. So just as God has endowed all creatures with connatural active powers by which they act for the ends that he has ordained, so too he endows us with a supernatural form (the habity of charity) which inclines us toward the act of charity (dilectio) and makes such acts easier and more enjoyable: "Hence, it must be the case that for acts of charity there exists in us some habitual form superadded to our natural faculty that inclines it toward the act of charity and makes it do that act promptly and with enjoyment." This habit is a certain participation in God's charity and is the "life of the soul" in the same way that the soul is the life of the body. The reply to the third objection is worth quoting in
full: "Charity
operates as a form. Now the efficacy of a form accords with the power
of
the agent that induces the form. And so the fact that charity is not
useless,
but instead brings about an infinite effect when it conjoins the soul
to
God by justifying it, demonstrates God's infinite power, which is the
source
of charity."
In response to the objection that charity is friendship and
friendship
is not a virtue, St. Thomas gives a reply that helps us start to
glimpse
the relation between charity and justice. He points out that even
though Aristotle does not list friendship among the virtues, neither
does
he deny that friendship is a virtue. Rather, he says that it is
"a
virtue or involved with virtue." Then St. Thomas adds: "For
friendship could be called a moral virtue with respect to operations
that
are directed to another, though in a different way from justice.
For justice has to do with those actions that fall under the notion of
a lawful debt, whereas "friendship falls under the notion of a
certain
amicable and moral debt or, better, under the notion of
a gratuitous
beneficence." Still, the friendship Aristotle speaks of is
not
wholly like charity, since it is consequent on human virtue, whereas
charity
is a friendship based on God's goodness and beneficence rather than on
human virtue.
It follows that not every virtuous act is an act of charity
and, also,
that charity is not just a general condition included in every act of
virtue.
Rather, just as every act of a moral virtue involves an act of prudence
which perfects the intellectual elements leading up the act of that
virtue,
so too in one who has charity every act of any other virtue involves an
act of charity by which the divine goodness (qua beatific) is
intended
as an end.
St. Thomas demurs, of course. Charity is a type of friendship which we have with God. Friendships can be classified either according to diverse ends (pleasure, utility, virtue) or according to the diverse types of sharing or commonality (communicatio) on which they are founded (e.g., consanguinity, common citizenship, travelling together, etc.). Charity is not divided into many in either of these ways, since it has a single end (the divine goodness) and a single type of commonality or sharing (eternal beatitude). That is, by charity we love God for himself, i.e., for his own goodness, which he shares with us. In reply to the objections, St. Thomas notes first that God
and neighbor
are not on a par as objects of charity; rather, God is the principal
object
and our love for our neighbor via charity is ordered to God.
What's
more, just one reason for loving God is principally involved in
charity,
viz., "God's goodness, which is his substance." Finally, our love of
God
through charity has just one end, unlike human friendships, and that
end
is neither pleasure, utility, nor virtue (though it presupposes
rectitude
of will). Rather, it is to love God for his own goodness (love of
friendship)
and to share, and have others share, in his beatitude (love of
concupiscence).
This bears scrutiny and we will discuss it. It is true that we will for ourselves the enjoyment of God, but St. Thomas points out later that this love of concupiscence is not the essence of charity. Rather, charity is a true love of friendship by which we love God as our highest good even more than we love ourselves. Analogously, in genuine natural friendship of virtue, we will the good for our friend's sake, even though it also true that such friendship is good for us as indviduals and that we enjoy exercising virtue with our friends. But what is good for us is precisely to be the sort of persons who will the good to others for their own sake. In the replies, St. Thomas notes that with respect to
objects lower
in the hierarchy of being than we are, it is more noble to know them
than
to love them, but that the opposite is true with respect to higher
objects,
such as God. Thus, charity is a more excellent virtue than
faith.
Moreover, even though hope and charity have the same good as their end,
hope connotes a distance from that good, which is arduous and has yet
to
be attained, whereas charity connotes a present union (albeit imperfect
for now) with that good.
The principal and ultimate end for a human being is the enjoyment of God, and this is what charity orders us toward. As for secondary and particular ends, there are two general types for us, viz., that which is genuinely good and capable of being ordered to the ultimate end (we might call them sanctifiable ends), and that which is only apparently good and which leads us away from our final good. Genuine virtue, absolutely speaking, is a virtue which orders us directly to the principal end. And so there can be no genuine virtue without charity. For without charity we are not ordered appropriately to this end. However, if we take virtue in a wider sense for any habit that orders us to a genuine--as opposed to merely apparent--secondary good (e.g., the preservation of the polity, etc.), then there can be virtues without charity, though they are imperfect unless they are ordered toward the end of charity and are thus sanctified. In the reply to the first objection St. Thomas clarifies this a bit more. When one who does not have charity does something in such a way as to express his lack of supernatural charity, then even if the proximate object of that act is good in itself (e.g., clothing the naked) and thus good to will, the act is nevertheless a sin. (Imagine someone who does "charitable" works as an expression of contempt for an enemy or even for God.) However, one who lacks supernatural charity is able to perform actions that stem not from the absence of charity itself but instead from some good that is a supernatural gift of God (e.g., faith or hope) or from some good of nature (e.g., a good acquired habit) that is not destroyed by sin. (Imagine someone who does good works out of a sense of justice or in order to promote the common good.) In such cases the object of the action is something good to will and the person's end is good in the sense that it could be ordered to the true ultimate end, even though it is not so ordered by that person. In the reply to the second objection, St. Thomas puts a
similar point
as follows: "Absolutely speaking, there cannot be genuine justice
or genuine chastity if the required ordination to the (ultimate) end,
which
comes through charity, is lacking--even if the person acts uprightly in
other respects.
Question 24: The subject of charity
The reply to the second objection is important. The rule or norm of charity is not right reason by itself without the supernatural virtues; rather, the rule or norm of charity is the divine wisdom (divine law) insofar as it exceeds human reason and is revealed to us through faith. "Hence, charity is not in reason either (i) as in a subject (in the way that prudence is in reason) or (ii) as in that which regulates it (in the way that temperance is in reason). Rather, it is in reason only through (iii) a sort of affinity that the will has toward reason." In the reply to the third objection St. Thomas notes that
charity is
in the will but is not properly said to be in free choice, since free
choice
is concerned with the means to the end, whereas charity has to do with
the end. (In that sense it has to do with intention rather than
choice
or consent or command. It is (infused) prudence which is directly
concerned with the latter.)
It follows that we cannot acquire charity either by our natural powers or by those powers that we can acquire naturally (e.g., the natural virtues). So we can receive charity only as a gift "through the infusion of the Holy Spirit, who is the love between the Father and the Son and participation in whom is created charity itself." In short, in order for us to be able to love God in the best possible way, we need to be elevated by the infusion of charity. (It's as if the king deigns to relate to me, a mere peasant, as a friend and a father. I thus acquire gratuitously a special status--though, of course, this is not exactly the infusion of a new habit.) The answer to the second objection--that God is the most
lovable object
and so the easiest for us to love--is helpful: "Just as God in himself
is maximally knowable, though not maximally to us because of the
weakness
of our cognition, which depends on sensible things, so too God in
himself
is maximally lovable insofar as he is the object of beatitude, but he
is
not maximally lovable in this way by us, because of the inclination of
our affections toward visible goods. This is why in order to love God
to
the maximum charity must be infused into our hearts."
Needless to say, St. Thomas will have none of this. The Holy Spirit operates as He will. Because charity is incommensurable with our natural goods, including our natural virtues, its intensity "is in no way dependent on the condition of our nature or the measure of our natural virtue." It's wholly up to the Holy Spirit. What's more, as is made clear in the reply to the first objection, the antecedent disposition we have for habitual grace is itself the work--via actual grace--of the Holy Spirit, "who moves the mind of man to greater or lesser degrees according to His own will." This is crucial and raises the thorny question of the relationship between (actual) grace and free choice. (See 24, 10, ad 3.) In an interesting aside about the angels in the reply to the
third objection,
St. Thomas claims that it is different with them. Because, as purely
spiritual
creatures, they are impelled with utter totality toward whatever they
decide,
their goodness (if they remain faithful to God) or their badness (if
they
rebel) is in direct proportion to their natural gifts. But it is not so
with us, since the fact that a human being has greater natural talents
(including moral virtue) does not entail that he or she is better
disposed
for the reception of grace. In this connection, one is reminded of
Josef
Pieper's claim, in his essay on Prudence in The Four Cardinal
Virtues,
that it is precisely the naturally prudent person (ala the rich young
man)
who can be most resistant to the call of the Gospel. In part, this is
because
such a person has a "reasonable" estimate of his own goodness and
badness,
and so can be blind to his total destitution in the eyes of God and
hence
his need for divine forgiveness and grace. This was one of the
complaints
that Augustine levelled at the "proud" Platonists.
First of all, charity does not increase through the addition
of new
objects to be loved, since the object of charity is God and,
derivatively,
everything that God loves. (More on this below). Instead, charity can
increase
only in its rootedness in the subject, which grounds an increase in the
intensity of its act. But this increase in intensity cannot plausibly
be
thought of as adding "more charity" to one's previously existing
charity,
as if one were to acquire a new habit at least conceptually distinct
from
the habit one already had. Rather, for God to grant an increase in
charity
is just for him to intensify the presence of the very same habit within
the patient. In this, charity differs from certain other mental habits
such as knowledge, which can grow both by addition and by intensity.
The reply to the third objection contains this interesting
claim: "The
quantity of a wayfarer's charity, which follows upon the cognition
associated
with faith, is of a different sort from the quantity of the charity in
heaven, which follows upon the clear vision [of God]." So just as a
line,
no matter how long it gets, never becomes a surface, so too the charity
had by wayfarers, no matter how intense, is incommensurable with the
charity
had by the blessed--and this because the two types of knowledge of God
are incommensurable with one another. (It would be nice to be able to
think
of another example of this sort.)
Of course, charity is always perfect with regard to its object, since its immediate object is an infinitely good God. Obviously, no creature can love God infinitely, that is, with a love that is commensurate with His goodness. Only God can love himself in this way, and this love is just the third person of the blessed Trinity. Still, if we say that someone loves perfectly just in case
he loves
as much as he can, then there are three ways in which this can occur:
(ii) A person tries to attend to God and divine things to such a degree that other things occupy him only to the extent that this is required by the necessities of the present life. This is the perfection of charity that is possible in this life, "but it is not common to all who have charity." (iii) A person habitually gives his whole heart to God, and he neither entertains nor wills anything that is contrary to the love of God. This is the perfection common to all who have charity.
St. Thomas notes that we can think of increases in charity
as analogous
to the growth of the human body, from infancy to the time of the use of
reason and speech and then to puberty and on to full physical growth.
The proper object of charity, God, neither increases nor decreases in any way. What about the subject's participation in charity? If charity can be diminished, this would have to be either through some act or else through the cessation of acts alone. In the case of acquired virtues, it is precisely because such virtues are caused by acts that they can be corrupted by the mere cessation of acts. But this sort of consideration does not apply in the case of charity, since it is an infused virtue whose cause is God alone and not human acts. (Remember the error of the Pelagians.) So charity cannot be diminished by the mere cessation of the acts of charity, as long as such cessation is free from the taint of sin. So it follows that the diminution of charity could be caused only by God himself (as the principal cause of charity) or by sins (which are contrary to the act of charity). Now it is possible and appropriate for God to withhold grace from us only by way of punishing us for our mortal sins. But mortal sin does not diminish charity; it removes it entirely, both as an efficient cause (because mortal sin is directly contrary to the virtue of charity) and as a meritorious cause (since mortal merits God's punishment). So charity is not diminished through mortal sin. What about venial sin? No, says St. Thomas, venial sin can be neither an efficient cause nor a meritorious cause of the diminution of charity. It cannot be an efficient cause, because it is not directly contrary to the habit of charity itself. Charity is directly ordered to the ultimate end, while venial sin is a disorder with regard to the means to the end--it is not wholly disorienting and hence does not diminish the love the venial sinner has for God. Committing venial sin is the moral equivalent of deriving false opinions from a combination of a false minor premise and a major premise that is certain. The false conclusion does not diminish the certitude of the first principle. Again, it is the moral equivalent of not sticking to your diet when sick, even though you ardently desire the end of health. Nor does venial sin merit a decrease in charity. However, one can lessen his charity in the loose sense that
by not acting
from the virtue or by committing venial sin he is disposing himself
toward
mortal sin.
Notice that it is partly because charity is an infused, rather than acquired, virtue that it can be lost through a single mortal sin. (It might be appropriate here to recall the conditions of a (subjective) mortal sin: grave matter, sufficient deliberation, full consent). An acquired habit normally survives a single act that is contrary to it because it does not require a continuity of act as a conserving efficient cause, though it will diminish over time if it is not used or often acted contrary to. Thus, a single act contrary to the habit does not completely destroy the fixed disposition acquired through other acts. However, in the case of an infused habit the continuous conserving cause is God himself infusing the habit. Thus, when an obstacle is posed to the God's action by the commission of a mortal sin, charity immediately ceases to exist in the will. Notice the reply to the second objection: Sins that are contrary to charity need not be directly contrary to it in the sense of being sins of malice or contempt for God. Rather, they may also be sins of ignorance, weakness, or passion, which are contrary to charity, though more easily repented of. The translation of the reply to the fourth objection is potentially misleading, though it would behoove us all to go back to the discussion of the distinction between mortal and venial sin in ST 1-2, qq. 88-89. In any case, here's the way it should read: "Not every disordered affecton with respect to the means to the end--i.e., with respect to created goods--constitutes a mortal sin. Rather, it constitutes a mortal sin only when the disorder is such that it is incompatible with God's will. And this sort of disorder is contrary to charity." The reply to the fifth objection is very interesting. Every mortal sin is contrary to charity, but there is no other virtue such that every mortal sin is contrary to it. This once again highlights the centrality of charity. Indeed, one might be tempted to equate (why not?) one's degree of happiness with one's degree of charity. What is in the end beatific for us is precisely friendship with God.
Question 25: The object of charity
The upshot, then, is that by the act of charity we love our
neighbors
insofar as they are seen as related to God as rational creatures and
(either
actually or potentially) as sons and daughters of God who share in
beatitude
with us. Further, we are motivated to love them by our love of God in
the
way that we love the friends of our friends because they are the
friends
of our friends. So, too, by charity we love our neighbors because God
loves
them and wants us to love them. Moreover, what we will for them is that
they love God in the way that brings them true happiness. This is the
best
way in general to love our neighbors, but it does not in itself specify
the particular concrete ways in which we ought to go about
helping
them to achieve this end. As St. Thomas notes in the question about dilectio,
even (27,6) though dilectio itself has no mode or determinate
measure
of intensity to be aimed at, our exterior expressions of love of God
are
indeed subject to measure, "both according to charity and according to
reason." That is to say, prudence, both natural and infused, will be
involved
in making concrete choices about how to love others best in
particulars.
St. Thomas notes that love is reflective. Just as we can
know that we
know, so too we can love that we love. Moreover, charity is a special
type
of love or friendship, which we can value as the greatest good for us
as
human beings and will for our neighbors. Thus out of charity we can
love
or will charity (love of concupiscence) for those whom we love (love of
friendship). As St. Thomas puts it in the reply to the first objection,
"Loving God and neighbor includes loving charity. For we love God and
neighbor
insofar as we love (amo) the fact that we and our neighbor love
(diligo) God, that is, insofar as we have charity." An important
point that emerges here is this: Beatitude, which is directly dependent
on our degree of charity, is the highest good that we can will for our
friends. That is, to love them truly is to order our relationships with
them to God's blessedness and to want for them true happiness in
God.
Still, we can will them as goods for others. For instance,
we can will
out of charity that non-rational creatures be preserved for God's glory
and
for the use or enjoyment of our neighbor. To love them in this way is
to
love them out of charity.
St. Thomas claims, first of all, that we have something "greater than friendship" for ourselves, because we have unity or identity--and not just union--with ourselves. "Hence, just as unity is a principle of union, so too the love by which one loves himself is the form and root of friendship. For we have friendship with others by the fact that we relate to them in the same way that we relate to ourselves." This is worth pondering. In order for us to be a friend to someone we must share something in common with that person, i.e., we must belong in some sense to the same community (in a broad sense) with its distinctive common good. But a necessary condition for my being devoted to the common good (i.e., the good of that community) is that I myself be a member of it. So I must love myself as part of that community in order to befriend someone else in that community. Again, charity is principally my friendship with God and
secondarily
my friendship with God's friends, myself included. We will return to
some
of the background questions in the section on the order of love.
St. Thomas first distinguishes the body in its own proper nature from the "body of death" referred to by St. Paul, that is, the body in its corruption of guilt and punishment (including concupiscence) which has resulted from sin. Contrary to what the Manicheans claimed, the body is not created by an evil principle. Rather, it is created by God and is good in itself. "Hence, we are able to use it in service to God." So we ought to love our body--though not its corruption--out of charity. Of course, we do not love our body as the object of friendship, but out of love for ourselves as an object which is part of us. In any case, this becomes important when we consider the
order of love,
where one question is: Should one love his neighbor out of charity more
than his own body?
In any case, some of the previous arguments seem to militate against loving sinners out of charity. For instance, how can one have a sinner as a friend when friendship is based on sharing beatitude and, by implication, rectitude of will or virtue? (After all, friends are supposed to will and rejoice over the same things!!) In addition, the Psalms contain many imprecations against one's enemies precisely because they are sinners. St. Thomas in effect says that we must hate the sin but love the sinner. (As C.S. Lewis aptly points out, this is exactly what we do--or should do--with ourselves.) More specifically, we must love sinners because they share with us a nature that is given by God and is potentially beatified by God. On the other hand, we are not to love sin. "Therefore, in respect of their guilt, whereby they are opposed to God, all sinners are to be hated, even one's father or mother or relatives, according to Lk. 12:26. For it is our duty to hate, in sinners, their being sinners, and to love them as human beings capable of beatitude; and this is to love them truly, out of charity, for God's sake." This passage requires deep reflection, because it tells us a lot about the nature of charity and about what it means to love others out of charity and "for God's sake." There are some people who complain that this is not to really love our neighbors for themselves, though (if my experience is any indication) they don't usually have a terribly coherent alternative in mind. The reply to the second objection is especially interesting: "As the Philosopher observes (Ethic. ix, 3), when our friends fall into sin, we ought not to deny them the benefits of friendship as long as there is hope of their being cured. Rather, we should give them more help in regaining their virtue than we would in regaining their money if they have lost it, since virtue is more closely connected with friendship than is money. But when they fall into very great wickedness and become incurable, we ought no longer to show them the familiarities of friendship. Thus according to divine and human law, sinners such as these, whose harming others is assumed to be more likely than their being cured, are to be put to death. And yet a judge does this not out of hatred for them, but out of the love of charity, by reason of which the common good is preferred to the life of an individual person. Moreover, the death inflicted by the judge profits the sinner, either by way of expiation of his guilt if he is converted, or by way of putting an end to his sin, if he is not converted, since he is thereby deprived of the power to sin any more." What do you think? What of the fact that Jesus associated with sinners? The
reply to the
fifth objection has this to say: "The weak should avoid associating
with
sinners, because of the imminent danger that they might be subverted by
them. But for those who are perfect and whose corruption is not to be
feared,
it is commendable that they should associate with sinners in order to
convert
them. This is why Our Lord ate and drank with sinners (Mt. 9:11-13).
Yet
all should avoid the company of sinners, as far as fellowship in sin is
concerned.
On the other hand, we are not required (except in cases of
special need)
to show to our enemies signs of love that are reserved for people who
are
closely conjoined to us. However, it is a sign of perfection to love
one's
enemies in this way, as long as we are not in danger of being corrupted
by them. "For in such a case not only are we wary of being dragged down
into hatred by the injuries inflicted on us, but we resolve to make our
enemy love us on account of our kindliness."
We can, however, love their nature in the way that we love non-rational
beings, willing that they endure for God's glory. In this sense they
are
useful to us for increasing in charity. "The utility which accrues to
us
from the demons results not from their intention but from the
ordination
of divine providence. And so we are not induced by this to have their
friendship,
but rather we are induced to be friends of God, who turns their
perverse
intention to our utility."
He first states by way of summary that the friendship of charity is based on the sharing of everlasting beatitude. So the objects of love are such because of their relationship to this sharing. God is the principle or cause who pours this beatitude into us, whereas human beings and angels directly participate in it, and our bodies share in it indirectly through its overflowing from the soul. So God is lovable as the source of beatitude, and those who share in it are lovable either by being identical with onself or by being fellow sharers in beatitude.
Question 26: The order of charity
St. Thomas replies that, as we have already seen, God is the principal object of charity, because he alone causes beatitude, the sharing of which is the basis for the friendship of charity. Hence, all the other objects of charity must be subordinated to God and in some way related to him qua objects of charity. In reply to the objection, St. Thomas says that there is
indeed an order
in faith, but adds that such order is more appropriate in the case of
charity
becaue "charity tends to the ultimate end qua ultimate end,"
which
makes it special. In addition, appetites are ordered to the things
themselves
(rather than to the things qua known), but it is precisely
among
things themselves that an ordering is found. So it is more appropriate
for there to be an order of charity than an order of faith, even though
there is in fact an order of faith as well.
The sed contra, needless (almost) to say, quotes Jesus to the effect that we cannot be his disciples if we love father or mother or wife or children or brothers or sisters more than him. So, it seems, it is possible to love our neighbor in a disordered way that leads us away from God. Here St. Thomas fills in a bit more the picture of charity as friendship. Every friendship is based on a shared good, and so it is a friendship principally with the one in whom that good is principally found. For instance, political friendship is principally a friendship with the political leaders on whom the common good of the community principally depends, and so the leaders are the ones to whom the faith and obedience of the citizens is principally given. So first we identify the shared good which founds the friendship, and then we identify the person or persons who have that good principally or on whom that good is mainly dependent, and it is that person (or those persons) to whom we bear that sort of friendship in the first place. After that, to carry on the example, we bear friendship to our fellow citizens as fellow participants in the common good which depends principally on the leaders. (Try to extend this analogy to more democratic political arrangements, as well as to familial relations.) "Now the friendship of charity is based on the sharing of beatitude, which consists essentially in God as its first principle, from whom it devolves to all those who are capable of beatitude. And so it is principally God who is to be loved out of charity, and we love our neighbors as participants with us in this shared good that depends mainly on God." In other words, in charity our first allegiance is to God, and we pledge our allegiance to others insofar as they share in the good upon which charity is based. In reply to the first objection, St. Thomas points out that there are two sorts of causes of the act of love (dilectio). One is the thing which is the ratio diligendi, i.e., the formal reason or good, which is the final cause of the love. The second is the path according to which the love of that good is acquired. This is vision in a broad sense. It follows that it is not necessary that what is more seen is more lovable; rather, what is more seen is the first thing that leads us to love the good in question, and so if we do not begin by loving our neighbor, we cannot love God. Still God is more lovable because of his greater goodness, i.e., greater goodness to us. (This last clarification seems important. Witness Dave Gallagher: "If there were per impossibile another God who was not the creator [and redeemer] of me, I would not honor him as I do my God," since he would not be my benefactor, at least not in the same way.) In reply to second objection, St. Thomas claims simply that our similarity to God is prior to and the cause of our similarity to our neighbor. In reply to the third objection, St. Thomas concedes that
God is equally
in anything that he is in, but asserts plausibly that God has more
goodness
in himself than our neighbor has in virtue of his participating in
God's
goodness.
The objections help us to get to the nub of the problem. First, Aristotle's dictum that friends are other selves implies that we are friends with ourselves first and that the degree of our love for ourselves is the measure of the degree to which we can love others. The objection concludes that we love ourselves more than anyone else, but perhaps it shows only that we can't love anyone more than ourselves. In either case, it seems potent in the present context. The second objection is this: Each thing is loved to the extent that it is one's own good, and it follows that the reason for which something is loved (i.e., one's own good or oneself) is loved more than that which is loved for that reason (God). The third objection is that one loves enjoying God to the extent that one loves Him. But one loves enjoying God to the extent that one loves himself, since the enjoyment of God is the highest good one can will for himself. The sed contra quotes Augustine: "If you should love yourself, not for your own sake, but for the sake of Him in Whom lies the most correct end of your love, let no one take offense if you love him, too, for God's sake." St. Thomas's strategy here is to point out that even in the natural order we are capable of loving God more than ourselves. We receive from God both the good of nature (whereby we are related to God as creature to creator) and the good of grace (whereby we are related to God as child to Father and as friend to friend in that sense). Our natural love for God is founded upon our having being of the type defined by our nature or natural kind, by which we naturally love (or should love) God more than ourselves, since we are naturally inclined to love the common good of the whole more than our own private good. St. Thomas uses as an example civic virtues, by which citizens sometimes sustain suffering and loss with regard to their private or personal good for the sake of the common good. I think the way to read this is as follows: In our post-lapsarian state we obviously have very strong selfish inclinations, but we also have as part of our nature an inclination to love the common good, and in our heart of hearts--especially if we've been well brought up--we know that a meaningful life involves self-transcendence, as difficult as that might be. (This is an interesting bit of philosophical anthropology, which (to my mind) rings more true than others which either overestimate our 'natural' selfishness (Callicles, Hobbes) or underestimate it (Hume). Question: What of Plato and Aristotle?) At any rate, the same holds in spades for the supernatural order. (Think of Christ's sacrifice.) Charity is grounded in the gifts of grace, through which we share even now in beatitude. But God is the common good of all, and so is more worthy of my love than I am as an individual over against the whole. As for Aristotle's point, the friends he is talking about only participate in the good that grounds the friendship, whereas God is the totality of goodness. Reply to second objection [you have a bad translation]: "The part does indeed love the good of the whole insofar as that good is fitting for itself; however, it does this not in such a way as to relate the good of the whole to itself, but rather in such a way as to relate itself to the good of the whole." The point seems to be this: I see it as fitting for myself that I should prefer the good of the whole to any personal advantage of mine that might conflict with it. In other words, I will as something good for myself that I should will the common good--in the case of charity, the highest common good--and thereby find meaning in my life by relating myself to the whole that transcends me. Maybe the language of self-definition would be appropriate here: I define myself, my life-project, and my goal in terms of the whole rather than define the whole in terms of my own private advantage. (Michael Jordan is an interesting example here.) At any rate, the reply to the next objection fills in this picture. Reply to the third objection: "The fact that someone wills
to enjoy
God has to do with that love by which God is loved with a love of
concupiscence.
But we love God with the love of friendship more than with the love of
concupiscence, because God's goodness is greater in himself than in
the share we can have of it in enjoying Him. And so a human being,
absolutely
speaking, loves God out of charity more than he loves himself." This is
really interesting. In other words, we love God as our friend
with more intensity than the intensity with which we desire the
enjoyment of God for ourselves.
The saints sometimes express this in almost paradoxical ways. For
example, St. Josemaria Escriva in one place makes the startling point
that we
must be detached, in our love for God, even from our own quest for
beatitude:
"So much do I love your will, my God, that I wouldn't accept heaven
itself
against your will--if such an absurdity could be" (The Way,
#765).
Think about that one!
Now back to the question at hand. I love my neighbor because
he or she
is an (actual or potential) associate with me in sharing eternal
beatitude.
But I love myself directly as a participator in that good, and that
love
is greater. "A sign of this is that one ought not to commit a sin ....
in order to free his neighbor from sin." So there are limits to what I
should be willing to sacrifice for the beatitude of others, but there
are
no limits on what I should be willing to sacrifice for my own eternal
beatitude.
Since my sin is contrary to my beatitude, I should not commit it--even
though we can imagine cases in which my sin might actually promote the
beatitude or holiness of my neighbor. Imagine: I'm trying to persuade you, a
notorious
cheater, to go to confession, which you haven't done for fifteen years.
You promise me that you will go if I help you cheat this one last time.
I help you. You go to confession and experience true repentance,
deciding
on the spot to devote your entire life to God, beginning with a special
apostolate to all your cheating friends. You go on to do great things
for
God, etc. Question: Did I do a morally good thing in helping you cheat? Answer: NO.
The reply to the third objection notes that I do not
normally have "imminent
care" for every neighbor's welfare, and it is only in cases where I am
obligated to care for their welfare that I should imperil my own body
for
them. Still, to do this spontaneously is a sign of perfection in love.
Here St. Thomas makes a distinction between what charity obliges me to
do, and what goes beyond what it obliges me to do. This raises the
interesting
question of whether the category of the supererogatory properly applies
here. I'll let it go at that for now.
So even with respect to affect, we should love one neighbor more than another. The two principles involved are the objective (goodness) and subjective (intensity). I should will beatitude for everyone (though the next article will allow for grades even here). Again, I should will good more intensely for those who are closer to me. Alternatively, some I will have beneficence (good deeds) for and others not, since I cannot benefit everyone. (The doctrine of the communion of saints raises some interesting questions here.) Corollary: To love my neighbor as myself does not entail
loving every
neighbor equally. But I must love each neighbor (a) with genuine
friendship,
(b) in a way that respects the priority of spiritual goods over bodily
goods and external goods, (c) in a way that is holy, i.e., ordered to
God,
and (d) in a way that is appropriately efficacious and dynamic. In
another
place, St. Thomas identifies love of neighbor of this sort as
satisfying
the precept of love and as being necessary for salvation. (Perfection
involves
greater intensity of love, greater extension of love, and greater works
of love than are required by precept--see De Perfectione
Spiritualis
Vitae, chap. 14.)
However, it does not follow that we should love them more intensely than those who are closer to us. Indeed, St. Thomas points out that it's alright--and not incompatible with divine justice--to will a greater degree of beatitude for someone who is closely united with us than for someone who might be objectively better than that person. "Some neighbors are closer to us with respect to natural origin, from which there is no escape, since through natural origin we are what we are. On the other hand, the goodness of virtue--according to which people are close to God--can come and go, increase and decrease, as was said above. And so I can out of charity will that someone who is joined to me should be better than another and so be able to attain a greater degree of beatitude." St. Thomas also points out that we love those closer to us
more in the
sense that we love them in more ways. To those who are not
joined
to us by some special relationship we bear just the friendship of
charity,
whereas to others we bear other types of friendship as well. Then he
adds:
"Since the good on which any other type of upright (honesta)
friendship
is based is ordered to the good on which charity is based, it follows
that
charity commands the act of each of the other friendships."
This article begins to explore familial friendships, which are based upon the union of natural origin. The general principle to be followed is this: In those things which pertain to the sort of relationship in question, we ought to love more intensely those who are conjoined to us in the relevant way. So, for instance, in matters of family, we love our relatives, especially our close ones, more intensely, but in matters of profession, we love those who are associated with us in that profession more intensely. One problem is to order these different types of friendships: "It is clear that the union of natural origin is prior and unchanging, since it has to do with our very substance, whereas other types of union are supervenient and can be dissolved. And so the friendship of relatives is more stable, even though other friendships can be stronger in those matters that pertain to them." The replies to the objections make it clear that familial
relations
take priority especially in providing the necessities of life for
family
members, whereas other types of friendship, especially friendship based
on spiritual union, may take priority in matters that pertain to
them.
A note on art. 10, where St. Thomas argues that one should love his father more than his mother. First of all, he qualifies his answer at the very beginning in this way: "In making such comparisons as this, we must take the answer in the strict sense, so that the present question is whether the father as father, ought to be loved more than the mother as mother. The reason is that virtue and vice may make such a difference in such like matters, that friendship may be diminished or destroyed, as the Philosopher remarks (Ethic. viii, 7)." Second, his answer is based on a mistaken biological belief about human origins, one in which the father (via his seed) is the sole active principle in generation and the mother is a merely passive principle. Given the same sort of argument and our knowledge that the mother (through the ovum) is just as active a principle, he would now conclude that mother and father, as such, should be loved with equal intensity. In art. 11, St. Thomas argues in analogous fashion that
while one owes
greater honor to one's parents, spouses are to be loved more
intensely.
As for others, the distinction made above still applies. We will will degrees of happiness for each person according to his or her merits, and so in that sense we will love some more than ourselves and others less than ourselves. As for intensity, we will continue to love ourselves more than others. After this it gets a bit tricky (what follows is a loose translation): "Now as for the order of our neighbors with respect to one another, each of us will, absolutely speaking, love more intensely those who are better, in accord with the love of charity. For the whole beatified life consists in the ordering of our minds to God. Hence, the whole order of our love with respect to the blessed will be regulated by their relation to God--so that, namely, we will love more and consider closer to ourselves those who are closer to God. For there will no longer be the sort of providing (for others) that there is in the present life, where each, because of necessity, has to provide more for those who are close to him than for others. This is why, in the present live, out of charity we love those who are more closely conjoined to us and to whom we have a greater obligation to exhibit the effects of charity. Still, in heaven we will be able to love those who have been conjoined to us for more reasons, since the souls of the blessed will still remember the upright causes of their love. Yet that reason for love which arises from closeness to God will be incomparably preferred to all these other reasons."
Question 27: The principal act of charity: love (dilectio)
In support of this claim, St. Thomas notes that friends are praised more for loving than for being loved, and that mothers, "who love in a special way," seek more to love than to be loved. The reply to the second objection puts it this way: "Those
who have
charity seek to love in itself, as if this were itself the good of
charity--even
as any act of virtue is the good of that virtue. Hence it is more
proper
to charity to want to love than to want to be loved."
Interesting, but what is the force of "affective union"? Well, in the reply to the third objection St. Thomas identifies affective union as that which underlies features of friendship such as grieving and rejoicing over the same things and choosing the same things. These, he implies, go beyond benevolence and that is why they must be added to benevolence in order to get friendship and dilectio. This makes sense, especially when we read spiritual writers
telling
us that God wants deeds and not just expressions of good will.
In reply to the objection that what is not known cannot be
loved, St.
Thomas says that even though this general principle is true, it does
not
follow that the order of cognition coincides with the order of love.
"For
dilectio is the terminus of cognition, and so where
cognition stops,
viz., in the thing itself which is known through another, dilectio
can immediately begin. He clarifies this further by noting that dilectio
joins the soul to God directly by the bond of a spirtual union. Another
consideration, though St. Thomas does not say so here, is that the
exercise
of charity, by taking us beyond what we know of God at any given time,
disposes us to a sort of knowledge of God that we could not have
without
love.
Where appetite or desire is concerned, the relevant measure is the end, since what we desire and what we do have their nature from the end. So the end is itself a measure, and the mode or determination of the means to the end lies in their being proportioned to that end. For example, physicians have as their measuring end as much health as they can produce, but they measure their medicine in such a way that it is neither too much nor too little to bring about that end. So the question before us is: In the case of dilectio with respect to God, is there some determination which it should be aimed at and which it should neither exceed nor fall short of? The answer is that the love of God is itself the end of all human action and affection, and so in itself it is not measured. In other words, just as there is no such thing as excessive health which a physician should avoid aiming at, so too there is no such thing as excessive dilectio or love of God. "And so to the extent that God is loved more, the love is better." In this sense charity has no mean or measure. However, this is not to say that our exterior
expressions of
love of God are not subject to measure. For those exterior actions are
means to the end of increasing our interior love of God (dilectio)
and so are subject to measure "both according to charity and according
to reason." If you starve to death simply because you neglect to
eat, and if you neglect to eat because you are always praying or always
either praying or performing acts of mercy, etc., then that's bad.
There can be other, less comical, excesses along these lines, too.
St. Thomas replies that since the reason for loving our
neighbor out
of charity is God, there are two ways to compare love of friends and
love
of enemies:
In reply to the above objection, St. Thomas says that what
Christ means
is that when we love our friends simply because they are our friends,
this
has no merit in God's eyes. "And this seems to occur when our friends are
loved in a way that our enemies are not loved," i.e., a way that does
not
necessarily involve charity. "Yet loving our friends is indeed
meritorious
if they are loved because of God."
On the other hand, if we think of loving our neighbor as loving our neighbor because of God, so that love of neighbor includes love of God but not vice versa, then the comparison is between a perfect or complete love of God, which extends to our neighbor, and an imperfect or incomplete love of God, which does not. Obviously, in this sense it is more meritorious to love our neighbor than to love God. The replies contain St. Thomas's tentative endorsement of
what seems
to be a rather strained interpretation of Romans 9:3, "For I could wish
that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my
brothers
the Israelites....," viz., that Paul is saying this about his past,
un-believing
self. St. Thomas does, however, offer an alternative from Chrysostom:
What
the verse shows is not that Paul loves his neighbor more than God, but
that he loves God more than himself. "For he wished to be deprived for
a time of the enjoyment of God in order that the honor of God might be
procured in his neighbors."
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