Question 23: Charity in itself

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.)
 

• 23,1:  Is charity a type of friendship?


Here St. Thomas tries to categorize charity as a form of friendship but must meet various objections.  One is that there cannot be friendship and intercourse (conversatio) between beings unequal in dignity; a second is that we are called upon to have charity with respect to our enemies as well as our friends; a third is that charity does not fit into Aristotle's taxonomy of friendships, to wit, friendships of pleasure, utility, and virtue.

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.
 
 

• 23,2:  Is charity some created entity in the soul?


Here St. Thomas, as is his wont, asks about the ontological status of charity.  Peter Lombard had confused the issue by claiming that charity is just the direct action of the Holy Spirit in our minds and that this action is not mediated by any (created) quality of the soul.  In this, he held, charity differs from faith and hope and surpasses them in excellence.

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."
 
 

• 23,3:  Is charity a virtue?


"Human acts have goodness to the extent that they are regulated by a due norm and measure; and so human virtue, which is a principle of all a human being's good acts, consists in attaining the norm of human acts."  This rule is twofold, viz., right reason and God himself.  But charity, like hope and faith, "attains God because it joins us to God".  So just as moral virtue is defined as being "according to right reason," so, too, attaining God constitutes the notion of virtue, as has already been said above in the case of faith and hope." So charity, too, is a virtue. (The notion of attaining God needs a bit more explication. Obviously, the theological virtues enable us to do what we could not otherwise do, attain God not just as creatures but as sons and daughters.) 

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.
 
 

• 23,4:  Is charity a special virtue?


Acts are specified by their objects.  The object of acts of love is the good, and the proper object of charity is a special type of goodness, viz., God's goodness "insofar as it is the object of beatitude".  (This means that out of charity we will the goodness of God insofar as it that goodness is the common good of the universe and is beatific for ourselves and for our neighbors.)  St. Thomas later says, "Since charity has for its object the ultimate end of life, viz., eternal beatitude, it extends to the acts of a whole human life by way of commanding them and not by immediately elicting all acts of 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.
 
 

• 23,5:  Is charity a single virtue?


There are several reasons for suspecting that the term 'charity' signifies a set of interrelated virtues rather than just a single virtue.  First of all, charity has both the transcendent God and our all-too-finite neighbor as objects.  Then, too, friendship with our neighbor, which is included in charity, can be of the different types that Aristotle specified.  Finally, our reasons for loving God are as numerous as the benefits we receive from him, and each seems to specify a diverse act--e.g., I love God for my very existence and nature, I love God for my parents, I love God for the success of my favorite pro football team, etc.

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).
 
 

• 23,6:  Is charity the most excellent of the virtues?


A virtue consists in attaining the rule or norm of human acts.  As noted above, this rule is twofold:  right reason and God.  God is the first rule, since right reason is itself regulated by him.  It follows that the theological virtues, which have God as their principal object, are more excellent than the moral or intellectual virtues.  Among the theological virtues, faith and hope attain God in the sense that we obtain from him the cognition of truth and the acquisition of the good.  "Caritas, however, attains God himself as he is in himself, not in order that something might come to us from him." 

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.
 
 

• 23,7:  Can there be any genuine virtue in the absence of charity?


Note: This is an important question for understanding the difference between "natural virtue," which is virtue secundum quid, and the infused virtues, which are virtues simpliciter. 

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.
 
 

• 23,8:  Is charity the form of the virtues?


Charity can be called the form of the virtues to the extent that one's motive or end defines or gives form to one's act.  (Remember Aristotle's dictum that someone who steals in order to commit adultery is more an adulterer than a thief.)  Hence, since in one who has charity the love of God serves as the motive for acts of all the other virtues as well, charity can be called the form of the virtues.  However, we can still distinguish acts of the other virtues from acts of charity by their objects or proximate ends.  So if I fast out of love for God, then my act is essentially an act of (infused) temperance, even though it is formed (in the above sense) by charity.

• 24,1:  Is charity in the will as in its (ontological) subject?


The sentient appetite has as its object the good as apprehended by the senses, whereas the intellective appetite (will) has as its object the good as apprehended by the intellect.  The object of charity is a good that is not apprehended by the senses, and so it inheres in the will as a subject.

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.)
 
 

• 24,2:  Is charity caused in us by infusion?


First, St. Thomas reminds us that charity "is a certain kind of friendship of man to God that is based upon the sharing in eternal beatitude." As St. Paul tells us, this sharing is not in virtue of our natural goods but in virtue of grace. Hence, charity goes beyond that sharing in natural goods which serves as the foundation of our natural relationship with God, and hence charity exceeds our natural ability. One way to think about this is that by nature we are related to God as creatures to creator, whereas because of Christ's merits we are now related to God literally as sons and daughters to a Father, with all the intimacy that this entails. God must deign to be related to us in this way. It is in no way owed to us by nature, but is instead a special gift. Our filiation is an "adoptive" filiation which allows us to participate in the "natural" filiation of the Son to the Father through charity, which is the work of the Holy Spirit in us.

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." 
 
 

• 24,3:  Is charity infused according to the measure of our natural goods?


The question here is whether the degree of our natural virtue determines the intensity of charity which God infuses in us or, in other words, the degree of our participation in charity. The positive reply is redolent of Pelagianism, according to which (roughly) we put ourselves into position to receive God's love. After all, don't we have to dispose ourselves for habitual grace, and, given that, isn't the measure of our disposition the measure of the grace received?

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.
 
 

• 24,4:  Can charity increase?


In his reply, St. Thomas affirms that charity can increase as long as we are "on the way" (in via)--that is, as long as we are pilgrims or wayfarers (viatores) in this life. In the reply to the first objection, he tells us that charity increases not by way of being extended to more and more objects, but by way of being made more intense in its acts. And in the reply to the third objection, he makes a metaphysical point about increase in qualities that are subject to intensification. These qualities are such that by their essence they can be participated in to greater and lesser degrees by their subjects. This is what it is for them to increase according to their essence. This corrects the mistake of some earlier authors who had claimed that charity increases not in its essence but in its rootedness in the subject. St. Thomas denies the distinction and says that for an intensifiable quality to increase in rootedness is just for it to increase according to its essence. He describes intensity in charity as the degree of efficacy in producing more fervent acts of love (dilectio).
 
 

• 24,5:  Does charity increase through addition?


This is a technical ontological question that delves deeper into the notion of increase by ruling out one way in which charity might be thought to grow. Some people (especially in the 1960's and later) disdain such questions, but St. Thomas's considering them shows the metaphysical seriousness with which the Catholic faith takes its worldview. These tough ontological questions may not be the most important or central ones about the moral or spiritual life, but unless one takes the picture literally enough to ask them, one does not understand what is being claimed. All this talk about charity and grace is no mere uplifting metaphor--it is taken to be sober truth.

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.
 
 

• 24,6:  Does charity increase with every act of charity?


This question gets us back to the moral realities of the Christian life. Though St. Thomas does not emphasize the point in this article, every actual increase in charity is itself the work of God, since charity is an infused virtue. Nonetheless, given that we have charity, each act of charity (which is itself the doing of the Holy Spirit as well as of our own will) disposes us for an increase in charity, that is, for more intense acts of charity. And by God's largesse in setting up the framework of merit, we are able to merit such increase condignly. (Question: Does St. Thomas deal with the issue raised in the sed contra? Stay tuned.)
 
 

• 24,7:  Does charity increase ad infinitum?


St. Thomas defines three ways in which the increase of a quality might be impeded. First, the quality itself might have a fixed measure of intensity beyond which it cannot be participated in by any subject (analogous, say, to the velocity of light, or absolute zero); second, the agent producing the quality might be such that its power to produce it has a fixed higher bound; third, the subject of the quality might be such that its capacity to participate in the quality has a fixed higher bound. St. Thomas denies that any of these ways applies in the case of charity. Charity itself is a participation in the "infinite charity which is the Holy Spirit". Its productive agent, God, is limitless in power. And its subject, the rational soul, is such that whenever its participation in charity becomes more intense, it likewise receives the capacity for an even more intense participation in charity. (This is, philosophically, a really interesting point.) So there is no upward limit on the intensity of charity possible for a human being in this life.

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.)
 
 

• 24,8:  Can charity be perfect in this life?


This article is a bit surprising, since St. Thomas carves out a sense in which charity can indeed be perfect in this life.

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:
 

(i) A person's "whole heart is always borne towards God." This is just the perfection of charity in heaven, but impossible in this life.

(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.


Notice the reply to the second objection. The argument, drawing from Augustine and 1 John 8, had been that the perfection of charity would entail a lack of cupidity, but that this is impossible in this life. St. Thomas replies: "These things are said because of venial sins, which are not contrary to the habit of charity but only to its act, and so they are not incompatible with perfection 'on the way' to heaven." First of all, it should be noted (a point made in the Prima Secundae) that the term 'sin' is not univocal as applied to mortal and venial sin. Second, when St. Thomas says that venial sin is contrary to the act--as opposed to the habit--of charity, what he means is that it is impossible for someone to be committing a venial sin and at the very same time to be eliciting an act of charity.
 
 

• 24,9:  Can the grades of charity be appropriately designated as incipient, proficient, and perfect?


The three grades listed in the title of this article are commonly mentioned by spiritual writers as the three grades of the interior life. (For instance, see Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, OP, The Three Ages of the Interior Life.)

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.
 

1. The first stage in the spiritual live is the withdrawing from sin and resisting inordinate desires. This is the stage of the beginner (incipiens).

 
2. The second stage is that in which the person struggles to grow in charity and the other virtues. This is the stage of one who is proficient (proficiens).

 
3. Finally, the third stage is that in which the person desires principally to adhere to and enjoy God. This is the stage of one who is perfect (perfectus).


Note the reply to the third objection: "Even the perfect make progress in charity. Yet this is not their chief care; rather, their aim is principally directed towards union with God. And though both the beginner and the proficient seek this, they worry more about other things:   avoiding sin in the case of the beginner and growth in virtue in the case of the proficient."
 
 

• 24,10:  Can charity be diminished?


This is an interesting question. The Catholic faith has always taught that charity can be lost through mortal sin. But St. Thomas said above that every act of charity contributes at least to increasing our capacity for more intense charity. This raises the question of whether that intensity can decrease, either through disuse of the virtue or through venial sin or even through tepid or half-hearted acts of charity.

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.
 
 

• 24,11:  Can charity, once had, be lost?


St. Thomas's discussion of this question is quite subtle. Charity, "through which the Holy Spirit lives in us," can be thought of in three ways.
 

1. If we think of the Holy Spirit moving the soul to love God, then it is impossible that the Holy Spirit should move us to an act of charity and that we should lose charity by sinning. (This plunges us once again into questions about grace and freedom, the point is that the Holy Spirit's moving us to an act of charity entails that the act is elicited.)

 
2. Second, if we think of charity properly speaking in itself, then charity itself cannot sin or be a source of sin.

 
3. Third, however, if we think of charity as being in a subject who has freedom of choice (libertas arbitrii), then charity can be lost:

 
• First, we can compare charity and its subject to substantial form and matter. Like a corruptible substantial form, charity does not "exhaust the potentiality" of one who is still in this life. Viatores in this sense resemble corruptible bodies whose matter, even while formed into one sort of substance, is still in potentiality with respect to other forms. The blessed in heaven, by contrast, are like the incorruptible heavenly bodies, whose matter--on St. Thomas's view--was incapable of being the matter of any other entity. So in this life we can lose our super-nature as well as our nature, so to speak, because we are still in potentiality to rejecting God's love.

 
• The second comparison zeroes in on the specific character of charity as a habit. It is proper to a habit to incline its faculty to act by making what is proper to it seem good to it and what is repugnant to it seem bad. "For as the sense of taste judges flavors in accord with its own condition, so too the human mind judges of things to be done in accord with its own habitual disposition." So charity is unable to be lost only in cases where what belongs to it is unable not to seem good. But this occurs only in heaven. For in this life our vision of God is limited in such a way that we are able to see God or what he wills as not good.


This article underscores the Catholic conviction that what Christ merits for us is not simply a "covering over" of our sins, to which we need respond only with a once-for-all acceptance and then go on our merry way. Rather, what Christ merits for us is a real share in his Sonship which works in us a real inner transformation that must be continually nurtured and promoted, with the goal of uprooting the "old man" and putting on the "new man," as St. Paul says. This correspondence with God's grace is never completed in this life, and, as in the parable of the sower and the seed, the possibility of our reverting to sin even after having embraced the Gospel is always present. This is why St. Thomas considers the "grace of final perseverance" to be a special divine gift.
 
 

• 24,12:  Can charity be lost through a single act of mortal sin?


As St. Thomas puts it, "Every mortal sin is contrary to the proper nature of charity, which consists in one's loving God above all things and totally submitting to him by referring all things to Him. Therefore, it is part of the very nature of charity that one loves God in such a way that he wills to submit to Him in all things and to follow the rule of His precepts in all things. For whatever is contrary to His precepts is obviously contrary to charity and is such that of itself such it can exclude charity."

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.

• 25,1:  Does the love of charity stop with God or extend as well to one's neighbor?


The opening of the reply helps us to understand more precisely the sense in which acts and habits are specified by their objects: "A habit is diversified only insofar as it changes the species of the act. For every act of a single species pertains to the same habit. Now since the species of an act is taken from the object according to its formal aspect, acts that aim toward an aspect of an object and acts that aim toward an object under that aspect are the same in species. For example, the act of vision by which light is seen is the same as the act by which color is seen under the aspect of light. Now God is the aspect for loving one's neighbor, since what we ought to love in our neighbor is that he might be in God. Hence, it is obvious that the act by which God is loved is the same in species as the act by which our neighbor is loved."

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.
 
 

• 25,2:  Should charity be loved out of charity?


On the surface this seems to be a strange question. (One is reminded of St. Augustine telling us that in his youthful days he was in love with love.) What does it mean? As the objections point out, charity itself is neither God nor neighbor; nor is it an object of friendship--at least it seems not. Furthermore, we don't share beatitude in common with charity.

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. 
 
 

• 25,3:  Should non-rational creatures likewise be loved out of charity?


Non-rational creatures cannot be our friends, that is, they cannot be those for whom we have charity. It is only metaphorically, and not properly, that non-rational creatures can be said to possess goods or to share our lives. Furthermore, charity is founded on the sharing of eternal beatitude, which non-rational creatures are not capable of sharing. So charity as friendship does not extend to them.

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.
 
 

• 25,4:  Should a human being love himself out of charity?


This discussion gets us into some interesting areas. How does self-love figure into the life of the saint? 

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.
 
 

• 25,5:  Should a human being love his own body out of charity?


A strange question, no? Well, first of all, there are seemingly good reasons for answering no. You can't be friends with your body (though by now we pretty much know the answer to that one); St. Paul asks for liberation from "this body of death"; and the friendship of charity is based upon the sharing of eternal beatitude, of which the soul, and not the body, is the subject.

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?
 
 

• 25,6:  Should sinners be loved out of charity?


Who are the sinners here? Everyone in a state of mortal sin, i.e., those who do not actually share (incipient) beatitude with us? Only very, very wicked people? I'll leave that question for further reflection, though it seems clear that at points St. Thomas has in mind people who pose a great moral and spiritual threat to some relevant community.

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.
 
 

• 25,7:  Do sinners love themselves?


There are three senses of loving oneself, each involving our loving what we take ourselves to be:
 

• The first way is common to everyone and involves our loving ourselves because of what we are by nature, viz., individual substances or persons who have a human nature. 

 
• The second way is common to those who are good and involves loving ourselves as rational beings with an interior life that should involve bringing the passions under the dominion of reason and rejoicing in past, present, and future spiritual goods. This is the proper way to love onself.

 
• The third way is common to bad people and involves loving the 'exterior' rather than the 'interior' person. St. Thomas describes it as follows: "The wicked do not wish to preserve the integrity of the inward person, nor do they desire spiritual goods for him, nor do they work for that end, nor do they take pleasure in their own company by entering into their own hearts, because what they find there are present, past and future evils, which they abhor; nor are they at peace with themselves, because of the gnawings of conscience, according to Ps. 49:21: 'I will reprove thee and set before thy face.' In the same manner it may be shown that the wicked love themselves as regards the corruption of the outward man, whereas the good do not love themselves in that way."


In the reply to the first objection, which is that self-love is a principle of sin and as such should be eschewed by everyone, St. Thomas says that the sort of self-love that is proper to the wicked is a principle of sin that reaches right up to contempt of God, because the wicked desire exterior goods in such a way as to disdain spirtual goods. This helps fill in the picture of self-love.
 
 

• 25,8:  Is it a requirement of charity that one's enemies be loved ?


There are three ways to consider love of one's enemies:
 

• Loving one's enemy insofar as he is one's enemy: This is perverse and incompatible with charity, because it is in effect to love what is--or at least seems to us to be--evil in another.

 
• Loving one's enemy in general insofar as we share a common nature with him: This is demanded by charity, since enemies are included among the neighbors whom we are called upon to love.

 
• Loving one's enemy in particular, so as to be moved by special acts of love (dilectio) with respect to him: This is not absolutely demanded by charity, because charity does not demand the impossible task of having each neighbor individually as the object of an act of love. But it is a sign of perfection for one to love a particular enemy in this way (as, e.g., by going out of one's way to pray in particular for some enemy). "For if we loved a given man very much, we would love his children even if they were unfriendly towards us. On the other hand, it is a demand of charity that we be prepared to love this enemy in particular if it should become necessary for some reason or because of some special need he has."


In the reply to the second objection St. Thomas notes that it should displease us that others are our enemies, and so it is proper to hate them insofar as they are enemies or to hate the fact that they are enemies. But to love them out of charity is compatible with this, because it is to love them insofar as they share the same nature and (at least potentially) the same beatitude with us.
 
 

• 25,9:  Is it a requirement of charity that one exhibit the signs and effects of love to one's enemy?


We are required to show to our enemies the general signs of love that we are required to show to all our neighbors in general. For instance, if I were to go out of my way to exclude you from a general prayer for all the faithful, that would be a sin against charity.

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."
 
 

• 25,10:  Should we love the angels out of charity?


Because we share the beatitude in common with the angels, we should love them out of charity. A common species is not necessary for the love of charity. We can have "fellowship of minds" with the angels. (If you don't understand this, then you don't have a close enough relationship with your guardian angel.)
 
 

• 25,11:  Should we love the demons out of charity?


The demons are another story, since they do not and can no longer share in eternal beatitude, even though they do share an intelligent nature. Thus, we cannot will eternal beatitude for them. "The nature of friendship is such that we will the good for our friends. But we cannot out of charity will the good of eternal life, which is what charity has to do with, to those spirits who have been eternally damned by God. For this would be incompatible with the love of God, through which we applaud his justice."

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."
 
 

• 25,12:  Are the following four objects properly counted as the objects of charity: God, neighbor, our own bodies, and ourselves ?


St. Thomas asks this question in order to connect up with St. Augustine's taxonomy of the objects of love in De Doctrina Christiana. What he will try to do is to give a logical reconstruction of what St. Augustine says within the account of the object of love that he has developed in question 25.

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.

• 26,1:  Is there an order in charity?


Why should there be an order of charity, when none of the other virtues, including faith, seem to have an ordering of what is prior to what is posterior among their objects?

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.
 
 

• 26,2:  Is God to be loved more than neighbor?


The answer to this question is in some way obvious, but the objections are interesting. 1 John tells us that we cannot love God, whom we do not see, without loving our neighbor, whom we do see, and this seems to imply that what is seen is more lovable than what is not seen. Again, we have more in common with our neighbor than with God, and so it seems that our friendship with our neighbor should accordingly be greater. Finally, if it is God's existing in our neighbor that we love in our neighbor, then since God doesn't exist any more in himself than he does in our neighbor, it's hard to see why we should love him more than our neighbor.

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.
 
 

• 26,3:  Should a human being love God out of charity more than himself?


Here we get to a central question about how to understand self-love and the possibility of loving someone not only as we love ourselves but more than we love ourselves.

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!
 
 

• 26,4:  Should a human being love himself out of charity more than his neighbor?


Here we have to make two distinctions:
 

• The first one, invoked by St. Thomas in the body of the question, is between loving ourselves with respect to our spiritual natures and loving ourselves with respect to our bodily natures. In this question we are concerned with the former. (This is important, because we might well love our neighbors more than our own bodies, but we cannot love our neighbors enough to "sacrifice" our souls for their good--even their true good--by sinning.)

 
• The second distinction, hinted at in the reply to the first objection and more developed later, is between two diverse measures of the quantity of our love, viz., the goodness of the loved one and the intensity of our love:

 
• On the part of the object: I love person P more to the extent that I will a greater good to P. The general rule is that, all other things being equal, I should will a greater good to those persons who are better, either absolutely or in some respect.

 
• On the part of the subject: I love person P more to the extent that my love for P is more intense, i.e., to the extent that I will more intensely the good that I will to P. The general rule is that, all other things being equal, I should love more intensely those who are more closely united to me, i.e., those who are such that (roughly) the shared goods that ground my friendship with them are more important. (This raises the questions of how charity, which extends to all neighbors, can integrate those natural friendships we find ourselves in or which we choose to be involved in.)


In these articles in which we talk about the order of charity, we are normally talking about intensity of love. But it is important to notice that there is an order of charity within each species of friendship (e.g., we love our siblings more intensely than our first cousins) and, in addition, when we bear different species of friendship to the same person, we may have to distinguish the domains over which the friendship ranges. For instance, suppose that one of my children took a course from me. In regard to family matters, I would love him or her more than the other students in the class, but not as students and in the various relationships he or she would enter into with me as such (e.g., gradee to grader, fulfillers of what I assign them to do, etc.).

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.
 
 

• 26,5:  Should a human being love his neighbor out of charity more than his own body?


Our friendship in charity with others is founded on beatitude, and they can actually participate in beatitude. Our bodies, by contrast, share in happiness only by "redundancy," i.e., the happiness of our soul spills over into our body. But participation is a more powerful reason for loving than is redundancy. So I ought to love my neighbor more than my own body. 

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.
 
 

• 26,6:  Should one neighbor be loved more than another?


Here we need the second distinction I laid out above. St. Thomas first disowns the view that out of charity we must love everyone equally with respect to affect (presumably, with equally intense benevolence) but not with respect to effect (presumably, with equal beneficence). This is stupid (irrationalibiter dicitur), he says. Supernatural affection, like natural affection, varies with things to be done externally, and those things vary because of our different relationships with different people.

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.) 
 
 

• 26,7:  Should we love those who are better more than those who are conjoined to us?


Here we see that we should, out of charity, love more those who are closer to God in the sense that we will them a degree of beatitude proportionate to their goodness (i.e., degree of charity). 

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." 
 
 

• 26,8:  Should we love most those who are conjoined to us by carnal origin?


St. Thomas first summarizes art. 7 by repeating that out of charity we do (and should) love those who are conjoined to us more intensely and in more ways than those who are not so conjoined. For, as he puts it, "The intensity of love arises from the conjoining of loved to lover, and so the love of different people is to be measured by the different modes of such union (conjunctio)--so that, namely, each person is loved more in those things that pertain to that particular type of union in accord with which he is loved." The next few articles explore common modes of union and how they are ordered with respect to one another.

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. 
 
 

• 26,9-12:  Should a human being love his parents out of charity more than his children? his father more than his mother? his spouse more than his parents? his benefactors more than those who receive benefits from him?


The next three articles ask about the order of love within familial relations and, in general, about the love one should have for one's benefactors and for those to whom one is a benefactor. Note the general principle that benefactors (including parents) are to be loved more in the sense that they are closer to God by virtue of being our benefactors and that a greater good (honor) is willed for them, while those to whom one is a benefactor and for whom one has more responsibility (care) are to be loved more intensely. (This principle is, however, subject to degrees (see art. 12, ad 3), depending on just how great the benefits we receive are. For instance, one should love God and one's parents as benefactors more intensely than one loves just anyone to whom one does a kindness.)

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. 
 
 

• 26,13:  Will the order of charity remain in heaven?


The order of charity persists in heaven in several respects. First and foremost, we will of course love God more than anyone else, ourselves included, in both of the relevant senses.

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." 

• 27,1:  Is being loved more proper to charity than loving?


Here St. Thomas asserts that loving belongs to charity as such, since loving is the principal act of charity, whereas being loved is not an act. Rather, being loved belongs to charity as something that is good, since it is good for a person that others love him out of charity. Again, what belongs per se to someone belongs to him more than what belongs to him through another. But the act of charity belongs to one per se, whereas being loved belongs to him through another.

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." 
 
 

• 27,2:  Is loving, insofar as it is an act of charity, the same as benevolence?


Benevolence, properly speaking, is an act of the will by which we will the good to another or wish another well. It differs from love both (i) insofar as love is an act of the sentient appetite and (ii) insofar as love is an act of the intellective appetite. 
 

• Love in the sentient appetite is a passion which inclines one with a certain impetus toward its object, and that arises through "assiduous inspection of the thing loved" rather than suddenly. Benevolence, by contrast, lacks an impetus toward the object and arises, sometimes suddenly, solely from a judgment of reason.

 
• Love in the intellective appetite implies a certain affective union of the lover with the loved--so that the lover thinks of the loved as somehow one with him and so moves toward him. Benevolence, by contrast, is a "simple act of will" that does not presuppose an affective union with the object."


Hence, dilectio includes benevolence and adds to it a certain affective union. "This is why the Philosopher says that benevolence is a beginning (principium) of friendship."

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. 
 
 

• 27,3:  Should God be loved because of himself (propter seipsum) out of charity?


So what does this question mean? First of all, the contrast here is between loving someone because of himself and loving him because of something (or someone) else. As is clear, St. Thomas is trying to bring order to various Patristic and Scriptural sayings about the reasons for loving God, and he uses Aristotle's four modes of explanation to bring his sources into harmony with one another. That is, St. Thomas says that the question has at least four different aspects, corresponding to the four causes (final, formal, efficient, material). Let's go through them one by one.
 

• Final cause: To love someone because of himself in this sense is to love him as an end in himself and not simply as a means to some further end. Since God is the ultimate end of all things, the answer to the question taken in this sense is YES.

 
• Formal cause: To love someone because of himself in this sense is to love him for what he is by his substance. In genuine friendship we love someone because of his virtue or moral goodness, but this is to love him because of something else, since a human being's virtue is an accident that brings his substance to perfection--and not to love his substance itself. In God's case, by contrast, his substance just is his goodness. That is, his moral goodness is not the actualization of some potentiality he has by nature, but is in fact his very essence. Further, other things are good only because they exemplify or participate in God's goodness in some limited way. So the answer to the question taken in this sense is YES.

 
• Efficient cause: To love someone because of himself in this sense is to love him for what he has from himself and and not for what he has from another. (An example of the latter would be the love we have for someone because of his parents.) But God's goodness in no way derives from an outside cause. So the answer to the question taken in this sense is YES.

 
• Material cause: The material cause here includes dispositions, and to love someone because of himself in this sense would simply be to love him only because of his goodness and not because of anything he has done for us that disposes us to love him. We can indeed end up loving God in this way, but in fact we begin to love him because of the gifts we have received from him or because of the rewards he promises us or because of the punishments he helps us avoid. So the answer to the question taken in this: IT'S OK NOT TO. 

 
 
• 27,4:  Can God be loved directly (immediate) in this life?


St. Thomas begins by reiterating the difference between acts of cognitive virtues, which reach perfection through the objects' being in the knower, and the acts of appetitive virtues, which reach perfection in the appetite's reaching out to the objects themselves. "Accordingly, one should claim that dilectio, which is the act of an appetitive virtue, tends in the first place, even in this life, to God and goes out to other things from him. Thus, charity loves God directly and other things through God." This is just the opposite from cognition, which knows sensible things directly and arrives at God through them.

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. 
 
 

• 27,5:  Can God be totally loved?


This question is naturally linked with the preceding one. Here St. Thomas distinguishes three senses of 'total love of God':
 

• with regard to what is loved: we ought to love the totality of whatever pertains to God.

 
• with regard to one who loves: we ought to love God with the totality of our capability to love him.

 
• with regard to the relation of what is loved to the one who loves: we cannot love God in a way that is adequate to his goodness, which is infinite. Only he himself can do that, and that love is the third person of the Trinity. 

 
• 27,6:  Should the love of God have a mode, i.e., a determinate measure to aim at?


A mode, in this context, signifies "some determination of measure," where such a determination occurs in different ways in (a) the measure and (b) that which is measured. The measure has such a determination essentially, since it is that by which other things are measured, whereas what is measured has it insofar as it attains the measure. Hence, the measure has a mode intrinsically built into it, whereas the thing measured lacks a mode, i.e., is unmodified, if it exceeds or falls short of the measure to be aimed at.

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.
 
 

• 27,7:  Is it more meritorious to love an enemy than to love a friend?


Matthew 5:46: "If you love those who love you, what merit is there in that .......?" On the other hand, one's friend is better--or at least seems so to us--than an enemy, and one should love those who are better more than those who are not.

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:
 

• on the part of the neighbor who is loved: Here loving a friend is better than loving an enemy, since a friend is (or seems) better and is more closely connected to us. Hence, a friend is, as it were, a matter or object more fit for dilectio than is an enemy.

 
• on the part of the reason for loving: Here loving loving an enemy is better than loving a friend, because (i) there are reasons other than God for loving a friend, whereas loving an enemy has God as its only reason, and (ii) given that both friend and enemy are loved because of God, love of God is expressed more forcefully by that which "extends our soul" to farther reaches, as the love of an enemy does. "Our love of God is shown to be stronger to the extent that we do what is more difficult for his sake."


"However, just as a fire acts more strongly on what is closer to it, so too charity loves those conjoined to us more fervently than those who are remote from us, and to this extent the love of friends, taken in itself, is more fervent and better than the 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." 
 
 

• 27,8:  Is it more meritorious to love one's neighbor than to love God?


If we look at the two sorts of love separately, so that neither is thought of as including the other, then loving God is "without doubt" more meritorious than loving one's neighbor. For such love is meritorious in itself and in its own right, since the ultimate reward is just the enjoyment 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."
 

---