On Charity: Article 1: Whether charity is something created in the soul or is the Holy Spirit itself
On Charity The first question is whether charity is something created in the soul, or is the Holy Spirit itself.
The second is whether charity is a virtue.
The third is whether charity is the form of the virtues.
The fourth is whether charity is a single virtue.
The fifth is whether charity is a specific virtue.
The sixth is whether charity can coexist with mortal sin.
The seventh is whether the object that is to be loved through charity is a rational nature.
The eighth is whether loving our enemies belongs to the fullness of a counsel.
The ninth is whether there is some ordering within charity.
The tenth is whether it is possible in this life to possess complete charity.
The eleventh is whether we are all obliged to possess complete charity.
The twelfth is whether charity once possessed can be lost.
The thirteenth is whether charity is lost through a single act of mortal sin.
Article : Whether charity is something created in the soul or is the Holy Spirit itself Objections It seems that charity is not something created in the soul, because:
() As Augustine says [Serm .], just as the soul is the life of the body, so God is the life of the soul. But the soul is the life of the body without
On Charity any intermediary. Therefore God is also the life of the soul without any intermediary. Now the life of the soul results from its being in charity, because, to quote John :, 'Someone who does not love, remains in death.' Therefore someone is not in charity by means of an intermediary between God and human beings, but by means of God himself. Therefore charity is not something created in the soul, but God himself.
() Rejoinder: that comparison focuses on the way that the soul is the life of the body in the sense of moving it, not in the sense of giving it form.
But on the other hand the more powerful an agent is, the less that the thing it is acting on needs the appropriate tendency. For example, an enormous fire is capable of burning even damp wood. Now God is an agent with infinite power. Therefore if he is the life of the soul in the sense of what moves it to love, it does not seem as if the soul, on its part, needs any created tendency.
() There is no mid-point between things that are the same. But the soul that loves God is the same as God, because, as Corinthians . says, 'Whoever clings to God is one spirit with him.' Therefore no created charity comes as an intermediary between the soul that does the loving and God who is loved.
() The love with which we love our neighbour is charity. But the love with which we love our neighbour is God himself. For Augustine says
[Trin ..], 'Whoever loves a neighbour, as a result loves love itself. But God is love. Therefore it follows that such a person particularly loves
God.' Therefore charity is not something created, but God himself.
() Rejoinder: God is the love by which we love our neighbour in the sense of the love that causes this. But on the other hand Augustine says in the same place [Trin ..] and states this explicitly using John's words as his evidence, that brotherly love, with which we love one another, not only comes from God, but actually is God. Therefore God is love not only in the sense of causing love, but in the sense of being it.
() Augustine says [Trin ..–, , ], 'We will say that charity is called "God" because charity is the very substance that deserves the name of God, rather than because it is a gift of God – that is, in the way that we say of God, "You are my endurance", meaning that endurance comes to us from him. Indeed, "Lord, you are my charity" is not meant in this way; rather "God is charity" is meant in the way that we say, "God is a spirit".'
Or 'the love from above'.
Article Therefore it seems that God is called 'charity' not only as causing it, but also as actually being it.
() God himself is not known simply by knowing his effects. But God himself is known through knowing brotherly love,as Augustine says
[Trin ..]: 'One knows the love by which one loves better than one knows the brother one is loving. See, then, that God can be better known to us than our brother. Embrace love and embrace God in love.' Therefore
God is not said to be brotherly love only in the sense of causing it.
() Rejoinder: when we know brotherly love, we know God as if through his likeness. But on the other hand human beings are made in the substance of their own souls in the image and likeness of God. But that likeness is obscured through sin. Therefore all that is needed in order for us to be able to know God in the soul as in his likeness is for sin to be removed; there is no need for anything created to be added to the soul as well.
() Everything that is in the soul is either a capacity or an emotion or a disposition, as Aristotle says [NE .., b]. But charity is not a capacity of the soul, because then it would be something natural. Nor is it an emotion, because it is not found in the sensory part, where all the emotions are found. Nor is it a disposition, because a disposition is difficult to shift, while it is easy to lose charity, since a single act of mortal sin can achieve this. Therefore charity is not a created thing in the soul.
() No created thing possesses infinite power. But charity has infinite power, because it joins things that are infinitely far apart, i.e. God and the soul, and because it merits an infinite good. Therefore charity is not a created thing in the soul.
() Every created thing is 'vanity' as Ecclesiastes makes clear. But vanity cannot join anything to truth. Therefore since charity joins us to the first truth, it seems that it cannot be a created thing.
() Every created thing is a sort of nature, since it comes under one of the ten categories.Therefore if charity is a created thing in the soul, it seems as if it is a sort of nature. Now it is through charity that we have merit. If charity is something created, it follows that the principle of merit is something natural. That is an error, and agrees with the opinion of Pelagius.
Or 'the love from above' (cf. note ).
The ten categories are the most general, irreducible classes into which all created natures fall.
Aquinas characterises the heresy of Pelagius in his response to this objection.
On Charity () Human beings are nearer to God in their graced existence than in their natural existence. But God created us in our natural existence without any intermediary. Therefore neither does he use an intermediary, i.e. created charity, for our graced existence.
() An agent that acts without an intermediary is more complete than one that acts with an intermediary. But God is the most complete agent.
Therefore he acts without an intermediary; therefore he does not use any created intermediary to make the soul just.
()Arationalcreatureismoreexcellentthanothercreatures.Butother creatures achieve their ends without needing anything extra. Therefore rational creatures ought far more to be moved by God to their own end without needing any extra created thing.
() Rejoinder: a rational creature does not correspond to its own end purely by means of natural things; that is why it needs something extra.
On the other hand the end for human beings is an infinite good. But no created thing can correspond to an infinite good. Therefore human beings must be ordered towards their end by means of something other than a created good. Therefore charity is not some created thing in the soul.
() Just as God is the first light, so he is also the supreme good. But the light that is God is present in the soul, as Psalm .says about it,
'We will see light in your light.' Therefore the supreme good, which is God, is also present in the soul. But it is goodness through which we love something. Therefore that through which we love is God.
()Rejoinder:thegoodthatisGodispresentinthesoulnotasitsformal but as its efficient cause. On the other hand God is pure form. Therefore whatever he is in, he is in it as its form.
() Nothing is loved unless it is known, as Augustine says [Trin ..]. Therefore something is lovable insofar as it is knowable. But God is knowable through himself, as the first principle of knowing. Therefore he is lovable through himself. Therefore he is not lovable through some created charity.
() Each thing is lovable to the extent that it is good. But God is an infinite good. Therefore he is infinitely lovable. But no created love is infinite. Therefore since those who are in charity love him insofar as he is lovable, it seems that the love by which we love cannot be something created.
Article () God loves everything that exists, as Wisdom :tells us. But he does not love non-rational creatures by means of something extra added to them. Therefore neither does he do this with rational creatures. In this way, it seems that the charity and grace because of which human beings are loved by God are not some extra created thing added to our souls.
() If charity is something created, it must be an accidental quality.
However, charity is not an accidental quality, because no accident is of more worth than its subject. But charity is of more worth than nature.
Therefore charity is not some created thing in the soul.
() As Bernard says, we love God and our neighbour by the same law by which Father and Son love one another. But Father and Son love one another by uncreated love. Therefore we love God by uncreated love.
() Whatever brings the dead to life must have infinite power. But charity brings the dead to life, for John :says, 'We know that we have been carried from death into life, because we love our brothers.' Therefore charity has infinite power. Therefore it is not some created thing.
But on the other hand Everything that something receives, it receives in the manner appropriate to itself. Therefore if we receive love from God, we must receive it in a finite way, in the manner appropriate to us. But every finite thing is created. Therefore charity in us is a created thing.
My reply Some people have held (i) that the charity in us, by which we love God and our neighbour, is nothing other than the Holy Spirit, as Peter Lombard makes clear [Sent ...]. In order to understand their opinion more fully, we need to know that Peter Lombard held that the act of love by which we love God and our neighbour was indeed a created thing in us, just like the acts of the other virtues. However, he held that there was this difference between the acts of charity and those of the other virtues: theHolySpiritmovesthesoultowardstheactsoftheothervirtueswiththe mediation of some of those dispositions that we call virtues, while the Spirit moves the soul towards acting with love (as Lombard explains
[Sent ...]) by itself, without the mediation of any disposition. He is
On Charity persuadedtoholdthisviewbothbytheexaltednatureofcharityandbythe passages from Augustine quoted in the objections and similar passages.
(It would have been absurd, however, to say that the actual act of loving which we experience when we love God and our neighbour is the Holy
Spirit.) The opinion in question, though, cannot stand. For just as natural actions and movements derive from some interior principle (i.e. nature), so voluntary actions ought to derive from some interior principle. Now just as in natural things a natural inclination is called a natural desire, so in rational things the inclination that follows whatever the understanding grasps is an act of the will.
Itisindeedpossibleforanaturalthingtobemovedinacertaindirection byanexterioragentratherthananinteriorprinciple,as,forexample,when a stone is thrown upwards. A movement or action of this sort, however, which does not proceed from an interior principle, cannot possibly be natural, because that would be intrinsically contradictory. Now not even divine power can make contradictory things coexist; therefore not even
God can make a stone's moving upwards something natural, as long as that does not derive from an interior principle. He could, of course, give the stone a power that acted as an exterior principle, as it were, to enable it to move upwards in a natural manner. But he could not do this in such a way that the movement would actually be natural without changing the nature of the stone.
Similarly, even God cannot bring it about that a human movement that (whether interior or exterior itself) derives from an external principle is voluntary. That is why all the acts of the will ultimately derive as from their fundamental root from the thing that human beings want by nature, whichistheirultimateend.Asforthethingsthatcontributetotheend,we want these for the sake of the end. Consequently, such acts as exceed the entire natural abilities of human nature can only be voluntary if something interior is added to human nature that can complete the will in such a way that an act of this sort may arise from an interior principle.
If, therefore, acts of charity within someone do not derive from some interior disposition that is added to his natural capacities, but from the movement of the Holy Spirit, then one of two things will follow: either
(a) the act of charity is not voluntary; but that is impossible, because to love something just is to want it; or (b) it does not exceed the abilities of our nature; but that is heretical.
Article Dismissing that option, then {i.e. (b)},it will follow first (α) that acting with charity is notan act of the will; secondly (β) that, if you grant that an action of the will could, like the action of a hand or a foot, come totally from something external, and if the act of charity comes only from an external principle that moves it, it will not be meritorious. This is because any agent that acts not in accordance with its own form, but only because it is moved by something else, acts only as an instrument, just as an axe does when the carpenter uses it. Consequently, if the soul acts in a charitable way not through a form of its own, but only because it is moved by some exterior agent, i.e. the Holy Spirit, it will follow that it is only related to this activity in the manner of an instrument. In this case, it will not be up to the person whether to perform this action or not; and therefore the action will not be meritorious. For the only actions that are meritorious are those that are in some sense up to us. As a consequence, all human merit will disappear, because love is the root of merit.
Thirdly, the mistaken conclusion will follow (γ ) that someone who is in charity will not be ready to act in a charitable way, nor will he act with pleasure. For we find pleasure in virtuous activity because our dispositions suit us to this, and make us tend towards this in the manner of a natural inclination. Now acting with charity is something that someone who is in charity does very readily and with great pleasure; moreover, it makes everything else that we do or experience pleasurable.
The only possibility remaining, then, is (ii) that we must possess a created disposition of charity which can be the formal principle of an action of love. This does not prevent the Holy Spirit, who is uncreated charity, from dwelling in someone who possesses created charity, moving the soul to a loving action in the way that God moves each thing to those of its actions to which its own form makes it tend. That is how he organises everything in a way that gives delight, since he provides everything with the forms and the powers that make it tend towards the things to which he himself moves it, so that it inclines towards them of its own accord, rather than under compulsion.
The structure of the argument is obscure, partly because of the variant reading in this sentence
(see following note). I have taken this paragraph and the next to be expanding upon the argument following (a) in the previous paragraph. Readers should be aware that the bracketed numbers and letters are based on editorial interpretation and are not in Aquinas's text.
A variant reading omits 'not'. See previous note.
On Charity Replies to objections () God is the life of the soul as its moving, not as its formal principle.
()Indeed,foramovingcausetobeeffective,itdoesnotneedtopresuppose a tendency in the subject. However, it does prove the effectiveness of a moving cause if it brings about a strong tendency in the thing that it is moving or affecting. For a powerful fire creates not only a substantial form, but also a strong tendency {to receive this}.Therefore an agent that moves something to act in such a way that it also gives it the form by which it can act is more powerful than one that only moves something to act without giving it the relevant form.
That is why the Holy Spirit, as it is a very powerful moving cause, when it moves us to loving, does so in such a way that it also endows us with the disposition of charity.
() The words 'Whoever clings to God becomes one spirit with him' do not refer to being united in substance, but to being united in affection, such as exists between a lover and a loved one. In this union, the disposition of charity functions as a principle of love rather than as an intermediary betweentheloverandthelovedone.Fortheactionoflovingpassesdirectly to God, as the loved one, rather than indirectly through the disposition of charity.
() Although the love by which we love our neighbour is God, it is still possible to possess within us, as well as this uncreated love, also a created love, which is the formal means of our loving, as I have said.
() God is called love or charity in the sense not only of causing love (which is indeed the way he is called 'hope' or 'endurance'), but also of actually being love. However, this does not prevent us having within us a created love as well as the uncreated love which is what God of his essence is.
This also makes clear the answer to ().
() This authoritative passage presents the same difficulty whether or not one posits a created disposition of charity within us. For when
Augustine says that whoever loves a neighbour knows the love by which he loves more than the actual person whom he loves, he seems to mean the actual act of loving. But no one holds that that is something uncreated.
Therefore one cannot conclude from this that the love that is known in That is, a powerful fire not only generates more fire (the 'substantial form') but also affects things in such a way that they are more likely to catch fire (the 'strong tendency').
Article this way is God, but rather that in perceiving the act of loving within us, we are aware that we are in some way sharing within ourselves in God; but this is because God is love, not because he is the actual act of loving that we perceive.
() The more perfected a creature becomes, the more it takes on the likeness of God. Now every creature possesses some likeness to God by virtue of being something good. A rational creature, however, is like God in one further respect, in that it is intelligent; and in yet a further respect when it is perfected. That is why God is more clearly perceived in the actions of charity, as in something that bears a closer likeness.
() Charity is indeed a disposition, and is difficult to shift. For although it can be lost through sin, someone who possesses charity does not easily tend to sin.
() Charity joins us to an infinite good acting not as an efficient, but as a formal, cause. Therefore it is not charity, but rather the maker of charity, that needs infinite power. Charity would possess infinite power if human beingswereorderedbymeansofcharitytowardsaninfinitegoodinaninfiniteway.Butthisisclearlyfalse:forthemannerfollowstheformofathing.
() A created thing is 'vanity' qua coming from nothing, not qua being the likeness of God. It is on account of the latter that created charity joins us to the first truth.
() The Pelagian heresy holds that the natural principles of a human being are sufficient to merit eternal life. It is not, however, heretical to say that we merit this through something created, which is a 'nature' in the sense of coming under a category. For it is clear that we gain merit through our acts, and since they are created, they come under one of the categories and are in that sense 'natures'.
() God created our natural existence without any efficient mediating cause,butnotwithoutaformalmediatingcause.Forhegaveeachthingthe form that makes it what it is; similarly, he gives graced existence by means of an added form. However, there is a difference, for, as Augustine says
[Serm ..], 'The one who created you without you will not justify you without you.' Hence for justification the person who is justified needs to do something, because in this case there is a formal active principle.
The same is not true for creation.
() Those who act through an intermediary must be less effective at acting if they are using an intermediary because they need to. However,
God does not make use of intermediaries when he acts because he needs
On Charity the help of any creature. Rather, he uses intermediate agents to preserve the order of things. But if we are talking of an intermediary that is a form, it is clear that the more complete an agent is, the more he is able to bestow a form; for an incomplete agent cannot bestow a form, but only a tendency
(which will be weaker, the weaker the agent).
() Human beings and other rational creatures are able to achieve a higher end than other creatures. That is why, although they need more in order to achieve this end, they are still more complete. Similarly, someone who is able to gain full health by using a variety of remedies is in a better state than someone who cannot be completely healed, and for that reason only needs a few remedies.
() The soul is lifted by means of created charity beyond its natural potential so that it is more fully ordered towards the end than our natural faculties make possible. However, it is not ordered in this way towards attaining God in the fullest sense, in the way that he has the fullest enjoyment of himself. This is the case because no created thing can correspond to God.
() Even if the good that is God is present to the soul in itself, it still needs a formal intermediary for the soul to be fully ordered towards him; the need, however, is on the side of the soul not on the side of God.
() God is indeed a form that exists independently, but not in such a way that he is joined as its form to anything else.
() Let us grant that God can be known in himself by the soul (for this in fact can be questioned). Then he will be loved in himself in the same way that he is known in himself. But then the 'in himself' should be taken to refer to the object, not to the subject, of this love; for God is not loved by the soul on account of anything except himself. However, the soul still needs some formal principle in order to love God completely.
() We are not able to love God to the extent that he is lovable. That is why it does not follow that the love, i.e. charity, with which we love
God is infinite. This would fail to follow in just the same way if we were talking about love as an act rather than as a disposition; yet no one could say that the loving act by which we love God is something uncreated.
() We need the disposition of charity in us insofar as we love God.
That is something that other creatures do not do, although all creatures are loved by God.
() No accidental quality is of more worth than its subject in respect of its way of being, as a substance is a thing in itself, whereas an accident