On Charity: Article 8: Whether loving our enemies belongs to the fullness of a counsel
Article () When we say that someone loves a neighbour out of charity, the preposition 'out of' picks out the final, efficient, and formal causal relations.(i)Thefinal,inthattheloveofneighbourisorderedtowardsthelove of God as its end; that is why Timothy :says, 'The end of the precept is charity'; since the love of God is the purpose of keeping the precept.
(ii) The efficient, in that charity is a disposition that tends towards loving, and is related to the activity of loving in the way that heat is related to heating. (iii) The formal, in that an act takes its type from the disposition in question, as heating does from heat.
() Both the one who bestows a kindness and the one who receives it match the description of 'neighbour'. However, we ought not to describe everyone who bestows a kindness as a neighbour; it is also necessary for neighbours to be part of a shared order. That is why God, even though he bestows kindnesses, cannot be called our neighbour. Christ, however, qua man, is called our neighbour insofar as he bestows kindnesses upon us.
The answer to () is clear from this.
Article : Whether loving our enemies belongs to the fullness of a counsel Objections It seems not, because:
() Something that falls under a precept does not belong to the fullness of a counsel.But loving our enemies falls under a precept, i.e. 'You shall love your neighbour as yourself.' For 'neighbour' should be taken to mean 'any person', as Augustine says [CT ..]. Therefore loving our enemies does not belong to the fullness of a counsel.
() Rejoinder: love of enemies belongs to the fullness of a counsel with reference to actually showing friendship and the other practices of charity.
But on the other hand we are bound to love all our neighbours out of charity. But the love of charity does not exist only in the heart, but also in what we do: John :says, 'Let us not love in words or speech, sitdeperfectioneconsilii,inotherwords,'isarequirementappropriateonlytotheveryhighstandards set by "counsels" rather than to the less demanding standards set by "precepts" '. Precepts are obligatory for everyone; counsels are followed by those, particularly members of religious orders, who freely undertake to aim at Christian perfection.
On Charity but in deeds and truth.' Therefore the love of enemies comes under a precept also with respect to the practices of charity.
() Matthew :says similarly, 'Love your enemies and do good to those who hate you.' Therefore if loving our enemies falls under a precept, then doing good to them also falls under a precept, and this relates to the practices of charity.
() The Old Law did not hand down anything relevant to the fullness of counsels, for, as Hebrews :puts it, 'The Law made nothing perfect.'
But the Old Law handed down that we should not only have feelings of love for our enemies, but also engage in practices of love towards them. See, for example Exodus :, 'If you come across a stray ox or ass belonging to your enemy, take it back to him'; Leviticus :, 'Do not hate your brother in your heart, but reprove him openly, so that you do not sin in relation to him'; Job :–, 'Suppose that I rejoiced at the fall of those who hated me, and celebrated because misfortune had come upon them; indeed, I did not give my throat to sin'; Proverbs :, 'If your enemy is hungry, feed him. If he is thirsty, give him water to drink.' Therefore loving our enemies in the sense of openly practising charity does not belong to the fullness of a counsel.
() A counsel should not conflict with a precept of the Law. That is why the Lord, when he was about to hand over the New Law, which brings fullness, said first in Matthew :, 'I have not come to abolish the Law, but to fulfil it.' However, loving our enemies seems to conflict with a precept of the Law, as Matthew :says, 'You will love your friend and hate your enemy.' Therefore the love of enemies does not come under the fullness of a counsel.
() Love has as its own distinctive object the thing towards which it tends, since, as Augustine puts it [Conf ..], 'My weight is my love.'
But our enemy does not seem to be the distinctive object of our love, but rather to repel our love. Therefore it does not belong to the fullness of a counsel that we should love our enemies.
()Thefullnessofvirtuedoesnotconflictwiththeinclinationofnature; rather,theinclinationofnatureisfulfilledthroughvirtue.Nature,though, moves us to hate our enemies; for every natural thing fights against its contrary. Therefore it does not belong to the fullness of a counsel to love our enemies.
() The fullness of charity and other virtues consists in being like God. But God loves his friends and hates his enemies, according to
Article Malachi :–, 'I loved Jacob and I held Esau in hatred.' Therefore it does not belong to the fullness of a counsel that we should love our enemies, but rather that we should hold them in hatred.
() The love of charity looks directly towards the good of eternal life.
But we ought not to want the good of eternal life for certain enemies, because they are already damned and in hell, or while still alive already rejectedby God. Therefore loving our enemies is not part of the fullness of charity.
() We cannot lawfully kill those whom we are obliged to love from charity, nor can we want their death nor want anything bad to befall them, since it is part of the character of friendship that we want our friends to exist and to live. But we are lawfully allowed to kill some people, because, as St Paul says in Romans :, 'The secular power is the minister of God, and has vengeance to the point of anger on those who act badly.'
Therefore we are not bound to love our enemies.
() Aristotle teaches [Top ., b] that reasoning in the case of contraries works as follows: if it is good to love our friends and do good to them, then to love our enemies and do good to them is bad. But nothing bad possesses the fullness of charity, nor does it come under a counsel. Therefore to love our enemies is not part of the fullness of a counsel.
() Friend and enemy are contraries. Therefore to love our friends and to love our enemies are contraries. But contraries cannot coexist. Since, then, we are obliged to love our friends out of charity, it cannot come under a counsel that we should love our enemies.
() Counsels cannot require something impossible. But loving an enemy seems impossible, because it contradicts our natural inclinations.
Therefore loving our enemies does not fall under a counsel.
() It is the role of the fully virtuous to fulfil counsels. The apostles were the most fully virtuous, but they did not love their enemies as regards boththefeelingsandpracticesofcharity:wecanreadthatblessedThomas the Apostle cursed someone who struck him a blow on the cheek, with the result that the latter's hand was carried off by dogs during a feast.
Aquinas uses the technical term reprobatus, which applies to someone who by divine decree is already marked out for damnation.
The story is found in the apocryphal Acts of Thomas ., and quoted by Augustine against the Manichees, who treated that text as authoritative (SermMount .; AA .; AF .). Aquinas appears less sceptical than Augustine about the text's authority.
On Charity Therefore loving one's enemies with respect to both feeling and practice does not come under the fullness of a counsel.
() Uttering harmful curses against people, especially for their eternal damnation, is opposed to love, from the point of view of both feeling and practice.Buttheprophetsutteredharmfulcursesagainsttheiropponents.
For example, Psalm :says, 'May they be removed from the Book of Life and not be listed there with the just'; while Psalm :says, 'May death come upon them, and may they descend alive into hell.' Therefore loving our enemies does not belong to the fullness of charity.
() It is part of the character of true friendship that friends are loved for themselves. Charity, though, includes friendship in the way that something full includes something less full. However, to love our enemies for themselves is contrary to charity, according to which only God is loved for himself. Therefore it does not belong to the fullness of a counsel that we should love our enemies.
() Something that falls under the fullness of a counsel is better and more meritorious than something that falls under the necessity of a precept. But to love an enemy is not better or more meritorious than to love a friend, which clearly falls under the necessity of a precept. This is because, if it is good to love something good, then it is better and more meritorious to love something that is even better. A friend, though, is better than an enemy. Therefore to love our enemies does not belong to the fullness of a counsel.
() Rejoinder: loving our enemies is more meritorious because it is more difficult. But on the other hand to love an enemy is more difficult than to love God. Therefore by the same reasoning, it is more meritorious to love our enemy than to love God.
() It is a sign that we possess the relevant dispositions when we take pleasure in doing something, as Aristotle says [NE .., b]. But loving a friend is more pleasurable than loving an enemy. Therefore it is more virtuous, and consequently more meritorious. Thus loving our enemies does not come under the fullness of a counsel.
But on the other hand Augustine says [Hand .], 'It is the role of the fully virtuous children of God to love their enemies; everyone ought to show himself faithful in this respect.'
Article My reply Loving our enemies comes under the necessity of a precept in one way and under the fullness of a counsel in another. To show this, we must recall that, as I said above, God is the object of charity strictly speaking and per se. Whatever is loved out of charity is loved with reference to its relation to God (in the way that if we love one person, we therefore love all those connected with him, even if they are enemies to us). It is agreed that all human beings are related to God insofar as they are created and capable of blessedness, which consists in the enjoyment of God. It is clear, therefore, that the reason for loving to which charity responds is found in all human beings.
In this way, then, we discover two things about those who practise hostility towards us: (i) a reason for loving them, which relates to God; and (ii) a reason for hating them, because they are our adversaries. Wherever we discover reasons both for loving and for hating, if we abandon the love and turn ourselves to hatred, it is clear that the reason for hating has outweighed in our hearts the reason for loving. In this way those who have hatred for their enemy allow the hostility in their hearts to outweigh the love of God. Therefore they are hating their enemy more than they are loving God. We only hate something, however, insofar as we love the good of which our enemy deprives us. We conclude, then, that everyone who hates an enemy loves some created good more than God, and that is contrary to the precept of charity. To have hatred for an enemy, then, is contrary to charity. Now, given that we are obliged by the precept of charity to let the love of God in us outweigh the love of any other thing – and consequently the hatred of its opposite – it must then follow that we are obliged by a necessary precept to love our enemies.
We also need to bear in mind, however, that when we are obliged by the precept of charity to love our neighbours, this does not mean that we should actively love every single neighbour in particular, or do good to each one in particular, because no one is capable of thinking about every other person in such a way as actively to love each one in particular, and no one is capable of doing good to or assisting each one individually.
We are, however, bound to love and to help in particular those who are bound to us by some other reason of friendship; for all other lawful loves are included under charity, as was said above. That is why Augustine says
On Charity [CT ..], 'Since you cannot help everyone, you ought to care most for those who are nearest to you in the circumstances of time or place or whatever, as if they have been allotted to you. For you should think of those more closely connected to you in a temporal sense as allotted to you, and for this reason you should prefer to give to them.'
This makes it clear that by the precept of charity (i') we are not obliged to be moved in terms of either the feelings of love or practical activity to help in particular someone who is not connected to us by any other tie
(except perhaps at a certain time and place, for example if we were to see someone in urgent need who could be helped only by us). (ii') We are, though, obliged with respect to both the feelings and the practice of the charity with which we love all our neighbours and pray for all of them, not to exclude those who are not connected to us by any particular tie, as, for example, those living in India and Ethiopia.
Now the only thing that unites us to our enemies is charity; therefore we are bound by the necessity of a precept to love them in general both in feelings and in practice, and in particular when they are threatened by a situation of serious need. However, suppose that one were for the sake of God to show towards one's enemies as particular individuals such particular feelings and practice of love as one shows towards others who are close to one; that would be part of the fullness of charity, and come under a counsel. For it is through the fullness of charity that charity can by itself move us towards our enemy, in the way that both charity and particular love move us towards a friend.
It is clear, though, that a consequence of the fullness of an active virtue is that what the agent does extends further: a fire has fuller power if it can heat not only what is near, but also what is further away. In this way, charity that is fuller moves us to love and do good not only to those near to us, but also to those further away, and finally to our enemies, and not only in a general, but also in a particular, way.
Replies to Objections () The love of enemies is included under a precept, in the way that I have explained.
() We ought to love our enemies in practice as well as in feelings, as I have explained.
From this the answer to () is clear.
Article () Those Old Testament authorities are speaking of cases of serious need, when we are bound by a precept to do good to our enemies, as I have explained.
() (i) The words 'You shall have hatred for your enemy' are not found anywhere in the Old Testament. They come from the tradition of the scribes, who thought they should add this, because the Lord instructed the children of Israel to persecute their enemies.
(ii) Or else, we should say that the words 'You shall have hatred for your enemy' are not to be taken as an order to someone just, but as a concession to someone weak, as Augustine says [SermMount ..].
(iii)Orelse,asAugustinealsosays[TEpJn.],itisnotourenemies themselves that we ought to hate, but their vice.
() An enemy is not the object of love qua enemy, but qua related to God. That is why we ought to hate in our enemies the fact that they hate us, and wish for them to love us.
() By nature, one human being loves every other one, as Aristotle too says [NE .., a]. But the fact that someone is an enemy results from something added to his nature, and this ought not to make us destroy our natural inclination. Therefore charity, when it moves us to love our enemies, is fulfilling our natural inclination. The case is different with things that are in their own natures incompatible, like fire and water, or wolves and sheep.
() God does not hate what is his own in anything, whether its natural good or anything else, but only what is not his own, i.e. sin. We too, then, ought to love in human beings what comes from God, and hate what is foreign to God. That is also the way to interpret Psalm :, 'I hated them with the fullest hatred.'
()(i)Ontheonehand,thosewhoareforeknownanddamned:weought not to love them, in the sense of hoping for their eternal life, because they are already completely excluded from that by God's decree. However, we can love them as we love other works of God in which divine justice is made manifest; for that is the way in which God loves them.
(ii) On the other hand, those who are foreknown but not yet damned: we ought to love them, in the sense of hoping for their eternal life, because we cannot be certain in such a matter. In any case, they are not excluded by God's foreknowledge from the possibility of attaining eternal life.
() The person to whom this duty attaches can lawfully punish and even kill wrongdoers while still loving them out of charity. For Gregory
On Charity says [HomGosp .] that the just do initiate persecution, but out of love; for even if for the sake of discipline they pile on reproaches externally, theystill,throughcharity,maintainakindlyattitudeinternally.Nowwhen we love people out of charity, we may want for them or inflict on them some temporal evil for three reasons: (i) for their correction; (ii) because sometimes if a few people are very successful in a temporal sense, this can damage the mass of people, or even the whole Church, as Gregory says [MorJob ..]: 'It can often happen that we rejoice in an enemy's fall without abandoning charity, or regret his triumphs without being guilty of envy. This is when we think that his collapse will lift up other people, or we fear that his success will mean that many people are unjustly oppressed'; (iii) to preserve the order of divine justice, as Psalm :says,
'The just will rejoice when they see his vengeance.'
() Propositions of the sort from which Aristotle is reasoning should be construed as per se. Just as to love a friend qua friend is something good, so it is bad to love an enemy qua enemy. But it is good to love an enemy qua related to God.
() Loving a friend qua friend and loving an enemy qua enemy are contraries. But loving a friend and loving an enemy, both qua belonging to God, are not contraries, any more than are seeing black and seeing white, both qua something coloured.
() To love an enemy qua enemy is difficult or even impossible. But to love an enemy for the sake of something which you love more, is easy. In this way charity towards Godmakes easy something which per se seems impossible.
() St Thomas did not effect the punishment of his assailant out of enthusiasm for revenge, but in order to reveal God's justice and power.
() The curses we find in the prophets should be interpreted as prediction, so that 'let them be destroyed' should be interpreted as 'they will be destroyed'. They use this mode of expression because they are conforming their will to God's justice as it has been revealed to them.
() To love others for their sake can be understood in two ways: (i) as loving them as the ultimate end; and in fact only God should be loved for his own sake in this sense; (ii) in the way that we love someone whose good we want, as happens in the honourable sort of friendship. That is not the same as wanting some good for ourselves, as happens with the caritas Dei: either 'charity towards God' or 'the charity that God bestows'.