25. The infused virtue of charity
The Love of God, Self, and Neighbor Balie, who at first thought otherwise, came to admit that if the version contained in the Assisi manuscript (Codex A) was not intended as his
"ordinatio," it must at least be included as part of the supplement to that book. What is more, Scotus' two references to his questions on the Metaphysics of Aristotle, where he gives a detailed critique of Henry's view of prudence as one virtue, led Lottin to date the composition of these questions between Scotus' earlier lectures on the Sentences and the "ordinatio" revision of Bk. III (See Lottin, 1953).
The Latin text for this supplement to Ordinatio III, dist. 36, is a revision of the Wadding reprint edition (XV, pp. 597-729)' based on Codices A (ff. 177rb-79va) and S (ff. 218vb-2Irb).
PART VII: THE LOVE OF GOD,
SELF, AND NEIGHBOR
25. The infused virtue of charity In Bk. III, dists. 27 to 29, Scotus raises three questions in regard to the supernatural or infused virtue of charity. The first concerns the love of God; the second, love of neighbor; and the third, love of self.
Much of what he has to say, especially in the first and longest of the three, is of philosophical interest, because it concerns the love of God insofar as it is a moral virtue and is enjoined on man by natural law in the strictest sense. The question reads: "Is there some theological virtue inclining one to love God above all?"
Before answering the main question, Scotus points out that there are three preliminary questions to be answered: First, is the love of God above all an act that is morally right? Second, what is the precise object or aspect under which God is loved by an act or by the virtue of charity? Third, is human nature capable of loving God above all without a supernaturally infused virtue?
First, is the love of God above all an act that is morally right?
Scotus replies:
As for the first, I say that to love God above all is an act conformed to natural right reason, which dictates that what is best must be loved most; and hence such an act is right of itself; indeed, as a first practical principle of action, this is something known per se, and hence its rectitude is self-evident. For something must be loved most of all, and it is none other than the highest good, even as this good is recognized by the intellect as that to which we must adhere the most.
Scotus' answer, like the question itself, requires a word of explanation, since he seems to be talking simply of a morally good act, rather
Introduction than a meritorious one, and of an act that could, by repetition, produce an acquired virtue of charity, rather than the supernaturally infused virtue. Yet it is the nature and function of the latter that he is primarily concerned with in this distinction and the two that follow.
There are two things to keep in mind to understand what he has to say, especially in this twenty-ninth distinction.
(a) One is the generally accepted theological principle that grace (and the supernatural virtue of charity which is really identical with grace) builds on nature, and the supernatural presupposes the natural as a necessary, though not a sufficient, condition. Now, every virtue, be it supernaturally infused or naturally acquired, implies that the act that stems from it is also something naturally good and morally right.
It is this fact that prompts Scotus' first preliminary question, "Is it morally right to love God above all?" He answers this question by showing that the love of God above all is a morally good act dictated by right reason and hence something towards which we are naturally inclined by reason of the will's affection for justice. This obviously raises further questions, among them the third preliminary question of whether we need a supernaturally infused virtue to love God above all, something that many of his colleagues claimed we did. This brings us to the other point we must keep in mind.
(b) "Charity" for Scotus is just another name for "justice," as he explained in selection 23. Now, justice can be either naturally acquired or supernaturally infused. As we said earlier, though Scotus began by distinguishing Anselm's "affection for justice" from the will's
"affection for the advantageous," he definitely extended and amplified the saint's notion of "justice." For Anselm never clearly distinguished the will's natural inclination for justice from the supernaturally infused
"justice" that Scotus regarded as identical in reality with grace or charity. Just as Scotus made the inclination or affection for justice something essential to the nature of the will, so now he argues that the will's ability to love God above all is something man is already inclined to do by nature. Furthermore, it is something he is obliged to do by virtue of natural law as well as by express divine command. Incidentally, this poses a special problem for him, one that he will answer before concluding his discussion of the question, namely, why is the infused habit of charity necessary if we can love God above all by our natural resources?
Whatever be the precise role of this infused virtue, however, the first point Scotus wishes us to keep in mind is that the love of God above all is an act that "is known to be right," and "from this it follows that there can be a virtue inclining one naturally towards such an act."
But as something supernaturally given rather than naturally acquired,
The Love of God, Self, ana Neighbor this special virtue of charity, though "based immediately upon the first rule of human action," has to be "infused by God," for it has to do with the highest portion of the soul, and this "cannot be perfected in the best possible way except immediately by God." This supernatural virtue of charity is distinct from the infused virtue of faith; "because its act is one neither of belief nor of understanding." It is likewise distinct from the infused virtue of hope which perfects the will insofar as it has an affection for the advantageous. "This virtue," he says, "which thus perfects the will insofar as it has an affection for justice, I call 'charity. '"
This already indicates how Scotus will answer the second preliminary question about the specific aspect under which God is the formal object of charity. There are three ways in which God can be an object of love. He can be loved for his intrinsic worth, i. e., for his own sake.
He can be loved because he loves us and shares himself with those who love him. And finally, because there is a satisfaction or happiness that accompanies a well-ordered love, he can be loved because he makes us happy. Properly speaking, charity tends to God as its formal object only in the first sense, even though in a secondary and tertiary sense we can speak of him being an object in the other two ways.
As for the third question, "Does nature suffice to love God above all?" there are various views. Aquinas (Summa theologiae IaIIae, q.
109, art. 3) and Henry of Ghent (Quod!. IV, q. II) ask similar questions, and the editors of the Wadding edition cite these authors as the probable protagonists Scotus had in mind in what he says in this third article. However, the way they answer the question and the arguments they give as to why man in his present fallen state, at least, needs either grace or infused charity or both to love God above all by an elicited act, do not correspond precisely to those cited here by Scotus. As he presents the question, there are two main positions held by his contemporaries. The first, according to Duns, "assumes that nature is not sufficient for this act of love without an infused habit." The second
"argues against this." The Assisi manuscript, Codex A, has a marginal note here (f. I7lva) designating the first view "Opinio Thomae" and the second "Opinio Henrici." Francis Lychetus in his commentary on this passage (see the Wadding reprint ed. XV, p. 365) cites Godfrey of Fontaines's Quodlibet IV, q. 6, as proposing this second view. At any rate, Scotus believes the arguments it employs against the first view to be inconclusive, and John Duns does not rest content with such but presents two of his own. These he sums up as follows in his solution to the question.
As for this article, because of these two reasons-conformity of the will to right reason and the case of the brave citizen-I concede the conclusion that by purely natural means any will could love God above all, at least as human
Introduction nature existed in the state in which it was instituted. To clarify this, then, I explain first how "above all" is to be understood; then, second, to what extent a rational creature is bound to such love; and third, why, despite this natural capacity, the habit of charity is still necessary.
(A) As for the first (Le., what "above all" means in this context), Scotus says there are two senses. The expression is understood either extensively or intensively. Extensively a person loves God above all if he or she "out of affection for him would will more readily that all else should cease to be rather than that God not exist." Intensively one loves God above all if one "wills God well with a greater measure of affection than one has for any other person's welfare." Intensity, therefore, seems to refer to the emotional ardor of one's voluntary act, for as Scotus conceives of the will, it too, as an affective appetite, is capable of emotions of varying intensities.
He cites here first the "opinion of others" that one love, like that of a mother for her child, may exceed another because it is more fervent or tender, whereas another, like a father's love for his offspring, may be stronger and firmer, if less effusive, than the former. And that "love of God above all ought to be of this latter sort. . . but it is not necessary that he be loved above all as to tenderness and fervor and sweetness."
Scotus argues against this on the grounds that "only one who loves more firmly loves more . . . And I am speaking of that love which is an act of the will, and not about that which is a feeling in the sense appetite." The more effusive manifestation Scotus ascribes to "sensible sweetness." This is really no measure of the solidity or firmness of a love that would not stop short of martyrdom for God's sake. Sensible sweetness that may accompany the will-act, says Scotus, is only a "certain rewarding feeling . . . whereby God nourishes his little ones and draws them to himself lest they fall by the way." Hence his conclusion:
I say, then, that this "above all" must be understood in both ways, extensively and intensively, for just as I am held to love God above all extensively, so I am held to love him also intensively with a greater affection than simply anything else. I say "greater affection" because it is more opposed to anything incompatible with it, in the sense that one could more easily be turned against loving anything else than turned against loving God.
(B) As for how this precept obliges or how it can be expected to be fulfilled, Scotus points out that "the affirmative precept ... not only always obliges us to refrain from the opposite, viz., an act of hatred, but also obliges us to elicit an act that is directed to God as our end. "
This we do through divine worship, specifically by hearing mass according to the precept of the Church. But he admits we are not so totally absorbed in the contemplative love of God as we might be
The Love of God, Self, and Neighbor
under special conditions where all sensible distractions were absent, "so that the will could exert the sort of effort it could if our powers were all united and recollected and all impediments were removed."
Putting this in another way we could say that Scotus admits that we can love God "above all" in this substantial sense; if confronted with a concrete instance of choice between displeasing God or giving up some created treasure or object we value highly, we refrain from the former and elect to surrender the latter. Nevertheless, in this life, we cannot love God above all according to "all the conditions which are implied by the words 'with your whole heart, your whole soul,' etc., because in this life there cannot be that recollection of our faculties with all impediments removed." It is on this ground that Scotus explains the claim of Augustine and Peter Lombard that "this precept is not fulfilled in this life, for the propensity of the inferior powers in the present state impedes the superior powers from acting perfectly."
(C) As to why the infused habit of charity is necessary, despite our natural ability to love God above all in the aforesaid sense, Scotus replies that "this habit adds to the substantial intensity of the act a further intensity, which the will alone could also have given to the act by exerting an equal effort." He spells out what "greater" implies in mathematical terms, referring back to what he said in Bk. I, dist. 17, where he discusses to what extent a virtuous habit plays an active role in regard to the goodness of a will-act. There he uses this same distinction of arithmetic versus geometric increase in perfection to answer the objection that charity is not necessary in heaven, since even without it each will would love God as much as was possible. Scotus argues that this is not so, for "no potency that is capable of being perfected by a habit can perform an act as perfectly without such a habit as it can with a habit; indeed the more perfect the power, the less could it have an act in proportion to its perfection if it lacked every habit. For if the increase produced by the habit in each case is similar geometrically speaking, there will still be some arithmetic proportion according to which the more perfect power will be simply more deficient without the habit than the less perfect potency would be" (Ord. I, dist. 17, n. 181; Vatican ed. V, p. 225).
The point Scotus is making is that the infused habit of charity increases any will's natural ability to love according to some geometric proportion-say it doubles, triples, or quadruples the intensity of its love. Viewed from the converse aspect of what it is missing by reason of not having charity, though geometrically there is no difference, arithmetically speaking the more perfect the natural capacity of the will, the greater its loss of perfection. Suppose, for example, the natural capacity is doubled; then a will capable of loving naturally with an