26. Love Of God And Neighbor
Love of God and Neighbor first I say that this assumption of two gods destroys the nature of charity. For any habit of itself tends to but one thing. To assume that it tends to several is to assume we are no longer dealing with the same habit. Take a similar case. If there is a habit proper to first principles alone, to assume some other habit of first principles is to assume that this first habit does not pertain to this as its proper object. And so I say that to assume there are several gods implies on the one hand that each should be loved by charity, and on the other that none can be so loved.
To the other I say that where one is dealing with some extrinsic agent operating in regard to what is in that order, the relationship to what is more or less may be unlike the relationship to what is supreme in that order. For some operation to be most perfect may require something that is supreme, and still not require the other things pertaining to that order. Take the example of colors. The most perfect vision can only be that of the most perfect color, and one can have such without any proportionately perfect vision of the next-most-perfect color. The reason for this is that the ability of the most perfect color to satisfy the eye includes, as it were, whatever lesser satisfying capacities other colors may have. And although in the question at hand, one thing may excel another in goodness, none of these other things contain anything that is necessary for complete satisfaction, although the potency we have here is naturally free to love these others. The infinite good, and that alone, will quiet or satisfy the will, and it will do so insofar as it is infinite good. The will has no need, then, to be satisfied more or less by any finite good according to its degree of goodness, for such degrees of goodness are only accidental as regards what quiets the will extrinsically.
26. LOVE OF GOD AND NEIGHBOR
(Ordinatio III, supp!., dist. 28) In regard to dist. 28 [of Bk. III] I ask: Is it by the same habit by which we love God that we are bound to love our neighbor?
[Arguments Pro and Con} For the negative:
Each habit has but one formal object; but the goodness of God and the goodness of our neighbor represent distinct formal objects; therefore, etc.
Also, the habit whereby God is loved is a theological habit; therefore, it has as its formal object God alone and not something created.-In answer to this it is said that this is true of its main object;
The Love of God, Self, and Neighbor nevertheless it still regards others, but only insofar as they are ascribed to God himself. Against this evasion, it is objected that if this ascription alone sufficed, then there would be but one intellectual habit for everything as well as one appetitive habit, because all that can be understood by the mind is attributed to one [source]; similarly all moral virtues have but one aim, namely, felicity, which all moral virtues seek per se.
Furthermore, to the main question there is this argument. A habit concerned with a principle is other than that concerned with a conclusion; similarly, then, the appetitive habit concerned with the end is other than that which is concerned with means to that end. But charity is concerned with our end; therefore, etc.
For the affirmative:
There is that text from the first epistle of St. John [4:2 I: "The commandment we have from him is this: Whoever loves God must also love his brother"].
[Body of the Question} There are [two] points to investigate in this question: First, how does this habit whereby God is loved refer to our neighbor as an object of love? and second, who is this neighbor of ours?
[Article I: How Does Charity towards God Refer to Neighbor?] To the first I say, as in dist. I? of the first book, that charity is defined as the habit by which we hold God to be dear. Now, it could be that someone is considered dear because of some private love where the lover wants no co-lovers, as is exemplified in the case of jealous men having an excessive love of their wives. But this sort of habit would not be orderly or perfect. Not orderly, I say, because God, the good of all, does not want to be the private or proper good of any person exclusively, nor would right reason have someone appropriate this common good to himself. Hence, such a love or habit, inclining him to this good as exclusive to himself and not to be loved or had by another, would be an inordinate love. Neither would it be perfect, because one who loves perfectly wants the beloved to be loved by others, as is clear from Richard [of St. Victor, cited] in dist. I3, Bk. 1. Therefore, God, in infusing the love by which all tend towards him in a perfect and orderly way, gives this habit by which he is held dear as a good that is to be loved by others as well. Thus this habit which regards God in himself, inclines also to this, that he be loved by another, at least by anyone whose friendship he is pleased to have, or whose friendship is pleasing to him at present or at some time when it is pleasing to him. Just as this habit, then, inclines one to a perfect
Love of God and Neighbor and orderly love of God, so too does it incline one to want him to be loved by himself and by anyone whomsoever whose friendship he is pleased to have.
From this it is clear how the habit of charity is one, because it does not refer to a plurality of objects, but regards as its primary object God alone insofar as he is good and is the first good. Secondarily, it wills that God be loved by anyone whose love is perfect and directed to loving him as he is in himself, for this is what perfect and orderly love of God means. And in so loving, I love both myself and my neighbor out of charity, viz., by willing that both of us love God in himself.
And this is something that is simply good and an act of justice. Thus the first object of charity is only God in himself; all the others, however, are certain intermediate objects. They are objects of quasi-reflex acts by means of which one tends to the infinite good, who is God.
It is the same habit, however, that has to do with both direct and reflex acts.
[Objection] Against this the objection is raised that it is not the same intellectual habit whereby I know God on the one hand and whereby I know another knows God on the other; therefore, by the same token it is not the same habit whereby I wish God well and wish that another wish him well.
To this I reply: the act on which I reflect can be designated by a noun, and then it refers to the essence of the act, or it can be designated by a verb, and then it refers to the act as it is in some subject, or concerned with some subject. In the first way generally there can be a reflection upon a direct act by the same habit that can elicit that act itself. This is true not only of intellectual but also of appetitive habits.
By the same habit whereby I understand something I also know I understand it; this would be true if I were able to know something by an intellection inhering in another just as it is true of my knowledge that inheres in myself. The second way of referring to the act is by the infinitive of the verb, and the infinitive mode, as when I use "to know," "to will," and similar verbs. And if these are compared with willing, they do not necessarily refer to the present. For I could wish that you run, not now, but some other time. But if you compare "to know" with knowing, we have this situation. Since knowledge is only with respect to what is true, and I know of something acting only when it is actually going on in such a subject, knowing is known by reflecting on the act signified by the verb only when that act is something presently going on in the knower. And because it is possible that in me knowledge can coexist with a reflex act itself, it is not necessary that this act be present in anything other than myself. Therefore, my
The Love of God, Self, and Neighbor reflex act is not about the act itself as designated by a verb, but about it as asserted of some subject [designated by a noun].
Hence it is clear that although it is not by the same habit that I know God and I know you know God, nevertheless it is by the same habit that I want God and want that you also want God; and in this I want you to use your will in such a way that justice exists in you. This means that our neighbor is assigned not as a kind of secondary object of charity, but rather as something that is entirely an incidental object, as it were, because it enables me to want the beloved to be loved perfectly and orderly, and enables me to love him in such a way that he be loved by others. In this, I love the other incidentally, as it were-not for his or her sake, but because of the object I want him or her to love, and in willing that [God] be loved by such a person, I want something that is good for that individual in an unqualified sense, because it is a good that pertains to justice. . .
[Article 2: Who Is My Neighbor?} As for the other point, I say that my neighbor is anyone whose friendship is pleasing to the beloved, namely, anyone by whom God would want to be loved. But I am not obligated rationally to want that the one loved above all be loved also by one by whom he does not care to be loved, or whose love is not pleasing to him. Since it is certain that the love of the blessed in heaven is pleasing to him, however, it follows that I must want God to be loved by them in an unqualified sense. Since in this life, however, there is some doubt as to any specific individual, I ought to want such to love God conditionally, namely, if it pleases God to be loved by him or to be loved now or whenever it pleases God to be so loved. As for pilgrims in this life in general, since one must always presuppose there are some whose love is pleasing to God, or not displeasing to him, one can will absolutely that God be loved by them also. I ought not will that God be loved by the damned, the devils, or also those displeasing men who are blind to him.
[Reply to the Initial Arguments] To the first argument at the beginning, it is evident how there is but one object involved. And when you prove that the goodness proper to God is different from that proper to one's neighbor, I say that the goodness proper to neighbor does not function as the terminal object of an act of charity, but it is only the divine goodness that plays such a role. For even though one intends the goodness of this neighbor, it is only by way of a reflex act, which always implies some further direct act that tends to the object [which is the divine goodness itself], as was explained earlier.