First, we cannot rise to a perfect love of God.
First, we cannot rise to a perfect love of God.
§ 85. Let us examine Bellarmine’s counterarguments which he brings against our arguments (De monach., bk. 22, ch. 13). (I) God commands that we love Him with all our heart, with all our soul, and with all our strength [Deut. 6:5]. Consequently, nothing remains for us to pay that is not owed. Augustine (De doctr. Christ., bk. 1, ch. 22): “When He says ‘with all your heart, with all your mind, with all your soul’ [Matt. 22:37], He leaves out no part of our life which should not be involved and which should give place, so to speak, that it might enjoy something else. Whatever else should come into our mind as something to be loved is to be taken into the same course in which all of our love runs.”
Bellarmine counters:
(1) All these things—to love with the heart, to love with the soul, to love with the mind—all this is the same as loving truly and sincerely. (2) The commandment to love is affirmative. Thus it is binding whenever the necessity of divine glory requires. But if this were to occur at different times, there would be need for [evangelical] counsel and for supererogation. (3) The end toward which we should strive is indicated by this commandment. Therefore even though we may not love with every measure of love, we are not transgressors. (4) Even though we cannot add to this commandment according as it indicates the end, yet we can add something as far as the means is concerned. (5) Only this is being commanded: that we love God with a chief love, that we place nothing ahead of or equal to Him in our love, that we do nothing in our heart except that we love God, and that we love Him with the greatest intensity of love.
Those are the words of Bellarmine, which we have discussed in the commonplace On Actual Sins [Commonplace XIII] (§ 44) and in the commonplace On the Law of God [Commonplace XV] (§ 181). Here we only point out that Bellarmine’s responses are in opposition to each other. For if loving God with all our heart, all our soul, all our mind, and all our strength requires only a serious and sincere love but not a love absolute in all its details and degrees, then surely the commandment to love does not indicate the end but only the means. In turn, if this commandment indicates the end—that is, the supreme degree of love to which we should aspire in this life and to which we can aspire in the life to come—then those phrases “to love with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, with all your strength” require not only a serious and sincere love but also a love perfect in all degrees and details. We have said more about this entire subject elsewhere [On the Law of God (Commonplace XV), §§ 53, 183].