20. Does God love mosquitoes?
20. DOES GOD LOVE MOSQUITOES?
I hate mosquitoes. Does God hate mosquitoes too?
It is said (Wis 11:25): Thou lovest all things that are, and hatest none of the things which thou hast made.
I answer that God loves all existing things. For all existing things, in so far as they exist, are good, since the existence of a thing is itself a good; and likewise, whatever perfection it possesses. Now it has been shown above (I,19,4) that God’s will is the cause of all things. It must needs be, therefore, that a thing has existence, or any kind of good, only inasmuch as it is willed by God. To every existing thing, then, God wills some good. Hence, since to love anything is nothing else than to will good to that thing, it is manifest that God loves everything that exists.
Yet not as we love. Because since our will is not the cause of the goodness of things, but is moved by it as its object, our love, whereby we will good to anything, is not the cause of its goodness; but conversely, its goodness, whether real or imaginary, calls forth our love, by which we will that it should preserve the good it has and receive besides the good it has not, and to this end we direct our actions; whereas the love of God infuses and creates goodness (I,20,2).
We know that God loves all things because all things are made by Him and He is love, so they are made by His love: He loved them into existence. Just as our mind conforms to the truth of things while His mind designs and creates it (point #16, above), so our love responds to goodness while His love creates it.
All things are (ontologically) good. God said so, after creating them (Gen 1). Neither moral evil (sin) nor physical evil (defect, disease, death) are things (point #9, above). We should therefore love these things (which are good) more and evil less; love sinners more and sins less; love souls more and vices less; love bodies more and their diseases less; love the virtue of trustful endurance of pain more and the vice of cruel infliction of pain less. The “therefore” above means that ethics (the science of what ought to be) is always based on metaphysics (the science of what is); for what really ought to be is based on what really is. That is why St. Thomas the metaphysician is such a good guide to ethics.
We should strive and contrive to creatively distinguish the good from the bad in all things; and therefore we can and should find ways to love even mosquitoes. Look at one under a microscope and admire its delicate design. When walking in a snowstorm, stop looking down and complaining: look up and admire even the cold, whipping wind on your face, and stop only when it really harms you. You can love God in every thing because you can find God in every thing. If you are put in solitary confinement in a tiny cell without food or light, you can find God in the stones in the wall. If that is true, then you can certainly find God in a mosquito.
If you are in love with someone, you want to learn to know and love everything your beloved loves. If you love God, you will want to learn to know and love everything He loves. And God loves mosquitoes. Therefore if you love God, learn to love mosquitoes.
(That does not necessarily mean you do not fulfill your human destiny by swatting them dead. But respect them, and their divine design, as you swat them, as a traditional bullfighter respects his enemy the bull even as he defeats it. You are all playing your parts in a single drama, a dance.)
The question about mosquitoes may seem silly. But this is really a spinoff from a much more profound question, the question about creation: Why did God create so many different things? Eastern religions are fascinated by unity, by the oneness of ultimate reality, and they seek a mystical experience of this oneness as their ultimate end. But Western religions believe the distinctively Jewish idea of God creating a real universe of many things out of nothing. The deeper part of the question about mosquitoes involves the reason for creation. The next question is the natural extension of this one.