II. To the Arguments for the Question

67. To the arguments for this question.

A. To the Principal Arguments

68. As to the first [n.2] I concede that charity can be properly called friendship; but when not taking ‘friendship’ altogether strictly the way the Philosopher spoke of it, but by way of a certain extension to God (as by an intensifying of it), charity is something more excellent than friendship; for the excellence of an object does not take away what belongs to perfection in it but rather what belongs to imperfection in it. And therefore the argument from the excellence of God is not valid in the matter at issue, since nobility in the lovable and loving back in the beloved are per se conditions in something lovable, but equality in them is a concomitant condition and not a matter of perfection; on the contrary excellence would not be more perfect if it were loved back; but God has loving back and nobility or lovability in a more excellent way; and there can be a friendship with him such that it may be called ‘super-friendship’.

69. And if it be argued that equality belongs to the idea of friendship - this is true on the supposition of nobility, which is the primary idea of the lovable; equality is the idea of friendship taken strictly, but excellence is rather the idea of a like or more perfect habit than friendship is; such is what in the present context I call ‘charity’.

70. To the second argument [n.3] I say that God can be loved above all things not only by charity but also by natural power (at least in the original state of nature).

71. And as to the Philosopher’s principle in Ethics 9 [n.4] I say that his assertion must be understood as to the making known of friendship (for friendship with another is known when I desire for another the same sort of things as I desire for myself); but not as concerns the per se idea of friendship - as if there were no friendship other than when speaking strictly of the friendship that is between equals; equality indeed is a measure of the beloved and not conversely.

72. As to the argument there about unity [n.5] I say that there are two ideas that come together in a lovable object, namely goodness and unity, and although sometimes unity surpasses goodness yet goodness makes compensation on the other side.

73. To the third [n.6] I concede the conclusion - yet charity is not superfluous, as was said [nn.63-66].

74. To the fourth [n.9] I say that no habit of the same species as charity can be acquired by acts (even though there is a friendship that tends to God under the same objective idea and also through like acts, for such a friendship can, through loving God above all things, be acquired through acts). The reason is that any nature that cannot be caused by an efficient cause of the same species as another cause is not of the same species as a nature that can be caused by another efficient cause of the same species (for effects of the same species can be caused by causes similar in species); and so charity, which can only be infused, cannot be of the same species as any friendship that can be acquired by acts.

B. To the Two Arguments adduced in the Second Article

75. Reply to the two arguments for the other member, in the article on the formal object of charity:

To the first [n.21] I say that the positing of two Gods destroys the nature of charity; for any habit tends of itself to one thing, and to posit that it tends to several things is to posit that the habit is not the habit - just as, if there is some habit proper simply to a first principle, then to posit some other habit of the first principle is to posit that it is not proper to it; I say then that positing several Gods involves positing that both and neither should be loved with charity.

76. To the other [n.22] I say that the more and less in any order are not like the most in that order as to extrinsic operation about what belongs to that order. For the operation of a thing can, so as to be perfect, necessarily require what is supreme in that order. Yet it need not have an order to other ordered things in that order (an example in colors; vision can only be most perfect if it is of the most perfect visible color; yet vision of the color nearest to it need not be the vision nearest to it in perfection). And the reason is that what, on the part of an act, is its reason for coming to rest is the most perfect idea of its total object, while in other cases the object is present in diminished fashion. And although one act may in some way surpass another, yet in these acts there need be no idea involved of being brought to rest, though the power is naturally free. Therefore, although the sole and infinite good quietens the will, and does so insofar as it is the infinite good, yet it need not be the case that any good lower in its own degree of goodness than the infinite good would quieten the will proportionally more and less, because these lower degrees are accidental as regard extrinsic quietening.