Question One. Whether it is necessary to posit a created Charity that formally inheres in a Nature capable of Beatification

1. About the seventeenth distinction I ask whether it is necessary to posit a created charity that formally inheres in a nature capable of beatification.

That it is not:

Augustine On the Trinity VIII ch.7 n.10: “He who loves his neighbor loves as a consequence love itself; but ‘God is love’; therefore the consequence is that he loves God.”

I ask how he is taking ‘love’ in the minor? If formally, I have the proposition [sc. that positing a created charity is not necessary]; if effectively, then there will be four terms, because the major is not true save of the formal love by which the neighbor is loved.The four terms will be ‘loves neighbor’ and ‘effective love’ in the minor, and ‘God’ and ‘formal love’ in the major, and so a claim that love of neighbor is effective love of love will not establish that that effective love of love is the formal love that is God, for there will be no common middle term. Hence, if Augustine’s argument is to be valid, ‘love’ cannot be taken to mean effective love only. ¹² Even if you say that ‘besides the love which is the Holy Spirit, there is another formal love’, then there is a fallacy of the consequent in Augustine’s argument, by arguing ‘he loves love formally, therefore this love’, - because the antecedent can hold true of the other love.Sc. if love of neighbor is a formal love other than the formal love that is the Holy Spirit, then one cannot argue from one to the other; in particular one cannot argue back from the formal love that is the Holy Spirit to this supposed other (created) formal love that is love of neighbor (which would be the fallacy of asserting the antecedent from asserting of the consequent). ¹³ If the argument then has to hold, it is necessary that God formally be love and be every love that is formally in someone who loves in respect of his neighbor.

2. Again, On the Trinity XV ch.19 n.37: “No gift is more excellent than this gift, which is love; and no gift of God is more excellent than the Holy Spirit; therefore the Holy Spirit is love.” This argument would not be valid unless it was about formal love, and because precisely the Holy Spirit would be that.

3. Even if it be said to these authorities that the Holy Spirit is called ‘love’ by way of causality, the Master in the text stands opposed, who adduces Augustine, because he understands him formally. For Augustine says On the Trinity XV ch.17, n.27: “We will not say that ‘charity’ is said to be God by the fact that it is the gift of God, the way it is said ‘you are my patience’ (Psalm 70.5); for Scripture’s locution itself refutes this sense; for ‘you are my patience’ is of the sort that ‘you are my hope’ is (Psalm 90,9),     etc .” “But the saying is not like this, ‘Lord, my love’, or ‘you are my love’, but it is said like this, ‘God is love’ (I John 4.16) as it is said ‘God is spirit’ (John 4.24).”

4. Again, by reason: every creature can be understood to be non-good, because it is good by participation; but charity cannot be understood to be non-good; therefore      it seems that it is good by essence, -     therefore , etc     .

5. On the contrary:

Augustine On the Morals of the Church, treating of the saying in Romans 8.35 ‘Who will separate us from the love of Christ’, says: “This sort of love of God is called virtue, which is the most correct affection of the spirit.”