2. Rejection of the Opinion

21. Argument against the first way [n.18] is that then, if there were, per impossibile, another God, he should be loved above all things with charity -which seems unacceptable of itself. It also seems unacceptable by reason, because there cannot be two things that are lovable above all things, because each would be loved above the other, and then one and the same thing would be loved above itself.

22. Second, because if the idea of ‘the simply good’ is the idea of the good lovable above all things, then the idea of a greater good is the idea of a greater lovable - and thus everyone would be obliged to love more than himself a neighbor better than himself, which does not seem probable.

23. The second way [n.19] does not seem probable because the act of charity - if it is perfect - has regard to God under the most perfect idea of lovability; but the most perfect idea of lovability in God is not the comparison of him to any creature but is some idea of lovability in itself; for an ‘in itself’ is absolutely better than any relation to another could be.

24. Further, if the supreme good, insofar as it is beatific, is the principal object of charity, I ask what is the beatific thing: is it an aptitudinal respect whereby it is of a nature to beatify, or is it an actual respect whereby, namely, it does actually beatify?

If in the first way, and the aptitude is not the reason for terminating a perfect act perfectly save by reason of the nature that such an aptitude belongs to (just as neither is any aptitude in itself universally a perfection but does necessarily carry with it the nature that it is present in) - then to say that God is thus the beatific object of charity is to say that he is, as far as he is of such a nature, the object of charity.

The second way does not seem probable, because the relation that is in the object insofar as it actually beatifies follows the act; for there is in the object no difference between the actual and aptitudinal respect, save because the act is elicited about the object; therefore to say this would be to posit that - insofar as it terminates the act elicited by charity - it would have the formal idea of the object of the act. Likewise ‘to desire the good for this person’ belongs to the affection for advantage, and according to this affection the will is not perfected by charity.

25. Besides both actual and aptitudinal beatitude, if it states anything in God, states precisely a relation of reason, actual or aptitudinal; no respect of reason can be the formal idea terminating the act of charity.

26. And the arguments touched in 1 Prol. nn.164-166 can be adduced for this point;     therefore etc     .

27. Against the third way [n.18] the argument is that there does not seem to be a double objective formal idea to the same act; one of them is put as formal with respect to charity and not both together. And from this the argument further is that the one that is the formal idea when joined with the other would, if it existed per se, be the per se formal object, as is plain in the case of other formal ideas (for example, if conjoined heat is the formal idea of heating, it would, if it existed by itself, still be the formal idea of heating); the one of the two, then, that is now the per se objective idea would, if it existed per se, be the per se term of the act, and consequently the other would not be and is not now the term.

28. Further, if some intellectual creature existed a se and was not an effect from another and was infinite of itself (as is the supposition attributed to the Philosopher about the intelligences other than the first [Scotus, Quodl. Q.7 n.37]), such a creature could love God above all things and love, in accord with right reason, nothing other than the first, and yet it would not be a participation, speaking of effectuality, in the first.