Single Question. Whether there is a Theological Virtue Inclining One to Love God above all Things

1. About the twenty seventh distinction I aska whether there is some theological virtue inclining one to love of God above all things.

a.a [Interpolation] “Since Christ did not have faith and hope” [Lombard]. About the twenty seventh distinction, where the Master deals with the charity whereby we love God, one question is asked, namely whether...

2. That there is not:

Because if there were such a virtue it would be a sort of friendship, as is plain from its act, for its act would be ‘to love’; but according to the Philosopher, Ethics 8.7.1158b27-28, there is no friendship with God, because God disproportionately surpasses us; such excess prohibits friendship, according to the Philosopher, because friendship is in some way between equals.

3. Again no virtue moves the possessor of it to an act that is impossible for him; but it is impossible for us to love God above all things.

4. The proof of this is twofold:

First because, from Ethics 9.4.1166a1-2, “the features of friendship with another are measured by those relative to oneself;” but the thing measured does not exceed the measure in the case of perfect measures; therefore friendship with oneself exceeds friendship with another.

5. Second [n.4], because friendship is founded on unity; it is impossible that anything be for a lover equally one with him.

6. Again, third, to the principal point: someone without virtue can love God above all things;     therefore no theological virtue is needed for this purpose.

7. Proof of the antecedent:

First because if it is possible to love from habit it is possible to love without a habit, for a habit does not bestow the simple possibility since then it would be the power.

8. Second [n.7] because it is possible by natural power to enjoy a thing and not necessarily in an inordinate way; but there is no ordered enjoyment about anything save God; therefore etc     .

9. Further, from frequent acts of loving God above all things a habit can be acquired like the one by which we meritoriously love God above all things [1 d.17 nn. 129-142]) - a habit that inclines to love of God above all things;     therefore charity cannot be in someone who has such a habit, because if so two habits of the same species would exist in the same person, which seems unacceptable.

10. The antecedent is plain because if (from the preceding argument [nn.6-8]) it is possible to love God above all things by one’s natural powers, then it is possible to love frequently thus; loving God above all things generates this sort of habit; therefore etc     .

11. Nor can it be said that these two habits are compatible with each other on the ground they are of different species because of their efficient causes; for an efficient cause alone does not distinguish effects into species, as is plain from Augustine On the Trinity 3.9 n.20 and Ambrose On the Incarnation 9 n.105, who say that difference of origin does not diversify the species (it is plain there about man as produced by creation and generation, for Adam was of the same species as I am);     therefore etc     .

12. The contrary is said by the Master in the text (3 d.27.2 nn.1-2) and by Augustine On Christian Doctrine 1.26 n.27.

I. To the Question

13. In this question three things must be looked at: first, because habits are manifested by acts, one must look at the act ‘loving God above all things’, as to whether it is a right act such that there could be a virtue for it; second, about the formal idea of the object of this act and of the habit that inclines one to first act; third, whether nature without an infused habit is capable of this act.

A. Loving God above All Things is a Right Act

14. About the first article [n.13] I say that the love God above all things is an act conform to right reason which bids what is best to be supremely loved, and so it is an act that is of itself right; indeed its rectitude is self-evident (as the rectitude of the first principle in matters of action); for something is to be supremely loved and nothing other than the supreme Good, just as nothing other than the supreme truth is to be most held true in the intellect. There is a confirmation too, that moral precepts belong to the law of nature, and consequently ‘Love the Lord your God etc.’ belongs to the law of nature, and so it is known that this act is right.

15. From this follow that there can be a virtue naturally inclining one to this act - and that a theological virtue, for it is about a theological object, namely God, immediately. Nor is this all, but it also rests immediately on the first rule of human acts, and it has to be infused by God; for this rule is of a nature to perfect the higher part of the soul, which is not perfected most perfectly save immediately by God.

16. This virtue is distinct from faith, because its act is not understanding or believing. It is also distinct from hope for its act is not to desire a good for the lover insofar as it is of advantage to the lover, but it tends to the object in itself, even if the advantage for the lover were, per impossibile, to be removed.

17. This virtue, then, which perfects the will insofar as it has the affection of justice, I call charity.

B. On the Formal Object of this Act

1. Three Ways or Opinions, from Others

18. About the second article [n.13], it seems that one of the following ways must be held: that the formal object of this sort of habit is God in himself according to his absolute idea [n.20], or that it is God insofar as he is agreeable to the lover [n.19], or third insofar as it includes both, namely as it is a certain infinite good in itself of which the lover is a sort of participation, in the way that the finite is a certain participation in the infinite good.

19. The second way [Aquinas] would thus posit that God, although insofar he is the good of the creature, as giving the creature its being, he is to be loved with natural love, yet insofar as he gives beatific being he is to be loved with charity, and so the object of charity would be God insofar as he is the beatific object of the lover.

20. The first way [n.18] would be posited because of what has just been touched upon [n.19], for it is not enough for someone’s being supremely loved that he be alone in himself the supreme good (as the infinite Good), but there is need in addition that he be the good of this lover insofar as he is participated by the lover.

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.

3. Scotus’ own Response

29. As to this article [n.18] I say that the objective idea of the act or habit of charity can be understood in three ways; either, first, that (taken in itself) it is of a nature to be the idea of the term per se; or, second, that it is an idea preceding an act, because of which the act is of a nature to be elicited about the object; or, third, that it accompanies the act, or is rather a sort of consequence of the elicited act.

30. The first idea is the proper objective idea, and nothing else is properly and strictly speaking; and this objective idea is the idea of God in himself. But the precise idea of ‘this essence’ is the formal idea that terminates every theological act and habit, and it is so in the case of any intellectual nature (as was touched on in 1 Prol. n.206). The proof in brief is that a power that regards a common object adequate to it either in idea of mover or in idea of term cannot be most perfectly at rest save in that alone in which is found the most perfect idea of adequate object; every intellectual and volitional power regards as adequate first object in term and in motive the totality of being; therefore in no being, created or uncreated, can it be perfectly at rest save in that in which is found the most perfect idea of being. But such alone is the first being, and not under any relative idea but under the idea by which it is ‘this being’.

31. The second idea [n.29] can in some way be called an idea objective with respect precisely to loving, for it is in some way of a nature to draw things to love it; and such in the question at issue is the idea of this nature relative to the lover, which idea is the good as communicative of itself. For just as in us a thing is loved first because of the good as noble, secondly because it is known to love back, so that this loving back is a special idea of lovability in it, drawing one to love something, an idea which is different from the idea in it of the noble - so in God not only does the infinite goodness, or this nature as this, draw to love of it, but precisely because this goodness will love me by communicating itself to me I then, for this reason, elicit an act of love about it. And in this second degree of lovability can be placed everything that the idea of lovability can show itself in -whether by creating or repairing or disposing for beatification - so that there is no distinction between these, nor does charity regard more the last or second idea than the first, but all of them together as certain ideas not only of the good as noble but of the good that communicates and loves - and because it loves therefore is it worthy of being loved back, according to the words of I John 4.19, ‘We love God because he first loved us.’

32. The third idea [n.29], which is the object completing the act, is not properly the objective formal idea, because it follows naturally the elicited act; and yet, to the extent it always accompanies the act it could be posited to be some idea of the object. And in this way God is loved insofar as he is the beatifying good object of lovability (just as he would be said to be loved to the extent he is supremely loved) - and this not through idea of object but through the idea in the object that accompanies the act.

33. An example of this threefold distinction [n.29]: suppose there were one most beautiful visible object that was so from the nature of the thing; second posit that it gives the power of vision when seen; third suppose that that which is the idea of the term of sighted love, if sight could primarily love such an object, were concomitant to the thing seen, insofar as the thing seen is got by the eye in the act of seeing. - The first point is the idea itself of such a nature, to the extent that in such a nature is perfectly found the idea of the object adequate to such power (as far as the idea can exist in anything). The second is a certain idea drawing to an act of love to the extent it has communicated itself by giving the power of seeing. The third is the idea that is concomitant to the act, in which sight is perfectly at rest. Absolutely, then, the first idea of the seeing, or of love in sight (if sight could love), would be the idea of ‘this nature’ - least and most improperly would it be the idea of what is attained by the act.

34. From this is seen to follow that those speak most improperly who say that God as he is the beatific object is the object of charity [n.19], if they mean by ‘beatific’ an actual respect (insofar as it is the term with respect to the act of beatifying [n.24]) - but if they mean aptitudinal respect, then (as was argued [n.24]) this is only the idea of being the term because the nature is the idea of being the term.

C. Whether an Infused Habit is Necessary

1. Opinion of Henry of Ghent

35. As to the third article [n.13], what is set down is that nature does not suffice for this act without an infused habit.

First, because nature is determined to one thing; but it is determined to desiring its own being (On Generation 2.10.336b27-29); therefore it cannot desire its own non-being, and that in whatever way the point is put (unless it be said that nature is determined only to desiring its conditioned being, which does not seem probable). Therefore every intellectual nature is more determined to desiring its own existence than to desiring God’s existence, if both could not stand together; for nature is determined to the desire of its own existence as to one natural object, to whose opposite it cannot be inclined whatever condition one supposes to hold of it; for then it would not seem to desire its own existence save under a condition.

36. Besides natural appetite seems only to regard what is agreeable to the desirer, and consequently it primarily regards that for which the agreeable thing is desired; but that is the lover himself (if it is first in regard o itself); therefore it cannot regard something else more.

2. Arguments of Others against Henry’s Opinion

37. Argument against this opinion:

First, that a part desires the being of the whole more than the being of itself, which is clear in both the macrocosm and the microcosm.

In the macrocosm because water ascends so that there not be a vacuum in the universe (as is plain in many experiments [Roger Bacon, Questions on Aristotle’s Physics; e.g. capillary action]), which however is against the particular natural inclination of water since water is naturally heavy and so tends downwards; but the universal inclination of nature dominates; for the good of the whole universe is hereby preserved, namely the continuity and contiguity of its parts, to which good it strives. In this way water is more inclined to the universal good of the universe than to a particular good.

38. The same also appears in the microcosm, for the hand exposes itself to save the head as naturally desiring more the saving of the head than other parts, and in this regard desiring the saving of the head more than itself, because the saving of the head is, as to life’s operations and vital influences, the saving of all the members.

39. From this further: since each creature is a certain participation in the divine goodness, a creature desires more the being of the divine good than the being of the good of itself; and consequently the rational creature will be able by its natural powers to love the divine good more than any other good, even than itself.

40. Besides, rational nature loves beatitude supremely, as is gathered from Augustine On the Trinity 13.5 n.8; but it loves the beatific object more than beatitude, therefore it loves that object above all things; therefore above itself. A confirmation is that someone who despairs and kills himself hates his being and yet does not hate beatitude, because he desires it could he have it; therefore he loves beatitude more than himself and so the beatific object more than himself.

3. Consideration of the Aforesaid Reasons

41. These reasons are not compelling:

Not the first [nn.37-39] because the examples do not prove the matter at issue [n.39]; for they prove only that the whole loves the good of itself (or loves the more principal parts of the whole) more than it loves the good of a less principal part.

42. The point is plain from the first experiment, about water [n.37]; for it is impossible for water to move itself upward because of some good of the universe; for from the fact it has a natural form, which is determined to one action, that form (remaining numerically the same) can never be the formal idea of acting with the opposite action; water itself, then, does not move itself upwards but is only thus moved upwards by some externally moving agent to which alone it belongs (as far as concerns its own nature) to be upwards; and so water is moved violently when one compares the mover with the proper nature of water. This part then is not loving the good of the whole, nor is it saving the whole by love; rather the whole (or the virtue regulative in the whole), to which are attributed the virtues of the universe, moves each and every part of the universe as befits the wellbeing of the whole. From this then is got that the whole universe loves the wellbeing of the whole more than the wellbeing proper to this or that part.

43. The same conclusion is got from the other example [n.38]; for the hand does not of its own desire expose itself for the whole, but the man, possessing these parts (one of which is more principal and another less principal), exposes the less principal part, which it can lose without danger to the whole, so as to save the whole and the other part which cannot be lost without loss of the whole totality.

44. And thus can you take it in the matter at issue, that God loves the wellbeing of the universe, or even its being, more than the wellbeing of one part, and loves the wellbeing of a principal part than the wellbeing of a less principal part. But you cannot get that some creature loves the being of God or the being of the universe more than its own proper being - just as in the examples given a part left to itself (considered according to its own inclination) never exposes itself to non-existence for the sake of another.

45. The likeness fails in another respect too, for if what is supposed about these parts be true, that is that they are something really of the whole and that, by saving the whole, they save themselves insofar as they have their being in the whole, yet no creature is thus a participated part of God although it is something of God as an effect or participation of him.

46. The second reason too, about beatitude [n.40], is not conclusive because it proceeds only about the affection of advantage [d.26 n.110]; among things indeed that are desired by the lover beatitude is desired most of all, but it is not loved most of all; rather that for which beatitude is desired more is loved more (as the end is loved more than what is for the end). Likewise the assumption about beatitude [n.41] is only true when speaking of it in general and not when determining it to that wherein it consists. So one does not get the conclusion that someone loves something other than himself more than he loves himself, for it has not been determined that ‘what beatitude exists in’ is other than the lover.

4. Scotus’ own Reasons against Henry

47. Without relying on these arguments then [nn.37-40], I lay down two other arguments for the principal conclusion [nn.38, 52].

The first is: natural reason shows something to the intellectual creature that is to be loved supremely, because in all objects and acts (and that in essentially ordered ones) there is something supreme, and so some supreme love -and thus some object too that is supremely lovable. But right natural reason does not show anything to be supremely lovable other than the infinite Good, because, if it did, charity would incline to the opposite of what right reason dictates and so would not be a virtue; therefore it dictates that only the infinite Good is to be supremely loved. And consequently the will has from natural resources the power for this love; for the intellect cannot rightly dictate anything which, as dictated, the will has naturally no power to aim and tend toward; or, if so, the will would be naturally bad, or at any rate it would be non-free as to tending toward anything according to the idea of good in accord with which the thing is shown to it by the intellect. And this is what was said specifically about the Angels [2 dd.4-5 n.37], that in the state of innocence they were not non-right, for they were unable then to have a non-right act; and they could not have had some non-right elicited act - but one must suppose they had some act,     therefore a right one; and no act could be right save by loving God above all things; therefore etc     .

48. The second reason is as follows: the Philosopher in Ethics 9.9.1169a18-20 holds that a brave citizen should expose himself to death for the good and utility of the republic. Now the Philosopher would not posit that such a citizen will have any reward after this life, as is plain from the many places where he doubts whether the soul is mortal or immortal, and he seems rather to incline to the negative side [cf. Ord. 4 d.43 q.2 nn.13-15] - at any rate if anyone, following natural reason, is in doubt about a future life, he should not, for the sake of a life he doubts, expose himself to risk where the loss of political good and virtue is certain. Therefore, with all future reward is set aside, it is consonant with right reason that every brave citizen wish himself not to live so that the good of the republic not perish. But according to right reason the divine and political good is more to be loved than the good of any particular thing; therefore according to right reason everyone should wish himself not to live because of the divine good.

49. Here a statement is made [Godfrey of Fontaines] that the brave man, in exposing himself to death because of the good of virtue, experiences virtue’s greatest good and greatest pleasure; and for the sake of these very great goods, though brief, he should more choose and love such an act than a life of ignominy; for one intense act is better, as is said in Ethics 9.9.1169a22-25, than any number of non-intense ones; so in this regard the brave man does not choose his own nonexistence but his best existence according to act of virtue - and this best existence is, according to right reason, more to be chosen than many other advantages along with lack of virtue.

50. Against this: he for preserving whose safety and for whom, lest evil happen, I wish something else not to be is simply to be loved more than that other thing that I do not wish for his sake not to be; but such a brave citizen, lest evil befall the republic, wishes himself and his act of virtue not to be; therefore he simply loves more the public good (which he wishes to be preserved) than himself or his act of virtue, for whose preservation he does not expose himself but for the salvation of the republic. And thus does the argument stand [n.48].

51. A third reason is added (and it is a sort of theological one), that if anyone can have, by natural power, a perfect act of virtue of loving God above all things, then he who found himself inclined to such an act could know that he was in charity, because without charity there would be no such inclination to love God above all things.

52. The consequent is false [n.51], therefore the antecedent is too.

5. Scotus’ own Opinion

53. As to this article [n.35], because of these two reasons, about the conformity of right reason and will and about the brave citizen [nn.47-48], I concede the conclusion that, at least in the state of innocence, it is possible for some will by its natural power to love God above all things.

54. To make this clear I first expound how ‘above all things’ is to be understood; second how the rational creature is obligated to this; and third why, nevertheless, a habit of charity is necessary.

a. How ‘above all Things’ is to be understood

55. As to the first point I say that ‘above all things’ can be understood extensively or intensively; namely extensively in that one love God more than all other things, because, that is, one more quickly wishes by some affection that all other things not be than that God not be; intensively in that one wishes with greater affection well-being to God than to anything else.

56. As to extension, it is commonly conceded that no single thing besides God, and not even everything together, is as valuable as God.

57. As to intension the following sort of distinction is set down, that love exceeds love either because it is more fervent or tender or because it is stronger or firmer; and these loves are said to exceed each other, as that a mother is said to love her child more fervently and tenderly while the father loves his child more strongly and firmly (because he would expose himself to a greater danger for love of his child). In this way it would be said that the love of God should be ‘above all things’ as to firmness so that nothing else could turn one away from him; but it is not necessary that it be ‘above all things’ as to tenderness and fervor and sweetness, because sometimes someone finds himself loving creatures more fervently than he otherwise loves God (as is plain in zealous types). And there is a confirmation, that if someone could, for the present state, love God supremely above all things in both ways, then he could fulfill the precept of Deuteronomy 6.5, ‘Thou shalt love the Lord thy God etc.’; but the opposite is held by the Master in the text and by Augustine, who maintain that this precept is not something we should fulfill but something we should tend toward.

58. An argument against this distinction [n.55] is that that alone is more loved which is more firmly loved; for I love that more which I less will that evil happen to, and for the preservation of whose good I expose myself out of love, for ‘to expose’ follows ‘to love’ - meaning this of the love that is an act of will and not of the other love that is a passion of the sense appetite. Although therefore some are sometimes said to love more fervently and tenderly who do not love more firmly, there is not for this reason any excess of any intellective love in them but perhaps of some passion, namely of some sense love; just as others, who are said to be devoted, sometimes feel some greater sweetness than others much more solid and firm in love of God who would a hundred times more promptly undergo martyrdom for him than others would - nor is such sweetness an act elicited by the will, but a certain passion acquired by the act of it, whereby God attracts and nourishes the little ones ‘lest they faint in the way’ [Luke 10.21, Matthew 15.32].

59. I say therefore that ‘above all things’ must be understood in both ways, extensively and intensively. For as I am held to love God above all things extensively so also am I held to love him intensively too with greater affection than simply anything else; I say ‘greater’, because it more opposes the opposite effect [sc. hate], in opposing which it could more easily be inclined to the opposite of any other love than to the opposite of the love of God.

60. As to what is added about the precept [n.57] - by the same reasoning it would have been necessary to give a precept about the vision of God, not that it be fulfilled but that we know whither we should tend - the opposite of which is sufficiently plain.

61. I say     therefore that the precept as to extension and as to intension can, according to the present way [n.53], be fulfilled by the wayfarer - but not as to all the conditions that are expressed by the additions ‘with your whole heart and your whole mind etc     .’ For a wayfarer cannot have as great a recollecting of his powers, with all impediments removed, that his will should be able to be carried forward with as great an effort as it could be if his powers were united and recollected and all impediments removed. And Augustine’s and the Master’s statement, that the precept is not fulfilled by the wayfarer [n.57], must be understood as to the same sort of intension, when all impediments are expelled and the powers recollected; for the proneness of the lower powers in this present state holds back the higher ones from the perfection of their acts.

b. How the Rational Creature is bound to love God above All Things

62. As to this point I say that the affirmative precept of Deuteronomy 6 and Matthew 22 ‘You shall love the Lord your God etc.’ is not only always obligatory against the opposite, namely that there be no act of hate, but is also obligatory for sometimes eliciting an act of love, because this act concerns the end from whose goodness comes all the moral goodness in acts that are for the end. If then a man is obliged to have some virtuous act sometimes, he is obliged to have this precept’s act sometimes, about loving the end freely. But when this should perhaps be is determined by the other divine precept, ‘Keep holy the Sabbath’ and ‘let each remain with himself’ (Exodus 20.18, 16.29-30), recollecting himself and rising up to his God; and the Church has specified it as to hearing mass on the Lord’s day (Gratian, Decrees 3 d.1 ch.64 [Ord. 3 d.9 nn.18-20]). The like does not hold of the precept to love one’s neighbor, as will appear in d.28 nn.17-20.

c. What the Habit of Charity is Necessary for

63. As to the third statement of this article, namely the habit of charity [n.54], I reply as was said elsewhere, in 1 d.17 nn.64, 69-70, namely that this habit gives to the act (as far as concerns the substance of the act) some intensity beyond what the power alone itself and by equal effort could give to the act. And however much more perfect the created power might be, it would to the same extent be imperfect if it does not have a created charity proportionally corresponding to it (I mean in arithmetical proportion, which is equality in geometrical proportion); for a lesser will, if it does not have a charity proportional to it, fails as much as a geometrically greater will seems to fail if it does not have a charity proportional to it.

64. But as to the circumstance of the act that is its ‘being accepted by God’, it was said in 1 d.17 nn.129, 152 that this act is principally in an act of charity and less principally in an act from the will.

65. I therefore say briefly what was said there about the necessity of habits because of acts, and principally the necessity of charity, as regards something that belongs to the circumstances of acts; but as to the substance of acts I say what was said there [nn.53, 65, 92-97].

66. Also as to the condition of the habit, namely that it is infused, I say what was said about faith and hope, that no one can prove such infused habits by natural reason, but it is held only by faith; and good congruity is apparent, because as to acts about God immediately elicited it does not seem probable that the higher part could be most supremely perfected save immediately by God.

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.