Book 7 — CHAPTER XL (continued 2)

We come to man. He has will, and free will or choice, as the angels have. Will is part of the intellectual nature: it is as the intellectivus appetitus. But man differs from the angels in possessing appetites which belong to his sense-nature and do not perceive the good in its common aspects; because sense does not apprehend the universal, but only the particular.[608] Sometimes Thomas speaks of amor as including every form of desire, intellectual or pertaining to the world of sense. “The first movement of will and of any appetitive faculty (virtus) is amor.”[609] So in this most general signification amor “is something belonging to appetite; for the object of both is the good.”

“The first effect of the desirable (appetibilis) upon the appetitus, is called amor; thence follows desiderium, or the movement toward the desirable; and at last the quies which is gaudium. Since then amor consists in an effect upon the appetitus, it is evidently passio; most properly speaking when it relates to the yearning element (concupiscibile), but less properly when it relates to will” (Pars prima, Qu. xxvi. Art. 2).

Further distinguishing definitions are now in order:

“Four names are applied to what pertains to the same: amor, dilectio, caritas, et amicitia. Of the three first, amor has the broadest meaning. For all dilectio or caritas is amor; but not conversely. Dilectio adds to amor a precedent choice (electionem praecedentem) as its name indicates. Hence dilectio is not in the concupiscent nature, but in the will, and therefore in the rational nature. Caritas adds to amor a certain perfectionem amoris, inasmuch as what is loved, is esteemed as very precious, as the name shows” (Ibid. Art. 3).

Moreover, amor may be divided into amor amicitiae, whereby we wish good to the amicus, and amor concupiscentiae, whereby properly we desire a good to ourselves.

The Good is the object and, in that sense, the cause, of amor (Qu. xxvii.).

“But love requires a cognition of the good which is loved. Therefore the Philosopher says, that bodily sight is the cause of amoris sensitivi. Likewise contemplation of spiritual beauty or goodness is the cause of amoris spiritualis. Thus, therefore, cognition is the cause of love, inasmuch as the good cannot be loved unless known.”

From this broad conception of amor the argument rises to amor in its purest phases, which correspond to the highest modes of knowledge man is capable of. They are considered in their nature, in their causes, and effects. It is evident whither we are travelling in this matter.

“Love (amor) may be perfect or imperfect. Perfect love is that by which some one is loved for himself, as a man loves a friend. Imperfect love is that by which some one loves a thing, not for itself, but in order that that good may come to him, as a man loves the thing he desires. The first love pertains to caritas which cleaves to God (inhaeret Deo) for Himself (secundum seipsum).”[610]

Caritas is one of the theological virtues, and as such Thomas treats it. To it corresponds the “gift” of sapientia, likewise a virtue bestowed by God, but more particularly regarded as the “gift” of the Holy Spirit. Caritas is set not in the appetitus sensitivus, but in the will. Yet as it exceeds our natural faculties, “it is not in us by nature, nor acquired through our natural powers; but through the infusion of the Holy Spirit, who is the amor Patris et Filii.” He infuses caritas according to His will; and it will increase as we draw near to God; nor is there any bound to its augmentation. May caritas be perfect in this life? In one sense it never can be perfect, because no creature ever can love God according to His infinite lovableness.

“But on the part of him who wills to love (ex parte diligentis), caritas is perfect when he loves as much as he is able. Which may be taken in three ways. In one way, as the whole heart of man is always borne toward God; and this is the perfection of the love of home (caritas patriae), unattainable here, where because of this life’s infirmities it is impossible always actually to think upon God, and be drawn toward Him by voluntary love (dilectione). In another way, as a man may strive to keep himself free for God and things divine, laying other matters aside, save as life’s need requires: and that is the perfection of caritas, possible in this life, yet not for all who have caritas. And the third way, when any one habitually sets his heart on God, so that he thinks and wills nothing that is contrary to the divine love: this perfection is common to all who have caritas.”[611]

The caritas with which we love God, extends to our neighbours, and even to our enemies, for God’s sake; also to ourselves, including our bodies; it embraces sinners, but not their sinfulness. It embraces the angels. There is order and grade in caritas, according to its relationship to God, the source of beatitude and voluntary love (dilectionis). God is to be loved ex caritate above all; for He is loved as the cause of beatitude, while our neighbour is loved as a participant with us in the beatitude from God. We should love God more than ourselves; because beatitude is in God as in the common and fontal source of all things that participate in beatitude.

“But, after God, man should love himself, in so far as he is spirit (secundum naturam spiritualem), more than any one else. This is plain from the very reason of loving. God is loved as the principle of good, on which the dilectio caritatis is based. Man loves himself ex caritate for the reason that he is a participator in that good. He loves his neighbour because of his association (societas) in that good.... Participation in the divine good is a stronger reason for loving, than association in this participation. Therefore, man ex caritate should love himself more than his neighbour; and the mark (signum) of this is, that man should not commit any sin barring his participation in this beatitude, in order to free his neighbour from sin.... But one should love his neighbour’s salvation more than his own body.”[612]

We may love some of our neighbours more than others; for those bound to us by natural ties and proximity can be loved more and in more actual ways. The order and grades of love will endure when our natures are perfected in glory.

Love (caritas) is the supreme theological virtue. It comes to us in this life through grace; it can be perfected only when grace is consummated in glory. Likewise the highest knowledge possible in this life comes through grace, to be perfected in glory. All is from God, and that which, of all the rest, seems most freely given is the divine influence disposing the intelligence and will toward good, and illuminating these best God-given faculties. This, as par excellence, through the exceeding bounty of its free bestowal, is called gratia (grace). It is a certain habitual disposition of the soul; it is not the same as virtus, but a divinely implanted disposition, in which the virtues must be rooted; it is the imparted similitude of the divine nature, and perfects the nature of the soul, so far as that has part in likeness to the divine: it is the medial state between nature and that further consummation of the grace-illumined nature, which is glory; and so it is the beginning, the inchoatio, of our glorified beatitude. Clearly, grace is no part of our inborn nature, and does not belong to our natural faculties. It is a divinely bestowed increment, directing our natural faculties toward God and uplifting them to higher capacities of knowing and loving.

To follow Thomas’s exposition of grace a little more closely:[613] man, through his natural powers, may know truth, but not the highest; and without grace, our fallen nature cannot will all the good belonging to it (connaturale), nor love God above all else, nor merit eternal life. “Grace is something supernatural in man coming from God.” It

“is not the same as virtue; and its subject (i.e. its possessor, that in which it is set) cannot be a faculty (potentia) of the soul; for the soul’s faculties, as perfected, are conceived to be virtues. Grace, which is prior to virtue, is set, not in the faculties, but in the essence of the soul. Thus, as through his faculty of knowing (potentiam intellectivam), man shares the divine knowledge by the virtue of faith, and through the faculty of will shares the divine love by the virtue of caritas, so by means of a certain similitude he shares in the divine nature through some regeneration or recreation” (Pars I. ii., Qu. cx. Art. 4).

Grace may be conceived either as “divine aid, moving us to willing and doing right, or as a formative and abiding (habituale) gift, divinely placed in us” (Qu. cxi. Art. 2). “The gift of grace exceeds the power of any created nature; and is nothing else than a sharing (participatio) of the divine nature” (Qu. cxii. Art. 1).

So it is clear that without grace man cannot rise to the highest knowledge and the purest love of which he is capable in this life; far less can he reach that final and perfected blessedness which is expected hereafter. For this he must possess the virtue of Faith, which comes not without grace.

“The perfection of the rational creature consists not only in that which may be his, in accordance with his nature; but also in that which may come to him from some supernatural sharing in the divine goodness. The final beatitude of man consists in some supernatural vision of God. Man can attain to that only through some mode of learning from God the Teacher, and he must believe God as a disciple believes his master” (Pars II. ii., Qu. ii. Art. 3).

Within the province of the Christian Faith “it is necessary that man should accept per modum fidei not only what is above reason, but also what may be known through reason.” (Art. 4). He must believe explicitly the prima credibilia, that is to say, the Articles of Faith; it is enough if he believes other credibilia implicitly, by holding his mind prepared to accept whatever Scripture teaches (Art. 5).

“To believe is an act of the intellect (actus intellectus) as moved by will to assenting. It proceeds from the will and from the intellect.... Yet it is the immediate act of the intellect, and therefore faith is in the intellect as in a subject [i.e. possessor]” (Qu. iv. Art. 2).

And Thomas, having shown the function of will in any act of faith, passes on by the same path to connect fides with caritas:

“Voluntary acts take their species from the end which is the object of volition. That from which anything receives its species, occupies the place held by form in material things. Hence, as it were, the form of any voluntary act is the end to which it is directed (ordinatur). Manifestly, an act of faith is directed to the object willed (which is the good) as to an end. But good which is the end of faith, to wit, the divine good, is the proper object of caritas. And so caritas is called the form of faith, in so far as through caritas the act of faith is perfected and given form” (Qu. iv. Art. 3).

Thomas makes his conclusion more precise:

“As faith is the consummation of the intellect, that which pertains to the intellect, pertains, per se, to faith. What pertains to will, does not, per se, pertain to faith. The increment making the difference between the faith which has form and faith which lacks it (fides formata, fides informis), consists in that which pertains to will, to wit, to caritas, and not in what pertains to intellect” (Qu. iv. Art. 4).

Only the fides which is formed and completed in caritas is a virtue (Art. 5). And Thomas says concisely (Qu. vi. Art. 1) what in many ways has been made evident before: For Faith, it is necessary that the credibilia should be propounded, and then that there should be assent to them; but since man, in assenting to those things which are of the Faith, is lifted above his nature, his assent must proceed from a supernatural principle working within him, which is God moving him through grace.

It is not hard to see why two gifts (dona) of the Holy Spirit should belong to the virtue Faith, to wit, understanding and knowledge, intellectus et scientia. Thomas gives the reasons in an argument germane to his Aristotelian theory of cognition:

“The object of the knowing faculty is that which is.... Many kinds of things lie hidden within, to which the intellectus of man should penetrate. Beneath the accidens the substantial nature of the thing lies hidden; beneath words lie their meanings; beneath similes and figures, lies the figured truth—veritas figurata (for things intelligible are, as it were, within things sensible); and in causes lie hidden the effects, and conversely. Now, since human cognition begins with sense, as from without, it is clear that the stronger the light of the intellect, the further it will penetrate to the inmost depths. But the light of our natural intellect is of finite virtue, and may reach only to what is limited. Therefore man needs the supernatural light, in order to penetrate to the knowledge which through the natural light he is not able to know; and that supernatural light given to man is called the donum intellectus” (Qu. viii. Art. 1).

This gift follows grace. Grace is more perfect than nature. It does not abrogate, but perfects the natural faculties. Nor does it fail in those matters in which man’s natural power is competent (Qu. ix. Art. 1). So, besides the donum intellectus, to Faith belongs the donum scientiae also, which brings and guides knowledge of human things (Art. 2).

And now we shall not be surprised to find sapientia, the very highest gift of the Spirit, attached to the grace-given virtue caritas. For caritas is the informing principle of Faith, and the highest virtue of the grace-illumined will. The will, be it remembered, belongs to man’s intellectual nature; its object is the good which is known by the mind (bonum intellectum). “Sapientia (wisdom, right knowledge as to the highest cause, which is God) signifies rectitude of judgment in accordance with the rationes divinae,” the ideas and reasons which exist in God. Rectitude of judgment regarding things divine may arise from rational inquiry; in which case it pertains to the sapientia which is an intellectual virtue. But it may also spring from affinity to those things themselves; and then it is a gift of the Holy Spirit (II. ii., Qu. xlv. Art. 2).

Says Thomas:

“By the name beatitude is understood the final perfection of the rational or intellectual nature. This consists for this life in such contemplation as we may have here of the highest intelligible good, which is God; but above this felicity is that other felicity which we expect when we shall see God as He is” (Pars I., Qu. lxii Art 1).

But mark: the perfection of the intellectual nature does not consist merely in knowing, narrowly taken. The right action of will is also essential, of the will directed toward the highest good, which is God: and this is caritas, of which the corresponding gift from the Spirit is wisdom. In accord with this full consummation of human nature, comprising the perfection of cognition and will, Thomas outlines his conception of the vita contemplativa, the life of most perfect beatitude attainable on earth:

“The vita contemplativa is theirs whose resolve is set upon the contemplation of truth. Resolve is an act of will; because resolve is with respect to the end, which is the object of will. Thus the vita contemplativa, according to the essence of its action, is of the intelligence; but so far as it pertains to what moves us to engage in such action, it is of the will, which moves all the other faculties, including the intelligence, to act. Appetitive energy (vis appetitiva) moves toward contemplating something, either sensibly or intellectually: sometimes from love of the thing seen, and sometimes from love of the knowledge itself, which arises from contemplation. And because of this, Gregory sets the vita contemplativa in the love of God—in caritate Dei—to wit, inasmuch as some one, from a willing love (dilectio) of God burns to behold His beauty. And because any one is rejoiced when he attains what he loves, the vita contemplativa is directed toward dilectio[614] which lies in affect (in affectu); by which amor also is intended” (II. ii., Qu. clxxx. Art. 1).

The moral virtues, continues Thomas, do not pertain essentially to this vita. But they may promote it, by regulating the passions and quieting the tumult of outside affairs. In principle it is fixed upon the contemplation of truth, which here we see but in a glass darkly; and so we help ourselves along by contemplating the effects of the divine cause in the world.

Thus final beatitude, and its mortal approach in the vita contemplativa of this earth, is of the mind, both in its knowledge and its love. Immateriality, spirituality, is with Thomas primarily intellectual. Yet his beatitude is not limited to the knowing faculties. It embraces will and love. The grace of God and the gifts of the Holy Spirit touch love as well as knowledge, raising one and both to final unison of aim. Thus far in this life, while in the life to come, these grace-uplifted qualities of knowledge, and that choosing love (dilectio) which rises from knowledge of the good, are perfected in gloria.

Further than this we shall not go with Thomas, nor follow him, for example, through his exposition of the means of salvation—the Incarnation and the sacraments. Nor need we further mark the prodigious range of his theology, or his metaphysics, logic, or physics. To all this many books have been devoted. We are but seeking to realise his intellectual interests and qualities, in such way as to bring them within the compass of our sympathy. A more encyclopaedic and systematic presentation of his teaching is proper for those who would trace, or perhaps attach themselves to, particular doctrines; or would find in scholasticism, even in Thomas, some special authoritativeness. For us these doctrines have but the validity of all human striving after truth. Moreover, perhaps a truer view of Thomas, the theologian and philosopher, is gained from following a few typical forms of his teaching presented in his own exposition, than by analyzing his thought with later solvents which he did not apply, and presenting his matter classified as he would not have ordered it, and in modern phrases, which have as many meanings foreign to scholasticism as scholasticism has thoughts not to be translated into modern ways of thinking.