The Summa of Theology of Saint Thomas Aquinas volume 1
1.Is love found in God?
2. Does God love all things?
3. Does he love someone more than another?
4. Does he like the best people more?
Article 1 — Is love found in God?
Objections:
1. It seems not. For there is no passion in God. Love is a passion. So there is no love in God.
2 . Love, anger, sadness, etc. are distinguished as opposites in the same gender. However, sadness and anger are only attributed to God by metaphor. So also love.
3 . We read in Dionysius: “Love is a unifying force and a principle of cohesion. ” But this cannot find place in God, since it is simple. Such a force cannot find use in an absolutely simple being.
On the contrary , we read in St. John (1 Jn 4:16): “God is love. ”
Answer:
We necessarily find love in God. In fact, the first movement of the will or of any appetitive faculty is love. For the act of the will, or the act of the appetite whatever it may be, is directed as to its own object towards good and towards evil. But the good is principally and in itself the object of the will as of all appetite; evil secondarily by virtue of something else, that is to say the good to which it is opposed. It is therefore necessary that the acts of will and of every appetite which regard good have a natural priority over those which regard evil: thus joy over sadness, and love over hatred; for that which is such in itself is always prior to that which is such only by something else.
Furthermore, that which is more general is first by nature; this is why intelligence relates first to truth universally, and only then to particular truths. Now, there are acts of will or appetite which concern the good envisaged under some particular condition: thus joy, delight, is relative to the good present and possessed; the desire and hope for the good not yet obtained. On the contrary, love relates to good in general, whether possessed or not. It is therefore love which is by nature the first act of the will or the appetite.
It is for this reason that all appetitive movements presuppose love as their first root. We desire nothing other than what is good and what we love; in nothing else can we find joy. As for hatred, it is only aimed at what is an obstacle to the thing loved. It is equally obvious that sadness and other similar movements refer to love as their first principle. We must conclude from this that in every being where there is some appetitive faculty, there must be love; because by removing what is first, we remove everything that comes after. Now, it has been shown that there is a will in God: it is necessary to affirm that there is love in him.
Solutions:
1. Cognitive power only moves through the appetitive power. And just as in us reason which conceives the universal only moves by means of particular reason, as is said in the treatise On the Soul: so the intellectual appetite called will sets us in motion by means of of the sensory appetite. So what immediately makes the body move in us is the sensitive appetite. From which it follows that an act of the sensitive appetite is always accompanied by a bodily modification, mainly affecting the heart, which is the first principle of movement in living things. This is why the acts of the sensitive appetite, as linked to a bodily alteration, are “passions”, and not acts of will. Love therefore, and joy or delight, when it comes to acts of the sensitive appetite, are passions; but not if they are acts of the intellectual appetite. But this is how we attribute them to God. Which makes the Philosopher say: “God enjoys a single and simple action. ”Similarly, and for the same reason, he loves without it being a passion.
2. In the passions of the sensitive appetite, there is reason to distinguish what is in some way material, namely bodily alteration, and what is formal, which comes from the appetite. Thus, in anger, as the treatise On the Soul notes, what is material is the rush of blood to the heart, or anything of that sort; the formal is the appetite for revenge. But furthermore, on the formal side, some of these passions imply a certain imperfection; and for example, in desire is included the idea of a good not possessed, in sadness, that of an evil suffered. And it is the same with anger, which implies sadness. Other passions, like love and joy, involve no imperfection. Therefore, since nothing in these appetitive movements suits God as to what is material there, as we have just said, we can only attribute to God by metaphor what implies the same imperfection on the side of that which is formal, to express the similarity of effects, as has been explained. But that which does not contain any imperfection can be attributed to God in the literal sense, like love and joy, but excluding passion, as we have just said.
3. Love always tends towards two ends: the good thing that it wants for someone, and the one for whom it wants it. To love someone is to truly want what is good for them. This is why to love oneself is to want for oneself what is good, so that one seeks to unite it as much as one can. This is what we mean when we call love a unifying force, even in God, but without there being a composition of elements, because the good that God wants for him is none other than himself. -itself, which is good in essence, as we showed previously. But to love someone other than yourself is to want what is good for them. Thus, it is to deal with him as with oneself, relating to him the good thing that one loves, as to oneself. It is in this sense that love is called a principle of cohesion: because the one who loves integrates the other into his self, behaving with him as with himself. Divine love, too, is a cohesive force, not because it introduces any composition into God, but to the extent that God wants for others what is good.
Article 2 — Does God love all things?
Objections:
1 . It seems not. For, according to Dionysius, love puts the magnet outside of itself and makes it, as it were, pass into the beloved. Now, it is impossible to say that God, placed outside himself, thus passes into others. It is therefore impossible to say that God loves all things.
2. God's love is eternal; but things other than God are eternal only in God. God therefore only loves them in himself. But insofar as they are in God, they are nothing other than God. So God loves nothing but himself.
3 . There are two kinds of love: the love of lust and the love of friendship. Now, God does not love creatures devoid of reason with a love of lust, having no need of anything external to Him. Nor does he love them with a love of friendship, which one cannot have for creatures devoid of reason, according to Aristotle's remark.
4 . In Psalm (5, 6) we say to God: “You hate all the workers of iniquity. “But you cannot hate and love something at the same time. So God does not love all things.
On the contrary , we read in the book of Wisdom (11, 24): “You love everything that exists; you don't hate anything you've done. ”
Answer:
God loves everything that exists; for whatever exists, insofar as it exists, is good; indeed, the very being of each thing is a good, and every perfection of this thing is also a good. Now, it was shown above that the will of God is the cause of all things; thus it is necessary that everything has being and perfection only to the extent that it is willed by God. Therefore, God wants some good for everything that exists. Since loving is nothing other than wanting something good for someone, it is obvious that God loves everything that exists.
But this love is not like ours. Indeed, as our will is not the cause of the goodness of things, but is moved by it as by its own object, our love, by which we want for someone what is good for him, is not because of his goodness; on the contrary, it is his goodness, true or supposed, which provokes the love by which we want for him that the good that he possesses be preserved, and that that which he does not possess be added to it; and we are acting for this. But God's love infuses and creates goodness in things.
Solutions:
1. The lover is put outside of himself in the beloved, insofar as he wants for the beloved what is good for him and provides for it by his action, as he does for himself. Also Dionysius adds: “Let us dare to say it: the very Love of all things, in the abundance of its loving goodness, comes out of itself when it exercises its providences with regard to all beings. ”
2 . Creatures have not existed from all eternity, except in God; but by the very fact that they have been from all eternity in God, from all eternity God has known them in their own natures, and for the same reason he loved them. Likewise we: through the representations of things in us, we know the things that exist in themselves.
3. We can only love with friendship reasonable creatures, in whom we find the reciprocity of love and the communion of life, and who are susceptible to happiness or misfortune according to the chances of fate. Likewise, it is to them alone that our benevolence is properly addressed. Creatures without reason cannot rise either to love God, or to share the intellectual and blessed life which is his. And this is why God, strictly speaking, cannot love these creatures with a love of friendship; but of a kind of covetous love, insofar as he commands them to reasonable creatures and also to himself, not because he needs them, but because of his goodness and our usefulness. Because we can covet something both for ourselves and for others.
4 . Nothing prevents us from feeling, with regard to the same object, love in one respect, and hatred in another. God loves sinners as they are determinate natures and as they are through him. But inasmuch as they are sinners, they are not, they fail to be, and in them this is not of God: therefore, in this respect, they are hated by God.
Article 3 - Does God love one more than the other?
Objections:
1. It seems that God loves all beings equally. For we read in the book of Wisdom (6, 7): “He takes care of all equally. ” Now, God's providence, by which he takes care of things, comes from the love he has for them. So he loves all things equally.
2 . God's love is his very essence. Now, the essence of God does not include more and less. So neither does his love. So he doesn't like some people more than others.
3 God's love extends to created things, as does his knowledge and his will. But we do not say that God knows one thing more than another, nor that he wants it more. So he doesn't like some people more than others.
In the opposite sense , S. Augustine writes: “God loves all the things he has made, and among them he loves his rational creatures most; among these he loves most those who are members of his only Son, and much more his only Son. "
Answer :
Since to love is to want what is good for someone, we can love a being more or less in a double sense. First of all in the sense that the very act of the will is more or less intense. In this way God does not love some more than others, because he loves them all with a simple and always equal will. In another sense, as for the good that we want for the beloved, and there we say that we love more the one for whom we want a greater good, even if it would not be from a more intense will. In this way, it must necessarily be said that God loves some beings more than others. For, since the love of God is the cause of the goodness of things, as we have just said, one thing would not be better than another, if God did not want a greater good for it than for another. other.
Solutions:
1. When we say that God has equal care of all things, this does not mean that he distributes by his care equal goods to all things, but that he administers all things with equal wisdom and equal goodness .
2 . This argument relates to the intensity of love, which affects the act of the will, which is identical with the divine essence. But the good that God wants for creatures is not the divine essence. Also nothing prevents it from being more or less large.
3 . Intellect and will only mean actions; they do not imply, in their meaning, objects whose diversity would make it possible to say that God knows or wants more or less, as we have just said about love.
Article 4 — Does God love the best more?
Objections:
1 . It seems that God doesn't always love the best more. For clearly Christ is better than all mankind, being both God and man. But God loved the human race more than Christ, since St. Paul writes (Rm 8:39): “He did not spare his own Son; but he has delivered for us all. ”
2 . The angel is better than man, of whom the Psalm (8, 6 Vg) says: “You have made him a little lower than the angels. ” Now God loved man more than the angel, as the epistle to the Hebrews (2:16) testifies: “He does not help angels, but posterity of Abraham. ”
3. Peter was better than John, because he loved Christ more. Knowing this, the Lord asked Peter (Jn 21:15): “Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these? ” However, Christ loved John more than Peter. Indeed, on this text where John is called “the one whom Jesus loved”, S. Augustine remarks: “By this expression, John is distinguished from the other disciples; not because he was the only one loved, but because he was loved more than the others. ”So God does not always love what is best more.
4 . An innocent person is better than a penitent, since his penance, says S. Jerome, is “the second plank of salvation after shipwreck”. Now God loves the penitent more than the innocent, since he finds in him more joy, according to St. Luke (15, 7): “I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who does penance only for ninety-nine righteous people who do not need penance. ”
5 . The righteous, whose fall God foresees, is better than the sinner who is the object of his predestination. But God loves the predestined sinner more, since he wants a greater good for him: eternal life. So God doesn't always love the best more.
On the contrary , every being loves his fellow man, as Ecclesiasticus (13, 15) says of “every living being”. Now, the more good a being is, the more he resembles God. So God loves him more.
Answer:
It is necessary, from the above, to affirm that God loves those who are better more. Indeed, it is the will of God that causes things to be good and it is said that, for God, to love something more is to want a greater good for it. Therefore, if some are better, it is only because God wants a greater good for them, and it follows that he loves the best more.
Solutions:
1. It is certain that God loves Christ not only more than all the human race, but more than all creatures: that is to say, he wanted the greatest good for him, and that he gave him “the name which is above every name” (Phil 2:9) to the point that he was the true God. But this superiority was not affected in any way by the fact that God delivered him to death for the salvation of the human race; on the contrary, he thereby became a glorious victor: “the badge of power was placed on his shoulder,” says Isaiah 9:6.
2. God loves human nature united to the divine Word in the person of Christ more than he loves the angels, as we have just said, and this human nature is better, especially because of the union. But if we speak of human nature in general, comparing it to that of the angels according to the destination to grace and glory, what we find is equality; for there is “the same measure for the angel and for man”, according to the Apocalypse (21, 17). So that in this respect certain angels can prevail over certain men, and certain men over certain angels. But as to the natural condition, the angel is better than man. If God took on human nature, it is not absolutely speaking that he loved man more, it is because man's need was greater. This is how a good father spends more on his sick servant than on his healthy son.
3 . The problem of Peter and John has received several solutions. St. Augustine sees it as a mystery, saying that the active life, signified by Peter, loves God more than does the contemplative life, represented by John, in that it experiences more the constraints of this life and that she aspires more ardently to be delivered from them in order to go to God. But God loves the contemplative life more, since he extends its duration beyond this bodily life, where active life ends. Others say: Peter loved Christ more in his members, and in this respect he was loved more by Christ, who for this reason entrusted his Church to him. But John loved Christ in his person more than Peter, and in this personal way he was also loved more by Jesus who, for this, entrusted his mother to him. Still others say that we cannot know which of the two loved more with a love of charity, and which of the two God thus loved more with a view to a greater glory in eternal life. But it is said that Peter loved more with respect to a certain readiness or fervor, and that John was loved more with respect to the signs of familiarity which Christ granted him more than others on account of his youth and purity. . Others finally say that Christ loved Peter more with regard to the gift of charity, and John more with regard to the gift of intelligence, and that for this reason Peter was the best and most loved absolutely speaking, and John in a certain respect . But it seems presumptuous to want to judge these things, because we read in Proverbs (16, 2): “He who weighs the spirits is the Lord. " And nobody else.
4. The penitent and the innocent find each other both in excess and in deficiency. For, whether innocent or penitent, they are the best and most beloved who have more grace. However, all other things being equal, innocence is better, and God loves it more. If we say, however, that God rejoices over the penitent more than over the innocent, it is because, most often, the penitents, when they get up, are more wise, more humble and more fervent. Also S. Gregory says on this same passage that “in a fight, the leader loves the soldier better who, having fled and having collected himself, presses the enemy with force, than the one who has never fled, but never acted forcefully either.” Or there is another reason: it is that an equal gift of grace presents more value with regard to the penitent who had deserved a punishment, than with regard to the innocent who had none. not deserved. Thus, a hundred pieces of gold given to a poor person is a greater gift than to a king.
5. Since it is the will of God which is the cause of the goodness of things, we must refer, to evaluate the goodness of him who is loved by God, to the time when he must receive from divine goodness this or that good . Therefore, according to the time in which the predestined sinner must receive this or that good from divine goodness, it is better, although, considered according to another time, it is worse. Besides, there was a time when he was neither good nor bad.