Question II: What the object of charity is

I assume from what was said in the Tract. de fide, that the object of the Virtues is twofold: the Material, which is the thing that is looked at; and the Formal, which is the reason under which it is looked at. Of both I inquire.

THE COMMON opinion is, that the material object of charity is God, and the neighbor, and whatever can be loved for God, as the end is supernatural; yet so that God is the principal object of attribution, on account of which the rest are loved: for thus it was found in Hope, and in faith. And yet we do not confuse the material object with the formal, as Arriaga disp. 31. sect. 2. thinks; for the formal object is the reason under which God is loved, namely, as good in himself, as I shall say; and also as good to us: for the formal object is that which is the motive and specificative of the act itself, or determinant of the potency and habit toward acting about the material subject, as Mastrius disp. 6. question 20. num. 516. observes.

I ASSERT first, that the material object of the attribution of Charity is God.

IT IS PROVED first by the Holy Doctor dist. 27. in dubiis litt. and dist. 28. question 6. First from the definitions of charity brought above question 1.

THEN from Deuter. 6. Matth. 20. Lucae 10. Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart, etc. Which the Holy Doctor pursues at length on Lucae 10.

IT IS PROVED second by the Holy Doctor 3. dist. 26. art. 2. question 4. Because the virtues looking to God immediately look to God distinctly, as an immediate object; such is Charity: Therefore.

IT IS PROVED third by the Holy Doctor, the same dist. question 5. That Theological virtue which is reformatory of the will; and stands in the will as concupiscible, is borne toward the highest Good, God: Charity is such a Virtue: Therefore.

IT IS PROVED fourth by St. Bonav. dist. 28. question 6. and D. Thom. question 25. art. 1. That is the first object of Charity, in which goodness first shines forth: such is God: therefore. This Fulgent. lib. 3. cap. 9. urges.

I ASSERT second, that other things also pertain to the material object of charity, namely those which can have fellowship in the supernatural end, namely the neighbor, in whom we ourselves are included, as also our bodies look to it, and other men, as I shall say in question 28.

IT IS PROVED first by St. Bonav. in the places brought from the Scriptures, which place the neighbor also in the precepts of charity. This the Holy Doctor pursues at length in cap. 14. and following of Ioannis.

IT IS PROVED second by the Holy Doctor dist. 28. question 1. He who loves God wills him the good of his; but we with the neighbor can be loved in order to God, as his good: Therefore we can love the neighbor by the act of charity, by which we love God, and will him good. Whence Ioan. 1. cap. 4. If we love one another, the charity of God is perfect in us. D. August. 10. de Trinitate, cap. 8. consents. Whence Matth. 25. What you have done to one of these my least, you have done to me. For if Christ reckons as his goods those goods that are conferred upon men, men act most prudently when they will good to men, that in those the same goods may be attributed to God. I confirm it, because the neighbor is a something of God, partaker of beatitude: but it belongs to perfect friendship not only to love him with whom friendship is contracted primarily and principally, but also on account of him the things that pertain to him: for thus a friend loves a friend, and for him also the friend's son; yet this love of friendship does not extend by the same reason to the friend's Dog, as the Holy Doctor observes, who thence elicits that irrational things are not loved with charity, because they do not communicate with us in the supernatural good.

Wherein Caspensis disp. 3. sect. 1. with D. Bonav. loc. cit. and dist. 9. art. 2. question 4. observes that the neighbor can be honestly loved in two ways. First, on account of God's goodness alone, that is, from the desire of the divine good, because the good bestowed on the neighbor is in a certain way the good of God, and this dilection manifestly pertains to Theological charity; for it is one act by which we love God, and the neighbor for God, as the Holy Doctor notes ad 3. and D. Thom. question 25. art. 1., and therefore it pertains to the same virtue. In another way the neighbor can be loved, either on account of the likeness in rational nature, or on account of the virtues, etc. and this dilection is not Charity, as D. Thom. also teaches question 103. art. 3. ad 2. Vasquez lib. 1. de ador. disp. 6. cap. 2. and lib. 3. disp. 1. cap. 6. Caspens. loc. cit. num. 3. Valencia disp. 3. question 1. p. 1. at the end.

I ASSERT third, that the formal object of Charity is God as good in himself. So D. Bonav. 3. dist. 26. art. 2. question 4. and 5. and dist. 27. and 28. passim, and frequently in the opuscula, and commonly the Theologians.

IT IS PROVED first by the Holy Doctor. The dilection by which someone is loved for himself ought to be absolute; but this dilection of charity is of this kind: Therefore.

IT IS PROVED second, because Charity is the virtue perfecting the will in order to God, therefore as object; but it is the object as good: Therefore.

But in truth, because also Natural love loves God's goodness, it is necessary to find something formal by which Charity is distinguished from it.

COMMONLY the Thomists teach with the Angelic Doctor 1. 2. question 109. art. 3. ad 1. that the formal object of charity is God, inasmuch as he is in himself good, with a goodness pertaining to the supernatural order, or with the goodness by which God is the principle of supernatural goods. So Suarez disp. 1. sect. 2. Casp. disp. 1. sect. 1. Amicus, and other Recentiores, and it seems D. Bonav. de septem Itineribus aeternitatis, Itinere 4. cap. 2. and dist. 27. dub. 1. litt. around the definition of charity, from D. Aug. soliloq. 1. cap. 6. in haec 3. sent. and more fully dist. 28. question 1. whole, and dist. 27. question 2. ad 3.

MANY, however, say that the formal reason of the object of charity is expanded more broadly, and that it is the goodness of God, by which he is in himself infinitely good and perfect, according to every reason of being. Whence they infer that the same supernatural habit inclines to loving God as a natural end, and as the author of natural and supernatural goods. So Vasquez p. 2. disp. 195. cap. 2. and 3. Coninch. disp. 21. dub. 2. For which opinion they bring Scotus 3. dist. 27. question unica, §. contra primam viam. And §. quantum ad istum articulum, and Arriaga judges it probable disp. 31. sect. 2. and 3. and Mastrius 3. disp. 6. question 20. num. 519. with Bassoli 3. dist. 28. question un. art. 1. Poncio disp. 32. question 1. and other Scotists. This opinion seems to be D. Bonav.'s dist. 28. question 1. ad 3. and dist. 26. art. 2. question 4. fund. 1.

I ASSERT, that God is the formal object of Theological Charity, inasmuch as he is a supernatural good in himself.

IT IS PROVED, otherwise supernatural Charity would not be distinguished from natural love; because it would not have a distinct formal object; but this repugns the Fathers. It is confirmed; for God has a different lovableness, inasmuch as he is a natural end, and as a supernatural end. Of this I have treated sufficiently disp. 1. question 28. See there. It is confirmed by D. Bonav. dist. 26. dubio 1. from the definition of Charity, which is the desire of supernatural beatitude, or of having God. It is confirmed by the Holy Doctor in Cantic. 3. p. sect. 40. Charity is the virtue ultimately rectifying the will in order to its object: therefore to the highest good under the reason of the highest; but this is the ultimate attainment of supernatural beatitude: Therefore.

Mastrius answers num. 529. That God also, as the author of creatures, can be the object of supernatural charity; whence the Saints were often roused from the love of creatures to the love of God, and since they burned so ardently into the love of God, it is incredible that they elicited only acts of natural love, as Coninch. notes disp. 5. dub. 3. It is confirmed by D. Bonav. lib. 2. Pharetrae, cap. 25. around the middle from D. August. lib. 10. confess. cap. 6. where he cries out: Lord, thou hast struck my heart with thy love, and I loved thee. But heaven and earth, and all things that are in them, behold, on every side they say to me, that I should love thee, nor do they cease saying to all, that they may be inexcusable, and there St. Augustine pours himself out, rising from the creatures into the love of God, from the light, from music, from foods, from odors; and Lib. de spiritu et anima, cap. 17. Wretched I, how much I ought to love my God, who made me when I was not, redeemed me when I had perished. I was not, and from nothing he made me; not a stone, not a tree, not a bird, or any of the animals; but he willed me to be a man: he gave me to live, to sense, to discern, and to understand. I had perished, and he descended to the mortal, took on mortality, endured the passion, conquered death, and thus restored me.

The same St. August. epist. 3. to Volusianus, at D. Bonav. loc. cit. Pharetrae: Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind: and thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. Here is the Physica: because all the causes of all natures are in God the Creator. Here is the Ethica: because the good and honest life is formed from nothing else than when the things that are to be loved are loved as they ought to be loved, that is, God, and the neighbor. Here is the Logica: because truth, and the Light of the rational soul, is nothing but God. See other things there in the Holy Doctor.

You can bring with the Seraphic Doctor the example of St. P. Francis, who rose from the creatures to the Creator: Commanding praise to praise him, praise was always present to him; I say, the praise of the Savior: he invites the birds, the beasts, and the other creatures to the praise of the Creator. Although he loved them with a love not of charity, but of piety, as the Holy Doctor says dist. 28. question 1., yet from thence he flew upward to the supernal love of God.

Truly, however, charity regards both reasons of goodness, so that as to the supernatural it needs the supernal light, as the Holy Doctor notes loc. cit. de 4. Itinere aeternit. cap. 2.; nevertheless it can, from the natural object known, with the light of faith added, rise to a supernatural act.

For indeed disp. 1. de fide, question 28. I have already maintained that supernatural acts are distinguished from natural ones by the objects. Therefore the answer to the authorities is, that the Saints rose from the creatures to God by natural love, by which they were disposed, that they might be raised up to God, as a supernatural end.

Scotus objects, and with him Mastrius num. 519. That God, by the power of charity, is to be loved so, that he would still be loved even if he were never willing to be for us the cause of supernatural gifts: and in this way the Saints, burning with charity, love God. Otherwise, however, the Thomists, constituting God the object of Charity as he is the author of supernatural goods, make charity to be a love of concupiscence.

Yet this argument is weak, as Arriaga himself notes: for we do not say that we love God with charity only as a good for us; but as in himself a good diffusive of supernatural goods, or naturally communicable as to supernatural things; and under this reason he can excite a love of friendship.

Mastrius presses num. 520. That God, even if he were not communicable in this way, would still be lovable by Charity, because in himself good, he is infinitely perfect.

It is answered, that he is lovable as good in every way, but with natural love also; whence it does not follow that he ought to be the object of supernatural charity, otherwise the natural and supernatural habits would be confounded; and if the natural can attain the supernatural object, in vain would the Councils, and the Scriptures, have required help through Christ, as I argued at length disp. 1. question 28.