Question IV: Whether charity is a created habit

The MAGISTER, 1. dist. 17, is seen to assert that the charity by which we love God is the Holy Spirit himself, moving the will of man to love without any infused habit; yet he is interpreted most benignly by S. Doct.: not because the Holy Spirit is the form of the soul disposing it to love, but because he moves the affection immediately without a habit. Yet even in this he falls short.

I assert therefore that Charity is a habit. This is the common view of Theologians, and after the Council of Trent certain from faith.

IT IS PROVED by D. Bonav. That which has the ratio of a form infused by God, or by the Holy Spirit, is something created, distinct from its efficient cause, namely from the Holy Spirit; but the Charity of God is poured forth in our hearts by the Holy Spirit, who is given to us from cap. 5. ad Rom. The Major is evident: for God cannot be a form, otherwise he would be an imperfect inexisting part, and every cause differs really from its effect. By this argument the Council of Trent, session 6, defines, cap. 7, The charity of God is poured forth in the hearts of those who are justified, and inheres in them. And can. 11 defines that men are not justified by the sole remission of sins, with grace and charity excluded, which is poured forth and inheres in their hearts. Again, the Minor is proved from the Council of Orange, can. 25. It is altogether a Gift of God to love God; for the Spirit of the Father and the Son pours charity into our hearts, whom we love with the Father and the Son. The same is proved in the Council of Vienne, as is related in Clement. unica, de summa Trinitate. The Minor is confirmed again; for as Faith and Hope are ordered to reforming the mind, so much more is Charity, which is the life of the soul: therefore a form. But God cannot be a form, because he cannot enter into composition with another being, as is necessary for the esse of a form.

IT IS PROVED by S. Doct. fundamento 4. from all the Scriptures which assert that Charity grows, diminishes, is lost, and recovered. Prima Ioan. 2. Whoever keeps his word, truly in this the Charity of God is perfected. Philip. 1. This I pray, that the Charity of God may abound more and more. Apoc. 2. You have left your first Charity. Be mindful therefore from where you have fallen: and do penance.

IT IS PROVED lastly. That which distinguishes the just man from the impious not only in act but also in rest, and which those who cannot have proper acts, such as infants, must have, must be created and inhering habitually: for the first cause is related in one way to all; such is Charity according to the Councils cited, defining that it is therefore also infused into infants. Only the Council of Vienne does not define it.

IT IS PROVED also in corpore by S. Doct. If the Holy Spirit were charity, he would be unifiable, and then either by nature or by grace: not by nature, as is evident. If by grace, then again by means of something else, etc.

IT IS PROVED there also by the argument which Valencia uses: That by which the will, as principal cause, elicits the act of love must be created; but Charity is that by which it elicits, etc. Therefore.

YOU OBJECT first. No accident is better than a substance: Charity is better than the soul, for it elevates and perfects it, and nothing is better than it, from D. August. lib. 1. de moribus Ecclesiae: Therefore.

S. Doct. answers that Charity is better as the medium without which the soul lacking it cannot be ordered to the supernatural end: for it is proper to accidents to perfect a substance accidentally. But those things infused by God above nature perfect it intimately, of which they are the illustrious similitude and participation. Such an accident is charity, as is said in 2 Peter, 1, as Valencia notes with D. Thomas.

YOU OBJECT secondly. No created goodness is equivalent to beatitude; but charity is equivalent to Beatitude; for by it we merit glory: Therefore.

S. Bonav. answers that it is equivalent by divine estimation, which deems the work of charity worthy of eternal life.

YOU OBJECT thirdly. Every created good is good by participation, and therefore can fail to be good: therefore lacking order.

IT IS answered that the thing ordered is one thing; the order another; and this cannot fail to be good.

YOU OBJECT fourthly. The Holy Spirit can inflame the affection by himself; therefore a habit is required in vain. The Antecedent is proved: for God is charity, prima Ioan. 4. Therefore prima Cor. 6. it is said: Who cleaves to God is made one spirit with him.

S. Doct. answers that God himself is signified there, and yet Charity is required, informed by which we may work: For we are God's helpers, prima Cor. 3. Therefore inhering charity is posited not from a defect of divine power, but so that we may cooperate with God in a connatural mode, moving through something formally determining.

YOU OBJECT fifthly. A natural virtue is farther from God than the will; but God moves nature immediately: Therefore.

S. Doct. answers that nature, because it operates uniformly and necessarily, determined to one thing, does not need a regulating habit; unlike the will, which moves non-uniformly, being indifferent. Next, the soul is moved only within the limits of nature; but the will above nature, therefore it needs an elevating habit.

YOU OBJECT sixthly. Where there is a first mover, another virtue is superfluous; but God always moves the soul: Therefore.

IT IS answered that another virtue is required for operating in the connatural mode, that it may be formally perfected.

YOU OBJECT seventhly. No lesser virtue is necessary for reforming than for creating; but an infinite virtue is required for creating: Therefore also for reforming: but reformation is done through charity: Therefore this is the infinite Virtue of God.

S. Doct. answers that reformation is from God as efficient, but because this is an elevation to works above nature, some disposing form is required.

YOU OBJECT eighthly. No vanity can be united to God; every creature is vanity: Therefore it cannot unite to God; but charity unites to God: Therefore it is not a creature.

S. Doct. answers that grace, as a creature, is empty; but as it is a Divine influence it is not vanity.

YOU OBJECT ninthly. That which orders to the ordered love must be proportioned; but charity orders to loving God, who is an infinite good: Therefore infinitely: Therefore it must be something infinite.

S. Doct. answers that Charity does not make us love God as much as he is lovable, but as much as he ought to be loved by us, so that he be esteemed above all creatures, which could be infinite in number; and for this finite supernatural Charity suffices, that it be preferred in estimation to the other goods.

From what has been said you have what censure was owed to those denying that charity is a habit: for I judge with Valencia here, and Soto lib. 2. de natura, et gratia, cap. 17. et 18., Bannes quaest. 23. art. 2., that it is indeed not heresy to deny it, from the Council of Vien. loc. cit. and Innocent, cap. Maiores de Baptismo, where the denying opinion is not condemned; but only the opposite is asserted as more probable. Yet I say it is rash, and proximate to error, as Valencia notes with Gabriel dist. 23. art. 2. quaest. 2.

For the Church in the Council of Trent seems to define this equivalently. And the Scriptures speak of charity as of a permanent habit: Charity never falls away, prima Corinth. 13. There remain Faith, Hope, Charity, these three: Apoc. 2. You have left your first Charity, etc. But if charity were not a habit, it would not incline so perfectly, easily, and delectably to loving God, as D. Thom. also argues with D. Bonav. ad argumenta; for potencies do not have a perfect connection to acts except through habits, which were instituted by God for eliciting acts, giving the potency a mode of facility; and if they are supernatural, they elevate the potency even to sustaining acts.

From these you will understand what the Magister opposes from prima Ioan. 3. God is charity, and he who abides in charity abides in God, and God in him. He means to say that God is the author of charity. For it is said also: our Patience, causally, and he who abides in charity, namely infused, etc. It is thus expounded by S. Doct. opusculo Reductio artium ad Theologiam; et de septem donis, de Dono intellectus, cap. 5. et de 7. Itineribus aeternitatis, dist. 6.