Question One: On the Essence of Charity

S. Th. II-II, q. 23, aa. 1 and 2; de Virt., q. 2, aa. 1-2; III Sent., d. 27, q. 2, aa. 2 and 4.

852. Thesis. Charity is true and properly so-called friendship between God and man. - It is certain.

It is proved:

1. From Scripture: a) in open words it indicates that such friendship exists (Wis. VII, 14; Ps. CXXXVIII, 17), wherefore the just are called friends of God, for example Abraham (Is. XLI, 8; Judith VIII, 22; Jas. II, 23); - b) the soul is united to God as bride to bridegroom (Cant. Cant.), and man as son to father (Rom. VIII, 14-17; I Jn. III, 1), and becomes a citizen and member of the household in the society and house of God (Eph. II, 19). But from communication of domestic and civil life, especially between son and father, between bridegroom and bride, friendship naturally arises; whence in Cant. II, 13, the bridegroom says: "arise, my friend...," and in V, 16, the bride says: "he is my friend"; - c) in the New Testament the Son of God himself explicitly calls those who keep the commandments friends (Jn. XIV, 15, 21; XV, 10, 14), and describes that friendship, Jn. XIV, 21: "But he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him... and we will come to him and will make our dwelling with him," and XV, 14-15: "You are my friends; I will no longer call you servants, because the servant does not know what his lord does. But I have called you friends, because all things whatsoever I have heard from my Father I have made known to you." This friendship we call charity.

2. From Tradition: the thesis is explicitly stated among the Fathers: Hilary, in Ps. 138, n. 38; Chrysostom (P. G. LV, 417); Athanasius (P. G. XXVII, 534); Ambrose, ep. 37, n. 13; Augustine, in Jn., tr. 85 (p. 1848 sq.); Cyril of Alexandria, in Jn. XV, 4; Bernard, serm. in Cant. 1, n. 8; 68, nn. 1, 3; and it is the common doctrine of theologians after St. Thomas, and of commentators on the Canticle of Canticles.

3. From reason: Charity is friendship between God and man if all the conditions required for this are present. But a) there is communication of goods, and indeed of those which are proper to the divine nature and life: for God communicates himself and his own intellectual life and beatitude in the beatific vision (I Cor. I, 9; I Jn. III, 2), and through grace we are consorts and participants of the divinity itself, and sons similar to God in nature and operations (II Pet. I, 4; I Jn. III, 1-2). In one word: God communicates to us his own goodness, inchoately through grace, perfectly and consummately through glory, so that we are truly sons of God and he our Father (Rom. VIII, 15). From this communication there naturally arises b) mutual benevolence, namely, the benevolent love by which we love God our Father, as the altogether ultimate supernatural end, above all things, and therefore on account of himself, because he is infinitely lovable; and the benevolent love by which God gratuitously loves us as sons, not for his own utility and happiness but for ours: for on the one side God cannot fail to be complacent to himself in the likeness of his own nature communicated to us, and on the other side he expects no utility or happiness to come to himself from this love, since he is in himself the supreme Good and supreme Happiness. c) It is also mutually known, for God declared that he loves those who love him (Prov. VIII, 17; Jn. XIV, 21, 23), and by probable conjectures and sufficiently certain signs we are able to discern whether we truly love God. Therefore.

853. A threefold union is found in charity. - One is the communication of goods or union of similitude which is the foundation of friendship and charity, and this in the present case is grace making one pleasing, by which we are similar to God in nature and worthy of eternal beatitude. The second is charity itself, and this is mutual union according to affection, by which God wills his own beatitude to us as to himself, and we will to God the beatitude which we will to ourselves, more than to ourselves. The third is real union, which is the effect of charity, by which God and we seek mutual real presence, and God substantially inhabits us on earth through grace and charity, and will be present to our minds in glory.

Concerning the second union, or mutual inherence according to affection, John says (I ep., IV, 16): He who remains in charity remains in God and God in him. Namely, God remains in us because he remains so impressed in our affection that we will beatitude and all our goods to God as to ourselves, indeed more than to ourselves: thus he has been made one with us. On the contrary, we remain in God because we follow the will of God as our own, and have his desires and goods as ours, whence we will, act, and live as God does: thus we are transformed into God. Hence I Cor. VI, 17: But he who adheres to the Lord is one spirit.

854. Corollary. - Since in the state of pure nature no communication of the goodness and life proper to God would have been made to us, there would have been no equality nor friendship between God and us, although nevertheless on each side there would have been love of benevolence. For in that state we would have been only servants relative to God; but now we are his friends, not indeed insofar as we are servants, but insofar as we are his adopted sons.

855. Charity is not the Holy Spirit himself. - Peter Lombard taught that charity is not a habit created in the soul, but the Holy Spirit himself granted to us, who, with no created habit mediating, immediately by himself produces in us the act of divine love. This opinion is erroneous:

a) because it cannot be composed with the Council of Trent teaching (sess. 6, cc. 7 and 16, can. 11) that the charity which is given by the Holy Spirit inheres in us, and that in justification we receive faith, hope, and charity infused, through the Holy Spirit who pours forth charity; where charity is manifestly described as a habit, and is distinguished from the Holy Spirit as an effect from its cause;

b) it also contradicts reason, which 1. proves that charity is a created principle of operation: for the act of charity is voluntary and meritorious, whence it is not produced by the Holy Spirit alone, nor by the will acting as moved by him as his mere instrument, but by a principle of activity intrinsic to the will, by which the will itself freely moves itself by its own powers to loving God. But the act of charity, because supernatural, exceeds the intrinsic natural powers of the will; therefore it is necessary that the Holy Spirit add to the will a principle of operating, or supernatural powers intrinsic to it, by which it becomes capable of producing the act of charity.

2. Reason proves that that principle is not momentary and transient, but habitual and permanent: for no one perfectly tends and operates toward an end except through a permanent principle of operation; whence God gave such principles to natural things for operating toward their end. Therefore also for our supernatural end (concerning which God certainly provided no less) he gave us a supernatural habitual and permanent principle, so that we might perfectly operate and tend toward it. Otherwise the act of charity would not be easy nor delightful, but we would be moved to it as if violently and with sadness, which nevertheless is against experience.

Whence that charity is a habit created in the soul is theologically certain.

856. Observations. - 1. Grace is not friendship itself with God, but its principle, root, and foundation, namely, the participated divine good on account of which friendship between God and us can exist, which happens through charity: through grace we are rendered lovable to God, that is, worthy of the love of divine friendship; through friendship, loved and loving. Grace is in the essence of the soul, to which it gives supernatural being; charity is in the will of the one loving, to which it gives the power of operating supernaturally.

2. God, in order to love us benevolently, does not await the presence of grace in us: for this is the effect, not the cause, of gratuitous divine love toward us, since the love of God is the cause of all goodness of things and all goods come from the love of God.¹ - But after we have been adorned with grace from the gratuitous love of God, we are now worthy to be loved by him and capable of loving him in return as Father. And thus grace, which is the effect of the divine love of special benevolence, is also the foundation of divine friendship or of stable and mutual love. Namely, God first by benevolent love confers upon man the perfection on account of which he becomes lovable, and then loves him as a friend.

¹ We love things because they are lovable in themselves; on the contrary, they are lovable because God loves them. Our love supposes the goodness of things, but divine love causes the whole goodness of things. Cf. I-II, q. 110, a. 1.

3. Between us and God there is friendship of excellence, because there is no equality of quantity, but only of proportion to the superexcellent goodness of God, which we participate.