Third Question: On the External Act of Charity, or Beneficence

S. Th. II-II, q. 31.

924. Beneficence is nothing other than to do good to someone. But this is an external act or effect of charity: for dilection includes benevolence, since he who loves a friend as himself wills good to him as to himself; but the will effects those things which it wills when it can; therefore beneficence follows from the act of dilection and benevolence as an effect.

To do good, which is an act of charity, is to do good considered under the common character of good, insofar as it is good. But if the good which someone does for another is considered under a special character of good, for example, insofar as it is due, or gratuitous, or relieving misery, thus beneficence pertains to a special virtue, for example, of justice, or of liberality, or of mercy.

Beneficence is not a special virtue, for it has the same object (and motive) as dilection and benevolence (good under the character of good), of which it is the external executive act. Namely, beneficence and benevolence do not differ except as an interior act and an exterior act, because beneficence is the execution of benevolence. An interior and exterior act do not require diverse virtues.

925. Good must be done to all. - Since the dilection of charity extends itself to all, good also must be done to all, without exception, yet according to place and time. For it is not possible to do good to all in particular; nevertheless man ought always, in preparation of soul, to be ready to do good to whomsoever if the time should be present. Yet among them order is to be preserved, so that good is to be done more to those who are more proximate to us or are placed in greater necessity.

When beneficence is concerned with the necessity or misery of another, it is called corporal or spiritual almsgiving. Hence: