Title II: On Charity as It Is Love of God

Utility. - Two things especially must be attended to by us in this title: in what way the precept of loving God is satisfied, and by what reason servile fear and the desire of beatitude are composed with filial love.

I. The Precept. — The Lord in the Gospel, St. Mark 12, 30, promulgated as the greatest and first commandment the precept of loving God, and that in the words of Deuteronomy 6, 5: "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God from thy whole heart, and from thy whole soul, and from thy whole mind, and from thy whole strength." Cf. St. Matthew 22, 37. (Among the Hebrews, the heart signifies intellect and affection.) Those words proclaim to us affective and effective love, the love of the whole man, full in this way, that nothing which disagrees with the love of God is admitted. Cf. the cited writers in Knabenbauer on the alleged places. Therefore in these places a love intensively supreme is not commanded. Such a love is supreme from the subjective force of affection, especially insofar as sensible love concurs with the love of the will: which intensity is most becoming, so far as it is in our power. But only a love of God appreciatively supreme is commanded, or one from the estimation of judgment, so that we place no creature before God and would rather lose all things than God.

Execution of the Precept. — As was said concerning faith, charity, besides its formal act, finds in acts which suppose that affection a quasi-virtual exercise by which the precept of charity can be fulfilled.

Moreover the precept of charity urges per se: at the beginning of moral life, so that by converting ourselves to God we may direct ourselves to Him, our end (cf. nevertheless the things said, n. 58); - if a temptation of hatred of God cannot otherwise be overcome; - as many wish, at the end of life; - frequently in life. How often? Some say once in a year, others once in a month, others on each Sunday and feast. The things said concerning the act of faith and hope return. What son asks how often he must actually demonstrate his affection toward his parents? Neither he himself nor another can define the number. But a good son is content to foster an affection which will most gladly use many occasions of acts; the less good one, however, bears no solicitude about that frequency.

From another virtue, or per accidens, an act of charity will have to be made if reconciliation with God is to be procured, and there is no supply of the sacrament with which attrition would suffice; - if a temptation against a different virtue cannot otherwise be overcome.

He exercises an act of charity implicitly or quasi-virtually who recites the Lord's prayer from the soul, who rejoices over the divine perfections, who wishes that no one offend God, who grieves over offenses inflicted on God by others, who desires that all worship God, who avoids sins because they displease Him, etc. Gury-Ballerini-Palmieri, I, n. 219.

In this matter, the following propositions were condemned by Innocent XI: 5. "Whether he sins mortally who would elicit an act of love of God only once in life, we do not dare to condemn." - 6. "It is probable that the precept of charity toward God does not per se oblige even in individual rigorous five-year periods." - 7. "It obliges only when we are bound to be justified, and we do not have another way by which we can be justified" (2 March 1679 - Denz., n. 1155, 1156, 1157). - Earlier, Alexander VII, 21 September 1665 (Denz., n. 1101), had proscribed this: "Man at no time of his life is bound to elicit an act of faith, hope, and charity from the force of the divine precepts pertaining to those virtues." (The propositions were condemned at least as scandalous; the former also as pernicious in practice.)

Therefore the matter practically returns to this: that we exhort the faithful to eliciting frequent acts of charity, to acting in the spirit of love and from the motive of love, and that we gently inculcate acts of charity upon the gravely sick.

Necessity of Charity. — The habit of charity is in reality necessary by necessity of means. The same cannot strictly be said of the act of perfect charity, since the sacrament of penance restores the habit of charity, and, although it demands a quasi-virtual use of faith and hope, it can be received fruitfully without an act of perfect charity.

The Sin of Hatred of God. — It is mortal and the gravest of all sins to pursue God Omnipotent and Most High with formal hatred of enmity or malevolence, as if someone should wish that God not exist, or be deprived of some attribute, for example, knowledge, power, etc.

Fear of Hell and Love of Beatitude. — Certainly the present intention of sinning if hell did not exist would be sinful (servilely servile fear); or of not loving God unless there were the reward of beatitude; but he does not sin who, while he elicits an act of charity, has beatitude itself as the end of the one operating. For God is not therefore loved appreciatively less. Does not every right act, such as hope is, already per se direct itself to God as the supreme end? Does not St. Thomas (on this place) understand concerning theological hope itself the saying from St. Paul: Charity... "hopeth all things" (1 Cor. 13, 7)? Does not St. Paul prove these things more expressly: "Hearing your faith in Christ Jesus, and the love which you have toward all the saints, for the hope which is laid up for you in heaven" (Col. 1, 4.5)?

On the contrary, among the propositions condemned and prohibited by Alexander VIII, 7 December 1690, as respectively rash, scandalous, ill-sounding, injurious, proximate to heresy, savoring of heresy, erroneous, schismatic and heretical, there was reprobated the proposition which denied that fear of gehenna is supernatural (prop. 14, Denz. 1305); and by Innocent XII, 12 March 1699, among propositions condemned and reprobated... as rash, scandalous, offensive to pious ears, pernicious in practice, and also respectively erroneous, propositions which called it vicious to act with regard to beatitude (Denz. 1327, 1331, 1332).

— I. There is a special precept of loving God with full affective and (in disposition) effective love, and therefore appreciatively, not intensively, supreme. The Lord Himself, in the Gospel of St. Mark 12, 30, promulgated it as the first and greatest commandment.

That precept urges per se, according to St. Thomas, at the beginning of moral life, and, as many wish, at the end of life; then, if a temptation of hatred of God cannot otherwise be overcome; then frequently in life: a frequency which cannot be defined theoretically, but which in practice is procured abundantly by a pious man. Per accidens it urges when, the supply of the sacrament of penance being lacking, reconciliation with God is to be procured, or if a temptation against another virtue cannot be overcome in another way.

II. Charity, moreover, besides its formal acts, is exercised quasi-virtually in acts which suppose the affection of charity.

III. The habit of charity is in reality necessary by necessity of means.

IV. The gravest of all sins is the hatred of malevolence by which one would pursue God. Not the very prevision of future sin, but the present intention of sinning if hell did not exist, would be sinful; nor does he sin who, while he elicits an act of charity, has beatitude itself as the end of the one operating.