Beneficence

Beneficence.—Not every act of helping others is virtuous, nor is all virtuous assistance called beneficence. (a) Thus, to assist others in evil is maleficence, nor is it virtuous to help them with an evil purpose. Examples: To give money to criminals to help them defeat the law is participation in crime. To give presents to others in order to receive a return of favor from them is cupidity (Luke, xiv. 12). (b) To assist others or to give to them out of compassion for misery, is mercy; to do so out of a sense of obligation, is justice; to do so out of love of God, is beneficence.

Beneficence is a duty, and like charity should be universal: “While we have time, let us work good to all men” (Gal., vi. 10); “Do good to them that hate you” (Matt., v. 44). But this does not mean that no discrimination is to be used in beneficence, or that impossibilities are required.

(a) Not every kind of activity in which others are engaged is deserving of assistance, not every kind of suffering of others may be removed. Examples: Criminals or enemies of the State are not to be assisted in their wrongdoing, but one may attempt to bring them to better conduct; one who has been justly sentenced to prison may not be aided to escape, but he may be visited and consoled and given religious assistance.

(b) Not all can be helped individually; even the richest and most generous person can benefit only a small percentage of those who are deserving. Charity requires, however, that one be so disposed that one would help all individually, if it were possible, and that one does help all generally, by praying for both Catholics and non-Catholics.

Since it is impossible to help all individually, beneficence should be regulated by the order of charity (see 1174 sqq.), and particular good should be done to those with whom on account of conditions of time or place one is more closely associated. Hence, the following general rules are given:

(a) In benefits that pertain to a particular kind of relationship; one should give the preference, other things being equal, to those with whom one has that relationship. Examples: To make a banquet for another is a benefit pertaining to friendship, and hence should be shown to one who is a friend, rather than to one who is a business associate, but not an intimate. To support another person is a benefit pertaining to kinship, and hence should be shown to a parent, rather than to a stranger.

(b) In benefits given to those with whom one has the same kind of relationship, one should give the preference, other things being equal, to those nearer in relationship. Example: In dispensing alms, one should help one’s own family rather than distant relatives.

If other things are not equal, the foregoing rules must sometimes be reversed.

(a) When the common good is involved, preference should be given those who represent it, even though others are nearer to one as regards private good. Hence, a citizen should help the fortunes of his adopted country rather than those of his mother country; in a civil war one should aid rather one’s comrades than one’s kinsmen who are on the opposite side.

(b) When a supreme good of a private person is at stake, one should prefer to help him, even if a stranger, rather than another who is a friend, or relative, but who is not in the same distress. Example: One should give one’s loaf to a man dying of starvation rather than to one’s own father, who is hungry but not starving.

(c) When the means with which a benefit is bestowable belong to another, one must prefer to give back what belongs to the other, even if this person is a stranger, rather than use it for the good of a friend or relative. Thus, if a person has stolen money or has borrowed money from a stranger, he must return it to the owner, rather than make a present of it to his own wife. An exception would be the case in which the wife was in dire necessity, whereas the owner was not; but the duty of restitution would remain for the future.

No general rule can be laid down for all cases in which one party is nearer to self and the other party more in need, and many such cases have to be decided according to prudent judgment in view of all the circumstances. It should be noted that, though wife and children are nearer to one than parents, the latter have a greater claim on charity when they are in equally extreme necessity, on account of the supreme benefit of life received from them. But ordinarily one is bound rather to provide for one’s children (II Cor., xii. 14).

(Summa Theologica, II-II, q. 43.)

Having discussed in the preceding paragraphs the sins opposed to the internal acts of charity (love, joy and peace), we come now to treat of scandal and cooperation which are opposed to the external acts of charity—beneficence and brotherly correction.

What does charity toward neighbor import; is there given a precept of charity toward neighbor? - R. To the first. Charity toward neighbor commands love of oneself and of neighbor, but in an ordered way; for not every neighbor is neighbor to us in the same mode. Love of oneself embraces the due care to be had of soul and body. Sins committed against it are implicitly contained and accused in other sins committed and accused in confession. But since even an enemy is neighbor, it also commands love of enemies. Love, namely so that we will good to him. The chief good of man is God. Therefore by charity we will that man possess God, by association in full participation of blessedness. And this is to love neighbor as oneself. Besides interior love, since charity by its nature is not sterile, but active, it also commands exterior works. Therefore besides interior benevolence, charity also commands beneficence, which is the execution of benevolence. The matter concerns the precept of theological charity, which is evidently established from the very words of Christ. "But the second commandment is like to this: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." Matt. 22:39; 1 John 4:21.

Among exterior works alms and fraternal correction hold a special place; these are works of mercy, the former corporal, the latter spiritual. For mercy is the virtue which inclines us to compassionating another's misery, and from compassion to assisting. The same charity, on the contrary, prohibits hatred of malevolence and enmity toward neighbor, which from its genus is mortal. For by it we will evil to the neighbor insofar as it is evil for him, which is always inordinate and repugnant to charity. Yet smallness of matter is given, since the evil which we will to neighbor can be great or small. Besides this internal act, it consequently prohibits that by our exterior actions we inflict spiritual harm upon his salvation through scandal, or do other harm to him either as to other goods of soul, or as to goods of body. Concerning this last there will be discussion in the precepts of the Decalogue; here we will speak only of the remaining things.

Benevolence, therefore, and beneficence are acts of charity; to the former belongs willing good, to the latter doing good, according to the common account of good. If the good which someone does to another is taken under a special account of good, beneficence will receive a special account and will pertain to some special virtue. If the good, for example, is owed, it will pertain to justice; if it is for relieving misery, it will pertain to mercy, etc. Therefore the conferring of a benefit in general pertains to charity. In order that the conferring of benefit and beneficence properly be had, it is necessary that there be had a liberal conferring of a gift. S. Th. 2. 2. q. 31, a. 1.

Charity, about which the speech is properly here, is theological charity, by which neighbor is loved on account of God. But there is also given another charity, a moral virtue, by which neighbor is loved on account of the very honorableness of this love, which per se is a natural virtue. The natural motive of this love does not impede this love also from being supernatural, if it is done from grace and informed by faith. And it is commanded by God: "All things whatsoever you wish that men should do to you, do you also to them." Matt. 7:12; Job 4:16. Nevertheless the precept of theological charity is not fulfilled by this love. It is indeed praiseworthy and very meritorious that the acts to be exercised toward neighbor be exercised from the motive of the charity of God; nevertheless per se it is not obligatory.

For as the charity of God commands that we observe his commands, but does not also command that we execute them from the motive of the charity of God, so also charity toward neighbor indeed commands that we exercise various acts of beneficence and mercy, but by no means that we effect them only from the motive of the charity of God.

R. To the second. There is given a precept of loving neighbor with a true and internal affection, as is established from John 15:12, 17, and from propositions 10 and 11 condemned by Innocent XI; and also with external love, 1 John 3:15 seqq.; S. Th. 2. 2. q. 31, a. 2. But someone sufficiently satisfies this precept through a certain general love which excludes no one, and accordingly by reciting the Lord's Prayer, in which you have both an internal and external act. A precept of this sort obliges per se when the precept of charity toward God obliges per se. For it is like to this. Matt. 22:39. Hence he who fulfills the precept of charity toward God, by willing every good to God, at least implicitly fulfills the precept of charity toward neighbor, by desiring salvation for him. But it obliges per accidens: 1. If hatred toward neighbor cannot be repelled unless an act of love is elicited; for he who is bound to the end is obliged to the means. 2. When the neighbor is in necessity; otherwise the precept would be vain; if that necessity becomes known, for no one is bound to inquire whether someone is in need. - L. 8; S. Th. 2. 2. q. 25; q. 27, a. 8; q. 30; q. 31; q. 32, aa. 1, 2; q. 34, aa. 3, 4; q. 44; Struggl, q. 6, n. 4; Salm. 17; D'Annib., ed. 4, p. 2, n. 81; E. M. 282. Through a certain general love which excludes no one; for care concerning the salvation of neighbor is not incumbent on anyone, unless perhaps in a case of necessity. S. Th. 2. 2. q. 26, a. 5 ad 3. Nor indeed by reason of common charity is there an obligation of inquiring into the necessity of neighbor. For it regards only cases occurring to anyone. "That which is owed to some determinate and certain person... we must expend upon him, not waiting until he occurs to us, but having due solicitude that we seek him out.... But those benefits which are owed not to a certain person, but commonly to all neighbors... we need not seek those upon whom we may expend them, but it suffices that we expend them on those who occur to us." S. Th. 2. 2. q. 33, a. 2 ad 4.