Part 2: Whether God always loves the better more, and the justice of God (Q.20, a.4 – Q.21, a.1)

Orientation #

He opens by saying the fourth article is “kind of connected with the third,” the one on God loving more the better, and later recalls “that was a thing he made in the previous article”: to love more is to will a greater good, not to love more intensely (prev. lecture). Before the break he announces “before we go into the justice and mercy of God,” and closes q.21 a.1 without reaching a.2. The previous class treated q.20 aa.2–3 (God loves all things, not all equally); the next continues q.21 on justice as truth, mercy, and both in every divine work.

The class, in order #

1. Five objections: cases where God seems to love the less good more (“God more loves the human race than Christ”) #

The point: each objection produces a case where the better thing is loved less.

1. Christ is better than the whole human race (God and man), yet God “did not spare his own son” but handed him over for all of us (Romans 8).
2. An angel is better than man (“a little less than the angels,” Psalm 8), yet God “never took hold of the angels” but of the seed of Abraham (Hebrews 2).
3. Peter was better than John, since he loved Christ more; yet Christ loved John more (“the disciple whom Jesus loved”).
4. The innocent is better than the penitent (“penance is a second plank after shipwreck,” Jerome), yet there is more joy in heaven over one repentant sinner than over ninety-nine just (Luke 15).
5. The just man foreknown (to fall) is better than the sinner predestined, yet God wills the latter a greater good, eternal life. Asides: on Psalm 8, Thomas’s exposition applies “little less than the angels” to all of us one way and to Christ (by his passion) another; beasts, birds and fish are taken properly of man, metaphorically of the Son of man’s rule over those held by lust of the flesh, pride of life, and “the commerce of the sea,” lust of the eyes. On obj. 3, in the Golden Chain: when asked “do you love me more than these?”, Peter does not assert the primacy, only “you know I love you.” The Marietti edition gives as sole parallel Sentences III, dd. 31 and 32.

2. Sed contra: like loves like, and the better is more like God (“each thing loves more what is like itself”) #

Ecclesiasticus: every animal loves its like; the better is more like God; so God loves it more.

• The English word “like” names both love and likeness. In Thomas’s question on the causes of love the first cause is the good (with knowledge tied to it, the good as known), the second, really distinct, is likeness.
• Wuthering Heights: a woman drawn to one man because he is good, to another because he is like her; the novel personifies the two causes and she goes with likeness.
• Msgr. Dionne on teachers, his mother on doctors: you may like the person of one teacher or doctor while the other is better; you should not choose a doctor “by personality.”

3. The body: God’s love causes goodness, so He must love the better more (“nothing other than to will a greater good”) #

1. To love something more, for God, is nothing other than to will it a greater good (prev. article).
2. God’s will is the cause of goodness in things.
3. So if a thing is better, God wills it a greater good; hence “it follows necessarily” that He loves the better more. Contrast with us: I may fail to love the better because it is less known to me or less like me, these being causes of my love; in God there are no such causes, since His love is the cause. “It doesn’t mean he more intensely loves this than that.” Student: then how put all the sinful in hell if He loves everyone? Answer (student/teacher): He still loves them so far as they are; “that’s why he hates death.” Aside: a Last Judgment painting in Italy with far more going down on the left than up on the right, “what the painter must have thought.”

4. Reply 1: Christ loved more than the whole universe; the self-sacrifice paradox (“greater love than this hath no man”) #

God loves Christ more than the whole universe of creatures, because He willed him the greater good, “the name above every name” (Philippians 2:9), to be true God; handing him over for the human race did not diminish this, since by it he was made glorious victor and prince. Question raised: if I lay down my life for my friends, do I love him more than myself? Student: “more than a part.” He: if bodily good were the greatest, yes; but if the soul’s good is greater, I will myself the noble act and will him only bodily life, so I will myself the greater good, though “to the multitude it doesn’t appear that way.” Socrates’ paradoxes follow from this ranking (soul > body > exterior goods):

• rob or be robbed? Students, if honest, would rather steal $20 than lose it; but the one loses an exterior good, the other suffers injustice. Better to suffer injustice than do it.
• if you rob the bank, better to get caught: punished in body or freedom, but the soul may be straightened; uncaught, the soul corrupts with its money.
• Socrates’ last words in court: if my sons do wrong, punish them. Not crazy, if the soul’s good is so much better.
• Democritus: the best legacy a father can leave his children is his own self-control.

5. Reply 2: human nature in Christ vs. human nature in general; why man, not angels (“more precious to the sick servant”) #

The human nature assumed by the Word is loved more than all angels, being better by the union; but human nature in general, compared with angels in the order to grace and glory, shows equality (“the same measure of man and the angel,” Apocalypse 21:17): some angels exceed some men and some men some angels; by condition of nature the angel is better. God assumed human nature not because He loved man more absolutely, but because man was more in need, “as the good head of the family gives something more precious to the sick servant than to the healthy son.” His addition: another reason God could not assume an angel: each angel is its own kind, so you would remove that angel from the universe; men are many of one nature. Angels are less redeemable: “when they go, the whole angel goes,” whereas we go “back and forth.”

6. Reply 3: Peter and John, solved “in many ways,” finally presumptuous to judge (“presumptuous to judge this”) #

Thomas is “not going to be too definitive.” The solutions he lists:

1. Augustine, a mystery: the active life (Peter) loves God more, feeling more the pressures of this life and desiring more heatedly to be freed; God loves the contemplative life (John) more, since it does not end with the body. Cf. “Mary has chosen the better part, it shall not be taken from her”; he used to tell students you had better get the active life in now, but note “the better part.”
2. Some: Peter loved Christ more in his members (the Church) and so was loved more, being put in charge of the Church; John loved Christ more in himself and was given his mother, “more personal.”
3. Others: uncertain which loved more by charity or which is loved more in order to glory; Peter loved more in promptitude and fervor, John in signs of familiarity shown him for his youth and purity.
4. Others: Peter more in the gift of charity, John in the gift of understanding, so Peter better simply, John secundum quid. Thomas ends: “presumptuosum tamen videtur” to judge, citing Proverbs 16:2, the Lord weighs the spirits. Conclusion for the objection: “you don’t know who’s loved more and who’s better, so you can’t argue from it.” Asides: on John’s purity, Thomas’s proem to John cites Jerome, who seems to say John adhered to Christ at Cana, as the bridegroom, which he finds strange (the man would be already married, unless the wife agreed to his leaving); Peter’s mother-in-law shows Peter was married, no evidence John was. Peter and Paul are “the apostles” by antonomasia, princes of the apostles (John Paul II), so Paul complicates the ranking. The friendship of Peter and John continues into Acts; John to Ephesus with Mary. Student joke: Peter got crucified, John “just wrote the gospel and died in peace.”

7. Reply 4: the penitent and the innocent exceed and are exceeded (“more cautious, and more humble, and more fervent”) #

Whether innocent or penitent, the one with more grace is better and more loved; other things equal, innocence has more dignity. God is said to rejoice more over the penitent (a) because penitents are often more cautious, humble and fervent on rising again; Gregory: the commander loves more the soldier who turns after flight and fights strongly than one who never fled but never fought hard (cf. Shakespeare’s Prince Hal, wild youth then different in battle); (b) because an equal gift of grace is more to the penitent, who merited punishment, than to the innocent: a hundred marks is a greater gift to the pauper than to the king. His addition: Thomas elsewhere reads the Luke text as completing the number of the blessed (the hundred, the perfect number): if I need three men and two volunteer, the third gives me more joy, not in himself but as completing what I need. Aside: Augustine appearing to Thomas, in some sense equals, but Thomas kept his chastity while Augustine “had this fling”; still we cannot say simply that Thomas is higher in heaven. Augustine on proud virgins: better they fall into sins of the flesh to cure their pride.

8. Reply 5: the goodness of the predestined sinner is weighed at the time of the gift (“according to that time”) #

Since God’s will causes goodness, the goodness of the one loved is weighed according to the time at which God is going to give him some good. At the time the predestined sinner is to receive the greater good, he is better, though at another time worse, and at some time neither good nor bad. His cue: “God’s not looking at just the present, is He?” Then: break “before we go into the justice and mercy of God.”

9. Question 21, prologue: four articles; why justice before mercy (“justice in us is a virtue in the will”) #

Four articles: whether there is justice in God; whether His justice can be called truth; whether there is mercy; whether justice and mercy are in every work of God. Three parts: aa.1–2 justice, a.3 mercy, a.4 both together. Why justice first: justice in us is a virtue of the will, while mercy is named from pity, a passion; so one is more apt to speak of justice in God than of mercy, though mercy “may be more primary” in God; “maybe it’s more clear that God is just.”

10. a.1 objections and sed contra; the order of the virtues in philosophy vs. theology (“the order is just contrary”) #

1. Justice is divided against temperance; temperance is not in God; so neither is justice. Anticipation: temperance concerns bodily pleasures and passions, God has no body; justice is in the will.
2. Whoever does all things at his own will does not act by justice; God does all according to the counsel of His will (Ephesians); “He’s a willful guy, I guess.”
3. Justice renders what is owed to another; God is a debtor of no one. “That’s good.”
4. Whatever is in God is His essence; but justice regards the act, good regards the essence (Boethius, De Hebdomadibus). Note the Summa’s order: existence, then substance (where goodness is treated), now what God does, a distinction that may not answer to a real distinction in God. Sed contra, Psalm 10: the just Lord loves just things. On obj. 1: Aristotle in the Ethics begins with courage and temperance, virtues about passions (Book III), other passions in Book IV, will in Book V, reason in Book VI; Thomas in the Secunda Secundae reverses: prudence, justice, courage, temperance. Virtues in reason and will are more like what is in God; so the theological order and the philosophical order are “sometimes just the reverse,” as Thomas explains at the beginning of SCG Book II: God first in theology, last in philosophy; the same contrariety seen with the good and love in God and in us.

11. The body: commutative vs. distributive justice; only the latter in God (“what suitable to Him, according to the worth”) #

Twofold justice (Aristotle, Ethics V):

• Commutative, directive of exchanges (buying, selling): not in God, “who has first given to him, and it shall be returned?” (Romans 11). Children, and Euthyphro, treat God quid pro quo, as another human being.
• Distributive, by which a governor or dispenser gives to each according to his dignity: the suitable order of a family or governed multitude shows this justice in the governor; so the order of the universe, in natural and voluntary things, shows God’s justice. Dionysius, Divine Names 8: He distributes to all what is suitable according to each thing’s worth and preserves each nature in its own order and power. Examples: painting your house for $1000, then you owe me (commutative); the head of a family giving more food to the bigger child or medicine to the one with a cough (distributive); Aristotle’s: give the violin or piano to one with musical talent, not to me, “you waste it.” Aside: his granddaughter Kate, “mommy and daddy and I make the rules,” the eldest taking the mother’s role toward the newborn.

12. Reply 1: virtues about passions vs. virtues about operations; love is not an emotion (“laughable to praise God according to political virtues”) #

Moral virtues about passions (temperance about sense desires, courage about fears and boldness, mildness about anger; Aristotle Ethics III–IV, also magnanimity about hope and despair, philotimia) cannot be in God except by metaphor, since there are no passions nor the sense desire that is their subject (Ethics III). Virtues about operations, giving and taking (justice, liberality, magnificence), are in the will, and God has a will, so they can be in God, not in the narrow civil sense but as suitable to God: “laughable to praise God according to political virtues” (Ethics X). His additions: elsewhere Thomas goes further, temperance cannot be said of God even metaphorically (no likeness), but strength can. Mercy is named from pity (Kyrie eleison, the same word as in Aristotle’s Poetics on tragedy purging pity and fear), so it is less clearly said of God than justice: is it said of God metaphorically, or did we borrow the only word we have? Avicenna: God alone is liberal, giving expecting nothing back; even the liberal man gets his good act, but nothing is added to God. Why Aristotle starts with passion-virtues: they are more known than acts of will. First-day question “what is love?” gets “a very special emotion,” “so’s anger.” As a boy at Nativity Church, St. Paul, hearing of God’s love and thinking of it as emotion, “something not quite right.” Contemporary theologians want emotions in God so He is not “a cold fellow”; C. S. Lewis on the ferocious, burning love of angels, not an emotion yet more intense than anything we imagine.

13. Replies 2–3: God is a law to Himself; owed in two orders, yet no debtor (“God is to Himself a law”) #

Reply 2: the good understood is the object of the will; God can will only what His wisdom holds, which is the law of justice making His will right; what He does by will He does justly, as we act justly by law, but our law is from above us, while God is a law to Himself (a king who is a law to himself we would call willful). Reply 3: to each is owed what is his own, as the servant is the lord’s, the free man his own; debt implies an order of necessity. Twofold order: creature to creature (part to whole, accident to substance, thing to its end) and all creatures to God. So owed in two ways: to God, that His wisdom and will be fulfilled and His goodness shown (justice as suitability to Himself); to the creature, what its nature and condition require (man to have hands, that animals serve him). The second depends on the first, so God gives each its due yet is no debtor, since He is not ordered to others. Hence justice in God is sometimes the condignum, what fits His goodness, sometimes what is given for merits; Anselm: punishing the wicked is just as suited to their merits, sparing them just as suited to His goodness. Summary: God owes nobody anything; we owe God; something may be owed to me by reason of my parts or my acts.

14. Reply 4: justice regards the act, yet is God’s essence; the point-and-lines example (“two thoughts about C”) #

Justice regards the act, but the essence of a thing can be the source of its action, so justice can be God’s essence; good does not always regard the act, since a thing is good also in its nature, hence good is to just as general to special (Boethius). God’s substance and doing are the same, distinct only in our thoughts, since we know God from creatures where they differ. His “favorite math example”: point C is the beginning of line CA and of line CB; two thoughts about C answering to no distinction in C, while A and B, known first, are really two points.

His words #

• “loves more”: for God, wills a greater good to; not more intense love
• like: the English word names both love and likeness; the two causes of love, good and likeness
• second plank after shipwreck: penance (Jerome)
• secundum quid: John better in a certain respect, Peter simply
• presumptuosum tamen videtur: Thomas’s closing word on Peter and John
• condignum: what is fitting to God’s goodness, one sense of justice in God
• justitia commutativa / distributive justice: justice of exchanges vs. justice of a governor giving to each by dignity
• mansuetudo: mildness, meekness, the virtue about anger
• philotimia: love of honor
• Kyrie eleison: pity, the word of Aristotle’s tragedy, and of mercy
• liberal: gives expecting nothing in return; God alone is liberal (Avicenna)
• antonomasia: Peter and Paul as “the apostles”
• Golden Chain [ed.: Catena Aurea]

Texts #

Read in class

• Summa Theologiae I, q. 20, a. 4 (objections, sed contra, body, replies 1–5)
• Summa Theologiae I, q. 21, prologue and a. 1 (objections, sed contra, body, replies 1–4)
• Handout “A Note on Practical Philosophy,” p. 9: listed by the verified sources as read in this episode; the transcript does not name it, most likely the passage on the order of the virtues (inferred)

Mentioned

• Romans 8; Psalm 8 (with Thomas’s exposition); Hebrews 2; Luke 15; Philippians 2:9; Apocalypse 21:17; Proverbs 16:2; Ecclesiasticus (like loves like); Psalm 10; Ephesians (counsel of His will); Romans 11; the Gospel of John (Peter and John; Cana); Acts
• Thomas, Catena Aurea on John; Sentences III, dd. 31–32; question on the causes of love (inferred: ST I-II q. 27); Secunda Secundae order of virtues; proem to the commentary on John (Jerome); Summa Contra Gentiles II, beginning
• Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics III, IV, V, VI, X; Poetics (pity and fear)
• Augustine (active and contemplative life; proud virgins); Jerome; Gregory (the soldier who turns); Boethius, De Hebdomadibus; Dionysius, Divine Names 8; Anselm; Avicenna; Democritus; Plato’s Euthyphro and Socrates in the Apology (inferred); Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights; Shakespeare, Henry V; C. S. Lewis

His questions #

• Does God always love more the better, given the five objections? Yes, necessarily: to love more is to will a greater good, and God’s will causes goodness.
• If I lay down my life for my friends, do I love them more than myself? No: I will myself the noble act, the soul’s good; to them only bodily life.
• Would you rather steal twenty dollars or have twenty stolen from you? Better to be robbed: the loss is exterior, the theft is injustice.
• Which did Christ love more, Peter or John? Solved many ways; finally presumptuous to judge (Proverbs 16:2), so the objection fails.
• Why does God rejoice more over the penitent? Penitents often rise more humble and fervent; an equal gift is more to one who merited punishment; or, completing the number of the blessed.
• Why treat justice before mercy? Justice is a virtue of the will, mercy is named from a passion; justice is more clearly said of God.
• Is mercy said of God metaphorically, or is pity the only word we have? left open
• Does God owe anybody anything? Not strictly; we owe God, and what is owed to creatures depends on the order of divine wisdom.
• Are justice and goodness two things in God? One in God, two in our thought, as C begins two lines while remaining one point.