Prima Pars
82. Part 1: God's love for all things, and whether He loves them equally (Q.20, a.2–3)
Class of 2007-05-03
https://berquistcourse.com/course/theology/10-prima-pars/082-part-1-gods-love-for-all-things-and-whether-he-loves-them/

[0:00] Prayer, name of the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit. Amen. God our enlightenment, guardian angel, bring from the lights of our minds, order to illumine our images and arouse us to consider more correctly. Saint Thomas Aquinas, angelic doctor, pray for us. and help us to understand all that you've written. Name of the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit. Amen. So we're up to

[0:30] question twenty, article two, whether God loves all things. To the second, one proceeds thus: It seems that God does not love all things. First, because according to Dionysius in the fourth chapter of the Divine Names, love puts the one loving outside himself, and transfers him in a way into the thing he loves. But it's unsuitable to say that God is placed outside himself,

[1:08] transferred into other things. This is what one of the attributes or one of the effects of love that he talks about in the treatise on love, ecstasy, being outside yourself. Therefore, it's unsuitable to say that God loves things other than Himself.

[1:28] Second objection: Moreover, the love of God is eternal, but the things which are other than God are not from eternity, except in God. Therefore, God does not love these things except as they are in Himself. But according as they are in Him, they are not anything other from Him. Therefore, God does not love things other than Himself. As you see in the reply to the second objection, there that seems like a positive by some modern philosopher, right?

[2:04] All you know is these motion pictures in your head, right? You don't know anything outside there corresponding to these motion pictures going on in your head.

[2:15] Moreover, there's a twofold love. Now Thomas will talk about that distinction in the treatise on love on the Prima Secundae. and one is called the amor concupiscentia, right, the love of wanting, and the amor amicitiae, the love of friendship, which could also be called the love of what wishing well. And Thomas will begin that text by saying, by quoting the philosopher, saying that to love somebody is to want good things for that person, right?

[2:48] And so, love has in a way two objects, right? The one you love, the one you wish well to, and then the good that you wish for that person. And so you said to have the amor concupiscentiae for the good that you wish for yourself or for another person, right? But you have the love of friendship, or called better, maybe even the love of wishing well, that you have for the one to whom you want this good to come, right?

[3:19] And when I would be teaching this, you know, I'd often say to students, um, for your your candy or for your book or something, you have only the amor concupiscentiae, the love of wanting. For yourself, you seem to have just the love of wishing well. The ambiguity comes, for another person, right?

[3:44] Is that other person the good you want for yourself? And that's as far as your, that's what your love really is for this other person. Then you have the love of wanting for that other person.

[3:56] Um, but it's possible to have for another person the love of wishing well, and in the second commandment of love, where it says you should love your neighbor as yourself, doesn't mean as much as yourself. It means in this by the same kind of love that you have for yourself. That as you have for yourself the love of wishing well, you should have that kind of love for your your neighbor.

[4:23] And so now this objection is recalling that distinction, and it's going to argue from it. But God does not love irrational creatures by the love of concupiscence, the love of wanting, because he has no need of such things. He has no need of something outside of himself. Nor does he love them by the love of friendship, which cannot be had to irrational things, as the philosopher says.

[4:57] So I don't really wish well to the wine, even though I don't want the wine to spoil. Thomas's favorite example, right? But I want the wine not to spoil, so that I can enjoy it, right? So I'm wishing well not to the wine, but to me. And of course, when I consume the wine, it's not for the good of the wine to be consumed, but for my good, perhaps.

[5:17] If I do it in moderation. So, notice the way this army is saying, right? If God loves everything, then, he's going to have to love irrational things like the stones and the trees and so on, right? Because they're included in all things. If he loves them, it's got to be by the love of wanting them, or by the love of wishing well. And he argues from the authority of Aristotle, you don't have the love of wishing well for these, inanimate or these irrational things.

[5:49] And he can't have the love of wanting for them because he has no need of them, right? Moreover, it is said in the fifth psalm. You hate all those who do evil, do iniquity. But nothing, at the same time, is had in hate and loved. Therefore, God does not love all things.

[6:19] But against all this is what is said in the book of Wisdom, eleventh chapter: You love all the things which are, and you hate none of those things which you have what made.

[6:35] So Thomas replies in the body of the article. I answer: It should be said that God loves all things existing. For all things existing, in so far as they are, are good. For the being or existence of each thing is a good, and likewise each what perfection of the thing.

[7:07] Of course, sometimes we show that to be is good because the good is what all want. I'm going back to the original definition of the good, and everything tries to preserve its existence so far as it can. You could also argue from God being I am who am, and God being goodness itself, that other things, in so far as they are like God, are good, and therefore, in so far as they are, they are what good.

[7:33] And of course, when you study the bad, the same kinds of opposites, you find out that the bad is what a kind of non-being. It's the non-being of something you're able to have and should have, but don't have. So strictly speaking, non-being in the sense of a lack. But Augustine kind of exaggerates that he says that sin is nothing, and the man who sinned becomes nothing.

[8:02] Um, now it has been shown above that the will of God is the cause of all things, and therefore it is necessary that, in so far as something has some existence or some good,

[8:29] or to that extent, something has some being or some good, right? As it is what, or in so far as it is willed by God,

[8:39] to each thing existing, therefore God wishes some good, at least existence. Whence, since to love is nothing other than to wish good to someone, there's the double object I was talking about, and he quotes Aristotle there to that effect: that to amare is velle bonum alicui. Okay, it is manifest that God loves all the things which are. Sense.

[9:11] Now he's going to make a very important distinction. Right, not however in that way as we, because our will is not the cause of the goodness of things, but it is moved by the goodness of things. Our love is moved by the goodness of things, as by an object, right?

[9:40] In which the good that we wish to someone is not the cause of their goodness, but reverse their goodness, either their true goodness or what we think is their goodness, right? Provokes the love by which we what wish. Both the good to be preserved Yeah, Had yeah. And to be, yeah, to be added, the goodness is not had And for this sake, we are right. But the love of God is pouring in and creating the goodness in things.

[10:15] Huh? Now, if you ever go through the treatise on the love of God, haven't you ever did that? Did we? Did we? One time in the past. Yeah. You may recall in the prima Secundae that it was divided into three questions, right? Each question had a number of articles. Huh? And the first question was on the nature of love and the distinction of the kinds of love.

[10:38] And the second question was on the causes of love. And the third question was on the effects of love. Huh? Now, in the part on the causes of love, the first article was whether good is a cause of love, and the answer was yes, right? But he's thinking now of the love of man, maybe of the creature, right? And then later on, he pointed out how likeness is a cause of love, and so on.

[11:08] And knowledge is a cause of love, and so on. Um, but God's love of creatures, the good is not the cause of His love of creatures, but rather His love of creatures is cause of the goodness of creatures. So it's a sense just the reverse of that, right? Okay. You may recall long ago when we had the dialectic about the good,

[11:36] and we imitated what Socrates there, and we had Socrates asking the little boy, young boy, what is good? And we had the young boy answering like the usual characters and Plato's dialogues by giving not a definition of good, but by giving what examples of good things, right? Candy is good. Pizza is good. Baseball is good, right? Vacation is good, et cetera, et cetera. And then Socrates pointing out, like he does in the dialogues, that

[12:17] this is not to define what the good is, but giving me examples of good things, huh? And so Socrates would point out to the boys he does to Mino or points out to Euthyphro in the dialogues and and Theaetetus and other people, you're not giving me a definition of good, you're giving me examples of this, right? Okay. So instead of telling me that a man is a two-footed animal that has reason, say, well, here's a man, here's a man, here's a man, here's a man.

[12:52] Okay, and this actually has a little child, but it's a circle. He wouldn't give you a definition of circle. He'd point to whatever is circular in the room, right? And so, but there is a way from examples of a thing to the definition, and that is to compare the examples, separate out what they have in common, and leave aside their differences. Now, if the little boy had to try to see what all these things like vacation and candy, you know, you can't eat them all, bicycles, baseball, what they all have in common, whereby he calls them all good, right?

[13:38] He'd probably come up with something like what Aristotle says is the first definition of the good. Well, these are the things I want. So he comes up with the first definition of the good: the good is what all want. And this is the way Aristotle begins the famous work, the Nicomachean Ethics. He gives a kind of induction, and then he says, "Then they say good or well that the good is what all want."

[14:03] And then what do we do next, right? Well, then we imitated Socrates in the great dialogue there, the Euthyphro, to ask a question of before and after in the sense of cause and effect. And you say, "Well, is it good because we want it, or do we want it because it is good?" Okay. Socrates and Euthyphro asks about the definition of the pious. The pious is what pleases the gods, or the pious is what the gods approve of.

[14:38] And Socrates says, "Well, that may be true, but is it pious because the gods approve it, or because it pleases the gods, or is it the reverse that it pleases the gods because? Yeah, yeah. So Socrates has shown us how to ask a very basic kind of question. And I've often mentioned, you know, how in I think it's in the De Vera Religione, where Augustine quotes the common definition of the beautiful: the beautiful is that which pleases when seen.

[15:11] And being a Platonist to some extent, Plato, a follower of Plato, Socrates asked the Platonic or the Socratic question: Is it beautiful because it pleases my eyes, or does it please my eyes because it is beautiful? And having a good mind, Augustine says, "I have no doubt that it pleases my eyes because it is beautiful." So in a way, you're defining the beautiful by its effect upon our eyes, which is not to know intrinsically what the beautiful is, but it's a place where we naturally start because effect is more known.

[15:49] Well, same question here about the good. The good is what is wanted, but is that the cause that makes it good, right? Well, if it were, then we'd be like God, right? You see.

[16:07] Am I good because God loves me, or does God love me because I am good? You see. Well, if God loved me because I am good, I'd be the cause of God's love, and since God is love, I'd be the cause of God. Wow, you see. That's presumptuous, obviously, by far. But likewise, it's presumptuous to say that something is good because I want it, because then, in a sense, you are saying, "But I am like God, right?

[16:39] My will, willing something, makes it good. " See, when actually it's the reverse, you know, and the the good is arousing my my desire for it. So there is an enormous difference between

[16:58] my loving God, let's say, and God loving me, right? I mean, a lot of differences, obviously. But I mean, the very basic difference is that God's goodness is a cause of my loving Him, right?

[17:14] As I think Saint Bernard of Clairvaux there says, you know, the reason for loving God is God. I think it's well said, right? Okay. But I'm not the reason for God loving me.

[17:31] But God's loving me is the reason why I am, and why there is any good. If there is any good in me, right, He's the cause of it, right.

[17:44] So this is what Thomas points out, and what in this text is the second paragraph, right? That's a very important. Before and after, you know, the great Shakespeare, you know, said that reason is ability for a large discourse, looking before and after, and the counting sense of before and after is the cause before the effect. So you have to see that in us, basically, I love something because it's good.

[18:17] But in the case of God's loving something in the creatures, it's just the reverse. It's good because He loves. That's an that's an amazing thing, right? And you have to see the before and after, and the distinction in those two.

[18:32] Never ever forget that. Okay, now the first objection was taken from one of the effects of love, which Dionysius talks about, and it's one of the articles in the third question on love in the treatise on love. That one of the effects of love is ecstasy, right? Being outside yourself, but you can kind of maybe understand that. In too material a way or too sensitive a way.

[19:05] To the first, therefore, it should be said that the one loving thus comes to be outside himself, translated or carried over into the one loved, in so far as he wishes good to the one loved, and acts through his providence as he does for himself. Right.

[19:31] So, in a sense, you know, like in the second commandment, love. To love your neighbor as yourself means to wish well to him, just like you wish well to yourself. So you're wishing good to him as if he were yourself. So you seem to have gone out into him, right? And you now acting for his good, as if you're acting for your own good. And so, Aristotle often quotes the Greek proverb there, huh?

[19:59] Or states it a friend is a. what. Another self. Another self. I'm gonna add from my little Greek study. o fillos estin allos autas A friend is another what? Self. And I've seen Shakespeare call a friend sometimes a second self. Okay.

[20:26] So it doesn't mean that God is actually outside of Himself, right? But in this way of speaking, whence Dionysius says in the fourth chapter of the Divine Names, when ought to dare and to say this for the truth, that what He, the cause of all things, through the abundance of His loving goodness,

[20:53] comes to be outside of Himself, right, providing for all existing things. Okay. There's something of that in that thing on sweetness. I can't remember the text. Is it about sweetness or something? I can't remember. That's about God's goodness by providing for us, thank God. Now, usually he talks about the sweetness of God in terms of being a metaphor, right? No, I think I mentioned before that the best explanation I've seen of the metaphor "sweet" is in the commentary in the Psalms, where he's saying, you know, how sweet is the Lord, and so on.

[21:31] And but what he says there about sweet could be applied to, you know, the manicus of sweet, and and or even to Shakespeare's thing where he speaks of your sweet form, a metaphorical way of saying your beautiful form. But he sees three things in the sweet, and the most obvious thing, of course, is the sweet is pleasant. And then the second that the sweet is what restful, it quiets you down, right?

[21:59] And then the sweet is what refreshing. Okay. And I've noticed that when people speak about the beautiful, right? Obviously, the beautiful is that which pleases when seen, so it's pleasing. But I hear people say about something when they see a beautiful scene, oh how restful it is here, you know. Look out over the beautiful scenery, you know, they say how restful. So the beautiful is restful. And then we have the expression about a girl; she's a sight for sore eyes.

[22:29] And therefore, it's refreshing. The beautiful is refreshing. And so those three things enable you to give the metaphor "sweet" to the beautiful. So Shakespeare speaks of your instead of a beautiful form, which would be speaking properly, he says your sweet form, right? Okay.

[22:52] Um. When you say sweetheart or something like that. Well, it's pleasant to be loved by this heart, but it's also what rest for it. Okay, we can rest in the hearts of those who love us. While those who hate us, you know, you kind of have a feeling of, you know, a restless feeling when you realize someone doesn't really like you at all, you know. And

[23:21] it's something refreshing, right? You know, to be loved by somebody, right? Okay, so you have those three elements. So sweet is a beautiful metaphor.

[23:32] Okay, but you shouldn't take this this being outside yourself in a simply a spatial sense, right? But in so far as I act for you as if you were myself, I seem to be in you, right? Okay.

[23:50] Now the second objection is the one from the modern philosophers. To the second, it should be said that although creatures from eternity were not except in God, nevertheless to this that they were in God from eternity, they are known eternally by God in their own what natures, huh? And for the same reason, he what loved them in their own natures, just as us through the likeness of things which are in us know things existing in themselves.

[24:23] So I just know my image of you, right? But through the likeness of you in me, I know you out there. Unless you're a modern philosopher, and you're. Yeah. Bernard Von explicitly he says that. We don't know things. We only know images in our head. Yeah, yeah, that's the modern position. Justifies by reference to St. Thomas, and it mixes up the word. What a bizarre. I didn't know he's that bad off.

[24:46] I put him with the moderns. Yeah. See, especially in Berkeley and the Bonaforn. Now the third one is talking about the two kinds of love, and

[25:01] does God have one of these kinds of love for the what irrational things? To the third, it should be said that friendship is not able to be had except to rational creatures, in which there can be love in return, and community in the doings of life, right? And to whom there happens something well or bad according to fortune and happiness, just as to them properly there is what benevolentia wishing well.

[25:36] If you look at at Saint Francis de Sales' treatise on love, there, right, you'll see him talking about benevolentia, right, As an integral part there of love. Now, irrational creatures, huh, cannot arrive at loving God, right? So it can't be redamatio There can't be love in return, right?

[26:07] Nor can they arrive at a community of what, of understanding in of the blessed life by which God lives. Thus, therefore, God, properly speaks. speaking, does not love irrational creatures by the love of friendship, but by the love, as it were, of what wanting. Now, in what sense does he have that? In so far as he orders them to rational creatures, right, and also to himself, not as if he needs them, but in account to their goodness and our what usefulness.

[26:48] For we want something both for ourselves and for others, right? So God doesn't have the love of wanting of irrational creatures in the sense that he he needs them, right? But he wants them to be had by us, right? And maybe wants them for the perfection of the universe and so on. But not because he he needs them, right? Like I need the food, No, I'm wanting the food, or wine.

[27:20] I think I need them anyway. Now the fourth objection was saying, "Well, God hates those who do evil, right? " So to the fourth, it should be said that nothing prevents one and the same thing by something to be loved and by something to be had in what hate.

[27:47] For God loves sinners in so far as they are certain what natures. For thus they also are and are from him, but in so far as they are sinners, they are not, and they fall short from being. And this is in them, but not from God, right?

[28:13] And according to this, they are said to be had by him in what hate, right? Now we don't. It doesn't go into talk about hate, but if you speak of God as hating, is that said properly or metaphorically? Metaphorically, yeah. Yeah.

[28:31] Because something else more, right? And something maybe that cries him to punish somebody. Something that sorry. Okay, let's go on now to the third article. Whether God equally loves all things, and here again the necessity of a distinction. Friend and need is a friend indeed. Okay. For it is said in the book of wisdom, the sixth chapter, equally is there care for him about all things, which seems to imply some kind of equality of love, right?

[29:15] But the providence of God, for He cares for things, which He has about things, proceeds from the love by which He loves things. Therefore, He loves all things, what equally? As you know, Thomas will have a distinction in there. We'll see when we get there,

[29:38] because in one way he's going to deny, in the other way, he's going to affirm, right? We'll see what that distinction is, and we get there.

[29:47] So there's a part of truth in what is being said in this first objection. Moreover, the love of God is His essence. Was it Saint? Who is it? Saint John is not one of the main texts. God is love, right? Okay. But the essence or nature or substance of God does not receive more and less. Is more God today or less God today? Therefore, neither does His what love.

[30:18] Okay. Therefore, he does not love some things more than others, right? Now the third objection. Moreover, as the love of God extends itself to created things, so does the knowledge of God and the will of God. But God is not said to know some things more than others, nor to will some things more than he wills other things. Therefore, neither does he love some things more than what others, right?

[30:56] That's kind of interesting objection there. But against this is what Augustine says, huh? In his homilies on John, God loves all the things which He has made, right? And among them, He loves more rational creatures, and among those more those who are members of His only begotten.

[31:25] Those members of the mystical body, I suppose, and much more the very what? Yeah. And St. Alphonsus says he loves Mary more than all the rest of us put together. Okay, so he loves some more than others. It's pretty clear for Augustine, right? Mm-hmm. That's a lot. Huh? Yeah. Now Thomas is going to what? It's like logic things, huh?

[31:56] Yeah, but he's going to make an important distinction about this. I answer: It should be said that since to love is to will good to someone, right?

[32:08] For two reasons, it is possible that what one is loved more or less. In one way, on the side of the act of the will itself, which is more or less what intent, and thus God does not more love some than others. Why? Because He loves all by one simple act of His will,

[32:41] and an act of the will that always has itself in the same way. So he can't love one more intensely than he loves another, because of them all by one and the same what unchanging simple act of the will. In that sense, he can't love one more than the other. Another way, on the side of the good that he wills to someone, what, loved to the loved, and thus we are said to love more the one to whom we will a greater good, even though not by a more what intense willing,

[33:24] and in this way, is necessary to say that God loves some things more than others, for since the love of God is the cause the goodness of things, one would not be better than other if God did not will to it a greater good than to the other, right?

[33:47] So does Thomas does God love Thomas Aquinas more than us? Well, he he wills to him a greater mind than he wills to us. In that sense, he loves Thomas more than us, right? But he's not more intensely will the greater mind that he wills to Thomas than the little mind he wills to us. I'm just just saying. So God loves loves us after or before? What, In different Well, no, God's love is eternal.

[34:18] So you know, he loved us before we were. And how about after? How he loves us? How he's loved us? One one A. Yes, the same. Yeah. One A. Yeah. But but he can will many goods to us. But he may will a greater good to you than he wills to me. So in that sense, he loves you more. That comes because of your worth. No, because you're good.

[34:42] Really, no, no, no. So notice, I can will to say my children a lesser good than to someone else, right? But will it more intensely, right? Okay. But God is just one way that he can be said to love this more than that because it's a greater good he's willing to this than to that. Okay.

[35:12] So interesting distinction, right? I mean, as a professor, when I was giving grades, right, sometimes you like one student a lot, but his exam doesn't justify getting an A. So,

[35:32] but with more intensity of love, I give him a B, and this other son of a gun, he's a very all submissive. If I give them an A because they deserve an A, right? Yeah, yeah. Okay. So do I love more the student that gave the A than one the B? I've talked about the intensity of love. No. With more intensity of love, I gave the B to this person than the A to that person.

[35:56] But I gave a better grade to one than the others. That distinction, right? That might say be a question of justice, right? I couldn't

[36:14] put my grandchildren in charge of Iraq or something like that, because then I'm not capable of that. Okay. To the first, therefore, it should be said that God is said to have equally care about all things, not because He dispenses equal goods to all in His care, right? But because from an equal wisdom and goodness He administers what all things.

[36:46] Now the second objection is very important for the distinction we saw in the body, the article, right? The second article, the second objection was saying that the love of God is His essence, and the essence of God does not receive more or less, right? He says to the second, it should be said that that reason or that argument proceeds from the intensity of love on the side of the act of the will, which is the divine essence.

[37:15] But the good that God wills to the creature is not the divine essence. Hence, nothing prevents it from being more or less, or being intense or more remiss. Okay. So, so in the body, the article, you said we can distinguish in love of distinct creatures, right? The intensity of the love, right, and the good, the greatness of the good being willed, right? In God, the intensity is always the same.

[37:42] It's the divine substance, which is never more nor less, right? So God doesn't love the the greatest saint more intensely than He loves the the least saint, right? But He wishes a greater good to the greater saint than to the lesser saint. In that sense, ultimately, greater enjoyment. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So God is said to love the the greater saint in the sense that He wills to them a greater good, not that He wills that greater good more intensely.

[38:17] He wills the lesser good just as intensely as the greater good, right? Okay. And our love is goes on the act. Like my mom, she loves me because I do good things sometimes. But if I do bad things, she hates me. Sometimes she said she loves more than my brother. Sometimes said, oh, my younger brother is better. So you know, like we humans, we love on the act.

[38:46] I believe not like God. God, our love is caused by the things we love, but God, no, no. One example I know as a parent, you know, you very quickly sympathize with someone whose child has been hurt, right? And how this could happen to your child and so on, right? And so you will good to that other person's child just as you will good to your own child.

[39:13] Yet you're going to be much more affected if this accident happens to your child than to them, because you will the same thing much more intensely for your own child, right? Okay. So I don't want the neighbor's kid get hit by the car.

[39:29] I want him to avoid being hit by car just as I will that my child avoid being hit by car. But I will more intensely that my child not be hit by car than my neighbor's, right? And and so I'm more saddened by my child than I'm saddened by neighbors too, you know. But in God, there is no more intensity that way, right? Yeah, it's no strength, it's no.

[39:50] Yeah, because his love is is a substance, and his substance is never more nor less. Okay. So I suppose one reason why why you you won't be envious in heaven, because God loves you just as intensely as He loves the apostles, right? But He did will to them a greater good. Yeah, it's kind of interesting. It's like God is. Now the quite the third objection says we don't speak of God willing more or knowing more, right?

[40:24] One thing or another. Why then do we say love? And Thomas points out to the third it should be said that to understand and to will signify only what acts. Not, however, in their meaning is included some objects from the diversity of whom one could say that God more what knows or wills. As it is about love, right? Because you say love, following Aristotle, is to what?

[40:57] Will good to someone, right? Okay, so what am I willing to so and so? And that can be a greater or lesser good. I'm willing to somebody, right? Well, willing is doesn't bring out the aspect of the object so much, right? This kind of interesting objection and reply. It's not hard to see right away, but but

[41:20] there's a kind of interesting difference there between willing, which is more abstract, right? And more naming just the act, huh? And love, which is more explicitly bringing in the what? Object, right, huh? Okay.