Love & Friendship
8. Hope, Desire and Being Loved: Other Causes of Love, and Whether Love's Capacity Has a Limit
https://berquistcourse.com/course/philosophy/6-love-friendship/008-hope-desire-and-being-loved-other-causes-of-love-and-whether/

[0:00] for a minute. Now the fourth. cause of love, Whether another emotion or act of the will can be a cause of love. The two gentlemen of Verona. Hope is a lover's staff.

[0:18] Walk hence with that and manage it against despairing thoughts. And hope here is what supporting love, right? Okay. Story of the fox and the grapes, sour grapes. What's the original story? The fox really liked those grapes, right? But he kept on jumping and he couldn't reach them, right? And then he said, "Ah, they're probably sour anyway, right?" It's like the man pursuing the woman, you know, and he's not clever enough to win the woman or something, right?

[0:53] He says, "Wow, he's got so many friends, he won't be satisfied with one man anyway. You know, who'd want to be married to her anyway?" So you know, so you can see, in a way, hope is supporting love, right? If you despair, right, of gaining the grapes, right, then you might turn against the grapes, huh? Okay. And it happens with the moderns, you know, they despair of knowing the truth, and so they begin to what run down the truth, right?

[1:18] It's not no big deal, the truth anyway. Who cares? We don't know the truth, but really, originally wanted to know the truth, right? But they lost their hope, and then their love started to weaken and diminish it.

[1:32] So is that easily is that observable in there? In there, you can trace that progression somehow. We go to moderns someday, and I'll give you the three major sources of the modern world as customs, huh?

[1:47] Okay. She knew her distance, huh? And did angle for me, madding my eagerness with her restraint, as all impediments in fancy's course. Now, fancy originally meant the imagination, but then got carried over to mean what love, right? So she's playing hard to get, right? So, and that's increasing his love, right? Our motives of more what fancy, right? Huh? So something else here seems to be what causing more love, right?

[2:27] And Prospero about Ferdinand and Miranda, they are both in either's power. They fall in love at first sight, but this swift business I must uneasy make, lest the light winning make the prize light, huh? Okay? So the fact that something is difficult to get, we had to struggle to get it, makes us be more what attached to it, right? Aristotle says a man who started out poor and had to work very hard to get some money is more attached to money than the man who's born what wealthy, huh?

[3:02] Because he didn't have to struggle for it, right? Notice the passage from Augustine on the Trinity. For what he sees in the light of truth is one thing, and what he desires with his own faculty is another thing. For in the light of truth, he realizes how great and how good it is to understand and speak all the languages of all countries, to hear no language as foreign, and to be heard in every language that no one may detect him as a foreigner.

[3:36] The splendor of such knowledge is already seen in his thoughts, and is loved by him as something known. And it is so seen and so arouses the zeal of learners that they are spurred into activity and account of it They yearn for it and all the labor which they expend in acquiring this faculty, so that they may also embrace and practice what they already know in theory.

[4:00] And so, the closer he comes to this faculty and hope, the more ardently he is inflamed with love. For he devotes himself more intensely to those sciences which he, when he does not despair of being able to what master them, right? While one who is not buoyed up by the hope of acquiring something either loves it tepidly or does not love it at all, though he may perceive how beautiful it is.

[4:28] Now here, hope seems to be a cause of what love, right? That's significant when you talk too about the theological virtues, right? Because there, hope generates what love, huh? So it seems like something other than love is another act of the will, right? Hope is stimulating love, right? So this is what the Thomas Aquinas is going to be about. Is it some some other emotion, right, causes emotion of love, right?

[4:58] Can some other act of the will cause the act of the will that is love, right? Say about either love, right? Consequently, since almost all despair of knowing all languages, each one strives to become particularly proficient in that of his own people, right? Okay. So, do I? Would I love to speak Chinese? Well, I suppose so. But you know I would despair if they were learning Chinese, right?

[5:28] You see, So I don't have a very intense love of that, do I? See. That's what Thomas Aquinas says. To the fourth, one goes forward. Thus, it seems that some other emotion is able to be the cause of love. For the philosopher says in the eighth book of the Ethics that some are loved because of pleasure, right? But pleasure is a certain emotion. Therefore, some other emotion is a cause of what love?

[6:02] Huh? Moreover, desire is a certain emotion. But we love some because of the desire of something that we look for from them. Just as appears in every friendship, which is an account of usefulness. Therefore, some other emotion is a cause of love. Huh? I like you because I want something from you. So my wanting is a cause of my liking, right?

[6:35] Moreover, Augustine says in the tenth book of the Trinity, either one loves lukewarmly, or one does not love at all that thing which one has no hope of obtaining, even though one sees how beautiful it is. Therefore, hope also is a cause of love. I was reading that synod of the bishops. You know the document that just came out in the Pope's speech. I know you get the Pope's speech there, or not.

[6:59] you know it's always you know many of it's you know you know half six months behind. You know, the document first comes out. But he's emphasizing really very much the bishop's role in hope, right? Must see this as the age of despair or something. A lot of things to despair about. But

[7:17] most of these quotes I had up here beforehand, were talking about the dependence of love upon what hope, right? Okay. And you see, if a man despairs, Tug is a philosopher now. If a man despairs of knowing the truth, right? Then he starts to what loses love of the truth. See. And you know Plato is very good on this on the dialogue called the Phaedo. In the Phaedo, the major philosophical conversation is a conversation about whether the human soul survives death, right?

[7:53] And Socrates, you know, he gives three arguments for the immortality of the soul, and everybody kind of seems satisfied with that, right? And Simmias and Cebes over there in the corner talking, see. And Socrates says, "You guys still thinking about this, or you're talking about something else?" And, "Well, we've been thinking about this." And then Simmias and Cebes, out of the blue, come up with a couple objections, right?

[8:19] All Socrates' arguments seem to collapse, right? And all the friends of Socrates fall into kind of despair of ever knowing the truth about what the immortality of the soul. And the dialogue is being, you know, narrated by Phaedo who was present there. Echecrates. Echecrates, yes, I had that sinking feeling, you know, when you told me this, you know, what happened this conversation. And

[8:52] Phaedo says, and Echecrates says, "What did Socrates do then, right?" And Phaedo says, "I never admired Socrates more." He leads them gradually out of their despair, right? And then he takes up the objections of Simmias and Cebes and overcomes them, you know. But so long as you're in that despair, right? If you give up, right, then you start to what? Your love starts to go down, see.

[9:22] So it's a very, very key thing, huh? Those things. Either one loves lukewarmly, Augustine says, or one does not love at all. That thing which one has no hope of obtaining. So if men despair of obtaining God, right, then are they going to love God anymore? See. Very lukewarmly, or not at all, maybe, huh? You see. So hope is very important there, right? But against all this is that all the affections of the soul are caused by love, as Augustine says in the fourteenth book of the City of God.

[10:15] Right? How do you put these two things together? Right? Okay. Notice Thomas' reply here: I answer that it should be said that there is no other emotion of the soul which does not presuppose some love. Right? Okay.

[10:36] You can say the same thing about what? There is no other act of the will, right? Which does not what presuppose some act of the will that is a love, right? Okay. The reason for this, Thomas says, is that every other emotion of the soul implies motion to something, right? Or rest in something.

[11:05] But all motion to something or rest in something proceeds from some kindredship with or fitting with which pertains to the notion of love. So unless there is some agreement of my heart with candy, I would not be seeking candy, right? Wanting candy, would I? Nor would I come to a rest, when I have my candy, right? You see.

[11:34] A kid you know, gets his candy. He's quiet for a while, right? But it wouldn't be if he didn't like candy, right? So my liking candy is behind my wanting candy, my pursuing candy, right? And my resting once I get it. Okay. Doesn't satisfy me that much anymore, but as a kid, it is more. Okay.

[12:01] But all motion to something or rest in something proceeds from some kindredship with or fitting with which pertains to the notion of love. Whence it is impossible that some other emotion of the soul is the cause universally, he says, of all love. Right.

[12:24] It happens, however, that some other emotion is the cause of some love. Right. Just as one good is the cause of another. Okay. So suppose I love wisdom, right? I don't have any wisdom. Well, from my love of wisdom arises now my what? Wanting wisdom, right? Okay. And then I meet Monsignor Dion or Charles DeConnick or something, right? Huh? And I see that DeConnick or Dion is wise, right?

[13:02] See? Now I begin to like this man, and I see his right. So my wanting wisdom. Was a cause of my liking Monsignor Dion, or liking DeConnick or some other man that I recognized as having some wisdom, right? So wanting is a cause of love, right? But my wanting wisdom—that is a cause of my liking Monsignor Dion, or loving him. That wanting wisdom was a result of a previous what?

[13:31] Love, namely the love of wisdom, right? Huh? Okay. So my love of wisdom was a cause of my loving Monsignor Dion. Is it? Okay. Because he's a good.

[13:46] That leads to wisdom, right? You see that? Yeah. So in that sense, some other emotion or act of the will can be a cause of what? Love, right? But that other emotion or act of will has to be what?

[14:03] Caused by some previous love, huh? Okay. To the first, therefore, it should be said that when someone loves something because of pleasure, that love is caused by pleasure, right? But that pleasure is again caused from another preceding love. For no one takes pleasure except to the thing in some way loved. Okay. Was it my daughter in grade school? There, you know, who do you love? Daddy. Why?

[14:38] He gives me candy. You see. Okay. So then the love of candy had to come first, right? Okay. And then I'm a means to candy, so.

[14:51] I get credit for that. To the second, it should be said that the desire of something always presupposes the love of that thing. But the desire of one thing is able to be the cause another thing is loved, just as he who desires money loves because of this him from whom he what receives money, right? Okay. So my wanting money, my wanting wisdom, right, was the cause of my liking the man who had money or the man who had wisdom, right?

[15:37] So wanting can be a cause of liking or loving, but that wanting has to be itself caused by a earlier love, okay? And another good, right? So wisdom is one good, Monsignor Dionne is another good, right? And so my wanting wisdom is a cause of my liking Monsignor Dionne, but my wanting wisdom is an effect of my liking wisdom, loving wisdom. See the idea?

[16:13] Now when when what's his name was talking Saint Bernard of Clairvaux about the love of God, then they don't accuse the love of God, right?

[16:24] And again, we don't love God, say, but we love it's our own happiness, right? Want to be happy, and then we get into trouble and difficulties, right? So now we turn to God for help, right? We want God's help, right? Okay. But wanting God's help and turning to God, we get to know God, and then we begin to like God, maybe, huh?

[16:54] So our liking God was a result of our wanting God's help at first, right? But our wanting God's help was a result of our loving our own happiness. You see?

[17:08] So one love can be what causes another love, right? Through some other emotion or feeling, right? Or act of the will. Now to the third, it should be said that hope causes or increases love, he says, both by reason of pleasure because it causes pleasure. So if you have the hope of winning the girl, right, then you're pleased, right? Huh? The hope of making a lot of money, right, then you're pleased, right?

[17:40] You see? So the hope increases the pleasure, and also by reason of desire because hope what strengthens desire, right? For we do not so intensely desire that which we do not hope for.

[17:57] Nevertheless, the hope itself is also some good love, right? I notice how useful that is when you come to talk about faith, hope, and charity, right? Because as Augustine explains, and he's quoted there in the Credo to De Verbo, by believing, the world should come to hope, and by hoping, come to love, right? So it's very clear that in via generationis, in the order of time, generation, that hope is generated before what?

[18:29] Love, right? Before charity. He said, "Well, how can hope come before love? " See? Well, there has to be some love, right? Before hope too. But what kind of love is that—that's the love of God. See? But it's the love of one's own good, right? The love of one's own happiness, right?

[18:56] And then we hope in God to what? Get us to heaven, right? To our own happiness, right? And only then, as we become familiar with God, do we maybe begin to love God, because He's God, and not because He's what? Useful for our getting to heaven. You see? So there has to be there has to be some kind of love before the theological virtue of hope, right?

[19:27] But it's not the love which is the theological virtue of charity that comes after the hope, right? You see that? This helps you to think about those things, well, you know.

[19:42] Let's take a little break there, and come back and talk a little bit more about the causes of love. Okay? Something that I think is worthy of mention, right? But also how it's related to what Thomas has said so far. The main text here is from Augustine's work De Catechizandis Rudibus. A friend was giving catechetical instructions to I guess he'd probably say adults, right? And he wrote to Augustine asking for his advice as to how to do this, right?

[20:11] And Augustine was trying to bring out that the catechetical instruction should be aimed, most of all, at bringing the audience to love God, right? So how do you best lead them to love God, right? And that's where Augustine is talking about a cause of love, right? Let's read what he says here.

[20:35] Moreover, what greater reason could there be for the Lord's coming than that God might manifest His love, ardently recommending it in our persons, because quote, when as yet we were enemies, Christ died for us. It's from Saint Paul, I guess, huh? And for this reason, that inasmuch as love is the end, the goal of the commandment and the fulfillment of the law, we also may love one another, and even as He laid down His life for us, so we also may lay down our life for the brethren.

[21:16] And with regard to God Himself, inasmuch as He first loved us and spared not His only Son, but delivered Him up for us all, even at first we found it irksome to love Him. Now at least it should not prove irksome to return that love. Now this is a key sentence here. For there is nothing that invites love more than to be beforehand in loving, and that heart is overhard which, even though it were unwilling to bestow love, would be unwilling to return it.

[21:55] Then Augustine begins to manifest this and even with sensual love. he was all the way down to sensual love to make the point. But if we see that even in the case of sinful and base attachments, those who desire to be loved in return make it their one concern to disclose and display by all the tokens of their power how much they love. If they also strive even to counterfeit genuine affection, right?

[22:24] In order that they may, in some measure, claim a return of love from the hearts which they are designing to ensnare, when a man seduces a woman, right? That's what he's talking about. If again their own passions are the more inflamed when they perceive that the hearts which they are eager to win are also moved by the same fire. If then I say both the hitherto callous heart is aroused when it is sensible of being loved, right?

[22:51] And the heart which was already inflamed is the more inflamed the moment it learns that it is loved in return. It is obvious that there is no greater reason, either for the birth or growth of love, than when one who does not yet love perceives that he is loved. Or when he who loves already hopes he may yet be loved in return, or actually has proof that he is loved.

[23:16] If this holds good even in the case of base passions, how much more so in friendship? For what else do we have to be on our guard against in offence against friendship, than that our friend should think either that we do not love him, or that we love him less than he loves us? It's very, very, very understanding, isn't it? And if he believes this, he will be cooler in that love which men enjoy by the exchange of intimacy.

[23:45] And if he is not so weak that this offence causes him to grow cold his affection altogether, he yet restricts himself to that form of affection which has as object not enjoyment but utility.

[24:03] But again, it is worthwhile to observe how, although even those that are superior desire to be loved by those who are inferior, and are pleased by the eager deference these give them, and the more they become sensible of his affection, the more they love them. Yet with how much love is one who is inferior fired when he discovers that he is loved by him who is superior?

[24:26] That can move you even more. For love is more welcome when it is not burnt up with the draught of want. It's the love of friendship instead of the love of what wanting, right? Which they sometimes call need love, right? But issues from the overflowing stream of beneficence. For the former springs from misery, right? The latter from mercy, merciful love, that.

[24:53] And furthermore, if the inferior person has been despairing that even he could be loved by the superior one, he will now be unspeakably moved to love the superior one, deigns of his own accord. To show him how much he loves, one who could by no means venture to promise himself so great a blessing. But what could be higher than God when He judges, and what more helpless than man when He sins?

[25:18] than man, who had so much, the more submitted himself to the custody and dominion of insolent powers, which cannot make him blessed, as he had more despair of the possibility of becoming the care of that power which wills not to be exalted wickedness, but is exalted in goodness. You see, when our Lord died on the cross, partly right, to gain our love, right? Greater love than this hath no man, laid down his life for his friends.

[25:44] So what Augustine says in the De Catechizandis Rudibus is that you should narrate, you know, God's love towards us, right, what He's done for us, because this is the best way of moving them to love Him in return.

[26:01] Now Thomas in the Summa Contra Gentiles, Book Four, Chapter Fifty Four: Since the perfect beatitude of man consists in the enjoyment of God, it was necessary that the affection of man be disposed to the desire of the enjoyment of God. The desire of enjoying something, however, is caused by the love of that thing. It is necessary then that man, tending to perfect beatitude, be induced to love God.

[26:29] And now I separate out the key sentence here. Nothing, however, that's pretty strong, right? Nothing, however, leads us to love someone as the experience the same towards us. huh? Compared to what Augustine was saying in the previous page, right? For there is nothing that invites love more than to be beforehand in loving, and that heart is overheart, which even though we are not willing to bestow love, would be willing to return it, right?

[26:56] The love of God for men, however, can be shown in no way more efficaciously to man than through this: that He will be united to man in person, right, to become a man for our sake, right? For it is the property of love to unite the lover with the loved, so far as is possible, that'll be the first effect of love. I'll talk about it and give you the first effect of love here.

[27:19] It was necessary, therefore, for man tending to perfect beatitude that God became man. Just give reasons here for the incarnation, right? Now, if these two great minds, Augustine and Thomas, both seem to be saying the same thing, right? That nothing moves us to love more, right, in the experience of what someone else loves us, right? And the more that love is unselfish, right, the more we realize that they're loving us in the sense of wishing well to us, right, and not out of some need that they have for us, right.

[27:54] The more this is going to move us, right? Okay. Now two things: you know, would you agree with Augustine and Thomas, right? And if you do, then they're talking about a cause of love, aren't they, right? Well, how does this fit in with the causes of love that we distinguished in the four articles? That's

[28:27] good. Yeah, yeah. Now let's look at the aspect first. To be loved. Aristotle's discussion in the treatise on friendship about being loved, right? He takes up the question: Does friendship consist more in loving or being loved, right? And he's going to conclude that it consists more in loving, right? But since friendship requires mutual love, right? To be loved is also part of friendship, right? When he discusses to be loved,

[29:26] why do you want to be loved? See. Why do you rejoice in being loved, right? Well, it could be more than one reason, right?

[29:45] You know, someone could be what like to be loved because the good is love, right? One being loved is a sign of some goodness in oneself, right? Okay. So the popular song says, "You're nobody until somebody loves you," right? Or But you feel like nobody, right? So to be loved is a sign of something good in one, right? Okay.

[30:18] And this is human love, right? God's love is a little different, right? Because God's love is a cause of goodness, right? Okay. Now Aristotle makes very interesting observation. He says to be loved is in a way to be honored. Okay. I think very interesting observation, because one is honored for some good or some excellence in oneself, right? And to be loved in a way is to be honored, right?

[30:47] A testimony to one's worth. But then Aristotle goes on to say, but kind of exactly the same thing to be loved and to be honored, but they're very close. I think it's very interesting for for for theology to talk too of Aristotle's because there's a special connection between loving God and praising God, honoring God, right? They're very close, right? But Aristotle says to be honored is really not sought for its own sake.

[31:16] It may be just because you want to be confirmed that you're, you have some good qualities, right? And therefore, not being sought for its own sake, but kind of confirmation, right? So if I come to Monsignor Dionne with some idea, I've got and he praises me for idea, you know, because I wasn't too too sure whether I had a good idea or not. And the fact that he honors me or praises me for this idea makes me feel, but that my idea is good, right?

[31:42] Okay. But then the honor is not being sought for its own sake, right? Okay. Now sometimes we seek to be honored too because we want to get something out of somebody, right? And so if they honor us we can get something out of us. But to be loved, he says, is by itself good, right? Okay. Okay,

[32:01] it's something good to be loved. And Aristotle makes the point that people seek more to be loved than to love. I think that's true. And that's why I always say and I always quote that prayer of Saint Francis, right? But one of the things he prays for is that he might seek to love more than to be loved more what, love, than to be loved, right? So now this guy's a saint.

[32:33] So here's a saint praying, asking God that he would more what, seek to love than to be loved, right? Just kind of a sign that we're apt to more seek to be loved than to love, and this is our disorder, right?

[32:53] Now the fact that to be loved is something good is that why it arouses love in us. See, because Augustine and Thomas are both saying, right? Nothing. Moves us more to love, than the experience that someone else loves us, especially with unselfish love, right?

[33:17] But if it's good to be loved, is this going to come under the good as a cause of love? Maybe. If I move to love you, because I recognize that you love me and love me in a in a unselfish way, and so on, right? I mean, speak of it as an experience, or involves knowledge too. Yeah, involves knowledge. Yeah. Okay, but basically, it's knowledge of something that's good, right?

[33:50] That you really do love me, right? I love you in an unselfish way. But I wonder if that's the main way it's a cause.

[34:01] Is it under the good more than under likeness? It makes you know that they see you, the the one who loves you sees you as another self. Makes it like. Yeah, yeah. In other words, as we were saying before, when we're talking about likeness and the good, right? That

[34:28] you very rootedly love yourself, right? Because you're not you're more than like yourself. You are yourself, right? Okay. And that's what Richard, you know, says in one of his lectures, right? Richard loves Richard. That is, I'm I. Okay. So if I very much love myself, right? Now, thinking of the seven wise men of Greece, you know they're supposed to put up the Oracle Delphi. Know thyself, and nothing too much.

[34:58] Those are the words they put up. I said, why did they put the words "know thyself" but not the words "love thyself"? See well, men don't really know themselves very well, but there is no question about that they love themselves. So, be kind of stupid to say love yourself, right? But the second thing, nothing too much, love yourself, but not too much. You know, this amor suae usque ad contemptum Dei, right?

[35:26] This is really a terrible thing, right? It's pride, right? Okay. So we don't really have to be commanded to love ourselves. The commandment is to love your neighbor as yourself, and as soon as you love yourself, right? And so we don't have to be commanded so much or urged to love ourselves. We have to be urged to love ourselves, not too much. You see, but now, if I could see that you love me, hey, you're just like me.

[35:54] I love myself too. You see, you know, you're loving me, right? And loving me by the love of wishing well, as opposed to the love of wanting, right? Remember, I said a long time ago, we talked about those kinds of love. For yourself, you have only the love of wishing well. For candy, only the love of wanting. For another human being, you could have either love, right?

[36:18] And that's where the ambiguity comes in, right? But if I perceive that you have, you might say, true love for me—that you have the love of wishing well for me, right? The love of friendship for me, really.

[36:31] Then I see you love me just the way I love myself. You know, so is it more the goodness of being loved that moves me to love you, right?

[36:46] Or is it the likeness now of you to me? Because you love me now the same I love myself, which is it more? Is it the likeness?

[37:06] Yeah, in some ways it seems more the likeness, doesn't it? You see. Now, in my own little notes on these cases here, I also speak of the fact that to return your love, right? You see, is a kind of what Aristotle compares friendship to justice, right? It's a little bit like that, right? And if you've given me some love, right, I kind of owe you some love in return, don't I?

[37:35] You see, and therefore, it's just for us to love God, who's loved us in these ways, right? See, so if I see that to love you is a just thing to do, you know,

[37:54] then it goes back to the good again, right? You see, I see, I see that to love you to return your love, right. You know, like Saint Catherine of Siena says, you know, pay the debt of love to your neighbor, right? And kind of is taken from from justice there, right? Okay. Owe nothing to your neighbor except love. It says, right? Okay. So if I see that loving you is a just thing, so to speak, to do, right?

[38:26] I have to owe you some love, right? Um, and even you know, taking not necessarily base love, but even more monetary love, so to speak, right? If you've done me a favor, I feel like I owe you a favor, right? If you've invited me to dinner, I should invite you to dinner, something, you know, kind of that sort of a thing. So if I see that you've given me this love, um, a friendship, then I I feel like I kind of owe you some love in return, right?

[38:54] You see what I mean? And therefore, I'm seeing that to love you is something good, right? Yeah. But it seems to me there's also this other aspect of the likeness there, right? Nice that you love me the way I love myself. Then you are very much like me in a sense, aren't you? Right. So, to some extent, it comes under the good, right? Because to be loved is good, and to return your love is just, and therefore good, right?

[39:23] So there's some goodness there behind my returning your love, right? That's he's talking about, huh? You know, being moved to return somebody's love. But it also seems that there's a certain what likeness to you, right? Huh?

[39:41] And you know, the topic about out in the world today, you know, that I don't think there's any true friendship. You know, I think it's always, you know, people are just pretending. You know, maybe there's an awful lot of that pretending, right? And people are just out to get what they get from other people, you know. And they pretend to have a you know unselfish love when they don't really have it, you know.

[40:00] And so maybe there's too much out there, you see. But if you do find that someone really does have this goodwill towards you, right, then you're almost what pressed, you might say, as the scripture says, in a kind of something like justice, says to return that, right? You know, I owe it to you.

[40:28] So it doesn't some way come under the causes of love, doesn't it? Which are the good, basically the good and likeness of the main cause, and now it's just you know kind of condition of the good, right? And maybe even say knowing the likeness is a cause too, but but the basic causes are the good and the likeness, basically those the main things, right?

[40:52] And they seem to be both involved in this, right? But two ways: to be loved is something good, and to love you in return is something just, and therefore something good. But also, I see a likeness there. You love me the way I love myself. You know, that makes you very close to me, right? It makes us, you know, bonds us very much, right? Do you see?

[41:19] So I think it's it's worthy of special mention because the two greatest minds, perhaps, the church here, and you can see the scripture too. maybe Augustine and Thomas both note that, right?

[41:34] That's why you know that's why the you know well I'm going back to St. Alphonsus there, right? The meditation, of the passion there, you know. You know, he he talks about the importance of that, and he quotes Augustine, other people, you know, that this is the way to gain the love of God, right? You know, you meditate on the passion mainly for the good of your heart, not of your mind, right?

[41:54] You know, because you become aware of his love for us, right? And nothing would move us more to love him than recognizing his love for us, right? You see. So I think it's it's worthy of special mention, but yet it comes in some way under the good, and in another way under what likeness, right? I'm kind of defending Thomas's four articles on the cause of love that every cause of love comes under the good or knowledge or likeness or some other, you know, emotion that goes back to another kind of love.

[42:38] But they all come under there in some way, right? And and this worthy of very special mention, this cause doesn't some way come under them, doesn't it? Right.

[42:51] I see two ways it comes under the good, you know, that to be loved itself is something good, and then to love you in return is something just, and therefore something good, and so I I move by some goodness here, right? But then also move by the likeness that you love me the way I love myself. That's kind of unusual in this world, huh? But that's what charity is—to that kind of love, right?

[43:19] Love your neighbors yourself, right? Then your neighbors should recognize that you love them as they love themselves, right? And therefore, they should give you the same kind of love you're giving them, you know. Say

[43:41] to returning love, you see, you know, I'll say indicate here, and say that kind of love was lent to you, right? And therefore, this kind of idea of justice, right, after returning love, huh? I owe you some love.

[44:00] Now I got some copies here. I mean, four, six, eight. How many need more? Eight is enough. Yes. Twenty-four, six, eight, give it ten here. What's that? This is the first three effects of love. Now this is the third question of Thomas, and there's six articles there, six effects of love, right? So this is the first three effects of love, huh? Now, as I mentioned in that first effect of love, which is union, as a basic one, there,

[44:39] Thomas will expand a little bit and add a little bit about the causes of love, right? Because not only is likeness a cause of love, but identity—I am myself, right—is a cause of love, right?

[44:56] And if I like you because you're like me, well, I'm more than like myself. I am myself, as Richard says, right? But it also makes one stop and think a little bit about the difference between good as a cause of love and likeness as a cause of love, huh? Because if if

[45:20] I like you because you are like me in a way, it's because I love myself that I come to love you, right? And likeness is almost more on the side of the lover than the loved, huh? You see? In a way it is. Because the lovable, the object of love, seems to be more the good, right?

[45:50] But I love my. You know, why do I love myself? Let's put it in the way here. Why do I love wine more than beer? Well, because wine is much better than beer, okay? I have better taste.

[46:05] Okay? But now, why do I love myself more, maybe than some other person? Because I am better than them, Huh? This done means I'm better than everybody else. Huh? You see?

[46:24] Is is it i is it the goodness that is moving me to love myself in such a stable way? I can't get rid of it. It's a stubborn thing that love of myself, huh? Absolutely. Huh? Shakespeare has a beautiful sonnet. You know, when the sin of self-love possesses all my soul, He talks about how it's rooted, you know,

[46:45] and he kind of realizes that he's not so such a good person. But anyway, is it's you know, it seems to be almost more on the side of the of the lover than the loved, right?

[47:00] Do you see that or not? Am I exaggerating that too much? But somebody come along and say, "Well, before you can have love, this thing called love, you've got to have a lover, right? Right? You got to have something that's loved too, right? Okay. Okay.

[47:29] Just before, like before you can have seeing, you got to have a seer, something to be seen, right? Okay. So love is sort of seems to be in between these two a bit, right? Huh? See, and what is love? Well, Augustine says, didn't we quote Augustine there? Nothing is love but the good, right? Okay. So it seems especially the good to be here, right? But

[48:03] when we talk about my loving myself, because I do so stably. And and so much so there is no commandment to love myself, right? I mean, in that sense, the seven wise men in Greece agree. with, with God, right? huh? That um, don't urge you to love yourself, right? They just say nothing too much. You love yourself too much, right? Now you can't love God too much.

[48:30] You can love yourself too much. Okay That's very very subtle. The seven wise men said they're very wise. And what did one of the seven wise men that's in all the lists is Bias of Priene and Bias of Priene we have a quote there from Heraclitus. He's a more account than the rest, he says. But Bias said, most men are bad. So that's not interesting. But the seven wise men agree.

[49:04] But in in in white origin, there is nothing too much, right? As they say, some men eat too much. You may know about that. Some men drink too much, right? Some men make love too much. Some men get angry too much, right? Some men want money or power too much, right? And some men all men love themselves too much. So it's darn good advice. Nothing too much, right?

[49:37] You know. Now you can say to be complete you can add nothing too little, but that's the reason where the problem is, maybe. It's nothing too much, right? You have these women running around not eating enough. I guess you know these you know these female disorders, you know, where they are they following I know I see it Yeah, yeah, I mean it's kind of crazy. you know you know That's not really a normal human problem.

[50:00] It's eating too much or drinking too much or you know loving money too much or power too much. or something, right? But basically, you're, loving yourself too much, right? Okay.

[50:12] And you know, I mean, Now that was a kind of strong one, but if you're a father, you have to hate your mother and father, and even hate yourself, right? It's almost the wrong way of putting it. So this likeness seems to be, in some ways, on the side of the lover, because I'm saying you're like me, right? Okay.

[50:36] I'm I'm I'm not the loved in this case. I'm the lover, right? Okay. So it's going back to likeness to me, but then even more so do I love myself. So even more, I'm more than like myself. I am myself, right? Okay. There's no sorrow in that thing from Wuthering Heights, you know. So much as you're like, Heathcliff, the fact that he is myself, she says, right?

[50:58] But that goes back to the idea of friends and other self, right? So it seems almost on the side of the lover, doesn't it? You know, it's kind of interesting the way those two fit up, right? And obviously, the love is more a basic cause of love than the lover, right? But there wouldn't be any love without the lover. And the lover, you could say, naturally, what loves himself, right?

[51:22] Take a god, right? God naturally loves himself, huh? Do you say that the good generates the likeness. Well, I'm not saying that. No, I think it seems to me that good is is altogether under the loved, right? But likeness or identity goes back to what more the lover, right?

[51:59] But it's not just you and me. I mean, you could say even the tree seeks its own good, right? Seeks the water, seeks the sunlight, right? Every animal seeks what's good for it in some sense, right? So it's kind of natural, right? To all things, huh?

[52:21] So it's natural to love yourself, right? Just on good direction. So Aristotle talks about self-love. He says self-love usually has a bad sense, right?

[52:38] And that's because most people love themselves too much, right? Wrong way, so. But there has to be a good way of loving yourself, right? Otherwise, the commandment of love wouldn't say, you know, love your neighbor as yourself, right?

[52:58] There's some of those letters that's in Bernard of Clairvaux, you know, where where somebody I think was being appointed to some high office, you know, bishop or something, you know, but. He had to really straighten out himself, you know. And Bernard is being gentle but firm, you know. You know, I would not want to be directed by you, you know. You know, first you'll cast the bee by your your own eye and see what's to help your neighbor, right?

[53:20] As long as you're, you're blinded by your faults, you're hardly able to direct others, huh? So you have to in some way learn to love yourself as you should love yourself, the way you should love yourself, in an orderly way and not too much, right? You see, that's not a problem for God, because

[53:48] can God love Himself too much? No. In fact, you could say God loves Himself as much as He is lovable, infinitely, right? See. And I just got kind of looking at Thomas's article there, the Summa Theologiae. Interesting. He's talking a little bit about charity there with the articles in the commentary on the Sentences, and he says, "Is there any limit as to how much charity can grow in the creature, right?

[54:18] " This length. And Thomas says no. See. And he goes back to the example from the De Anima, and he says there's a difference between a material ability and immaterial ability. He goes back to the he takes the example of Aristotle. where Aristotle says, when the senses see something very bright, they're kind of blinded by it, right? When the ear hears something very loud, it can even be almost made deaf, right?

[54:51] With the sense of taste, you know, taste something very sharp and pungent, you know, like some of this Chinese food is on the hot stuff. They can't taste anything afterwards, right? But he says, Aristotle says, when the understanding, understands Understand something very, what, understandable, like when you're thinking about God, right? Then when I turn back to think about, say, the triangle and geometry, well, that's easy. That stuff, you know.

[55:18] You see, and they did it at TAC you know, and then, you know, the freshmen are trying to learn Euclid, right? And then the sophomores and juniors seem to have gone to more difficult things, right? As they look back on this stuff, it looks so easy now, you know. But when you first study it, it's kind of difficult, you know. And then, so that your ability to understand increases as you understand more things, huh?

[55:45] But then Thomas takes another one from the commentator from Averroes In beautiful comparison, he says he compares the growth of charity to actually the growth of numbers, right? See, now I think to understand this comparison, you have to realize that in the strict sense,

[56:11] you're able to do something only when you're one step away from it and doing it. So, is a student who has never learned, say, plane geometry, is he able to learn solid geometry? No, no. Simply speaking, you'd say no, right? Okay. And even in plane geometry, you know how one theorem builds up under the one, right? I was bugging my my colleague there in the next office.

[56:39] I said, "How do you find the center of a circle?" So it's another philosopher. Well, he doesn't know how to do it, right? You know how to find the center of a circle? How do you do it?

[56:51] Draw a line. Right angles. Draw a line. Yeah. What what you have to do? What you have to do to find the center of a circle is this: you draw a straight line somewhere in there, right? Then you have to bisect the line, right? And then you have to draw a straight line at right angles to that line, right? And then bisect that, and then you can prove that that point must be the center of the circle, huh?

[57:20] But you don't know how to what bisect a line. You had to bisect this line, then later on bisect this line, and how to draw a straight line at right angles. Are you able to? No, see, so it's only one step away, right? So two is able to be what three, but it's not able to be four. See,

[57:47] it's one step away from three, right? But now you get three, you have something which is able to be four. By one step, right? Now you get four, so it's able to be five. Okay. So what Averroes pointed out in Thomas's reading is that as you add the numbers. You're also getting new ability. When I add two, is able to be three, but not four. But when I actualize the ability of two to be three, and I now have three, I have another ability to be four.

[58:24] Then I can be four. I have the ability to be five. You see, and it's beautiful. Aristotle compares thinking to numbers. You know, it's like that. You know, each theorem I learn in Euclid enables me to know something else, right? And then when I get to know that, I'm able to know something else, and so on, right? So that if every ability actualized, I get a new ability.

[58:49] I never fully actualize, I think, right? And so I have the impression that I do geography. This could be an endless thing, right? Because everything I learn helps me to learn something more. So my ability, I'm getting new ability every time I actualize the previous ability. So it's never going to end, is it? And then Thomas said, "Well that's that's what an immaterial power is like. " See, so when I reach a certain level of God, right?

[59:21] Then I'm capable of loving Him even more. And when I reach that higher plateau, then I become capable of even greater love. And so, if every time I get an increase of love, I become capable of a new degree of love, it's never going to stop, is it?

[59:46] So he says that there's no limit. See, by the material ability, there's a limit to how much I can what see something, right? So you keep between the lights on brighter and brighter, and finally it starts to blind me, right? Because of a material organ, there's a limit as to how bright the light can get, right? So,

[1:00:21] but like you go into into the shower, let's say, right? And you have the warm water. You get used to it. Maybe you can turn the hot hot water on even a little more, you know. But can you do that forever? So eventually, it's so hot it melts your body, right? Your body would be it would be destroyed by, right? You see. But the more I what learn theorems in Euclid, right?

[1:00:51] Then there theorems I'm now able to learn that I couldn't before, right? Once I've learned plain geometry, I'll be able to learn solid geometry. Once I've learned, in book one, so you learn about bisecting lines and drawing perpendiculars to them and so on. And it's not until I know those things I'm able to find the center of a circle, right? Once I I know that, I'd be able to do some other things I could do before.

[1:01:17] So my ability keeps on increasing as my actuality increases. It's kind of a strange thing, right? But as I get what as the light gets brighter and brighter, inside of my eyes, my ability to see is not increasing, is it? Yeah, there's a limit on. Eventually, I get you know, snow blindness or something like that, right? Where my vision could be actually destroyed, right? By the brightness of the light, huh?

[1:01:44] Or you could burn my tongue off you know, hot enough. I went with my wife one time to Chinese restaurant there, you know, and we go eat some oriental meals. I think I found these hot meals. I said, you know, I'd have to have about four or five bites of the thing. I have a burning sensation. I couldn't taste the meal anymore. I couldn't. And this is just agony, you know.

[1:02:08] I reached my limit, you know. You know, you hear some of these these contests, you know, at the Indian restaurant to see who eats the hottest food, you know. And this guy was describing these guys at the Indian restaurant there in England, there, and they're sweat just pouring down their face, you know, and saying who can eat the hottest stuff, you know. And he said, "It's not my way of enjoying the meal."

[1:02:30] He said. But there's a limit as to how much you know the senses can take, you know. But I think there's a beautiful comparison he makes there, you know, going back to what Aristotle points out there about the difference between it's kind of a sign too that difference of the immateriality, the understanding compared to the senses, huh?

[1:02:54] And I think there's something true too about you know the the will in comparison to the emotions, huh? Is kind of a a level where the emotions just break down, right? You can't.

[1:03:09] Their ability. My brother Marcus said, you know, the first sip of beer tastes the best, and then it gets downhill from then on, right? The second beer, you don't enjoy as much as the first beer, right? Now, as the capacity of the emotions is what limited, the body just just out, right? So it's not the more beer you drink, the more your ability to enjoy beer is increasing.

[1:03:36] No, it's actually what? Yeah, you know the old the old saying. Was it? I'd have to make our cofounder. Suppose that's true too. But what's one about food? Huh? The hunger is the best sauce. Yeah, yeah, hunger makes good sauce. Yeah. And I don't know if you like something like popcorn, you know, you know, if you gorge yourself on popcorn, you get kind of disgusted with the stuff, you know.

[1:04:07] So I mean, it's better to make popcorn in a small amount, and then you never get tired of popcorn. Is it? But but you know, my ability to enjoy popcorn is not increasing. The more popcorn I eat, my ability to enjoy popcorn is decreasing. Right, my ability to eat popcorn. You know these guys who eat all these pies in these contests in the state fairs. You know, I mean, I do get so tired of turkey.

[1:04:36] You know, Thanksgiving time, you know, the turkey and then the leftover turkey and turkey and turkey. You know, and so you don't. I find I don't enjoy turkey anymore. Right, it's just too much. But the more I understand God,