The Increase of Charity

THE INCREASE OF CHARITY LTHOUGH charity is essentially supernatural and cannot be adequately defined, we can learn something about it by using positive analogies and by distinguishing it from what it is not. In the treatise on charity contained in the Summa Theologiae.1 St. Thomas expounds some positive notions which we have received about the nature of created charity. It is obvious that in order to make determinations , terms and concepts common to this and the other parts of theology must be used. I am concerned here with a special determination and with the means by which it is made. The special problem arises from the fact that a man who loves God is bidden to love God with his whole heart, and with his whole soul, and with his whole strength, and with his whole mind,2 and thus to love God as much as he can love. But the infused virtue of charity is not possessed in its fullness by any man in this life. If, therefore, a man is to strive for anything in this life, he must strive to love God more. It follows that questions can profitably be asked about what is meant by the strengthening or increase of the virtue by which a man loves God. The particular question with which I am concerned asks whether charity can increase to infinity.3 It adds to the problem of how we can discuss " increase " of charity by posing the question of what can be meant by measuring such increase in o:rde:r to find out whether or not it has a limit. I intend to consider briefly the terms and likenesses by which St. Thomas fixes the notion of the nature of created charity, as well as the means by which he is able fruitfully and scientifically to discuss its " ~ncrease." I shall merely summarize the conclusions he reaches about measurement of its quantity. 1 Summa Theologiae, ll-H, qq. ~3-~7. • Luke 10:27. • Summa Theol., II-II, q. !i!4, a. 7. 367 368 ANN CONDIT I Charity is a Kind of Friendship. In the course of the question about the nature of charity/ St. Thomas gives three partial and analogous definitions of charity. First, he establishes that it is a kind of friendship of a man for God, based on something truly common to God and man, and, therefore, that charity is something supernatural and incomprehensible for men in this life, although they may have it, and they may know that there is such a thing. Charity makes a man will and strive for the supreme good, which is God Himself in Himself, the supernatural goodness. It makes him will and strive for that good as he wills and strives for good for his own self. The foundation of charity is the communication to man by God of the divine beatitude, which is God Himself in His own true life. Charity is founded upon grace, and grace is the inchoate participation of the divine nature, m a man who is still on the way toward his ultimate end. Chmity is a Theological Virtue. Secondly, charity is said to be a theological virtue,5 that is, a kind of " set," or habitus of the soul, a firmly fixed, albeit non-necessitating disposition to will and strive for the divine good as it is in itself, precisely inasmuch as the soul, with the help of God's inspiration and illumination, perceives that this good is man's true goaL In merely natural things the kind of love which is " friendship " may indeed be a virtue, when it is friendship for a truly virtuous man, insofar as he is truly virtuous .6 Thus the theological virtue of charity has at least a :remote correspondence to the natural virtue of friendship. But because the knowledge we have about supernatural realities is imperfect analogical knowledge, more can be known analogically by separate considerations of friendship in general, • Ibid., q. gJ3, aa. 1-8. 5 The following paragraphs include a summary of the doctrine taught in ibid., I-II, q. 26, a. 4; q. 49, aa. 1-4; q. 62, a. 1. 6 lbid., II-II...