By knowledge & by love: charity and knowledge in the moral theology of St. Thomas Aquinas

3. Knowledge and Love in Human Action

c h a p t e r 3 Knowledge and Love in Human Action After having considered the character of the will’s relationship to intellect in practical reasoning, we are now in a position to study more closely the will’s proper act, which is love. A full account of the Thomistic psychology of love is beyond the scope of this project.1 Instead , our goal in this chapter is to study St. Thomas’ description of love’s relationship to knowledge in human action. We shall consider the relationship between knowledge and love in Thomas’ accounts of happiness (ST I-II –), of the principles of practical reasoning (ST I-II –), and of the virtues (ST I-II –). We shall attempt to demonstrate that throughout his analysis, Thomas remains faithful to two apparently contradictory Augustinian assertions: that love depends on knowledge 63 . For fuller treatments of St. Thomas’ psychology of love, see María Celestina Donad ío Maggi de Gandolfi, Amor y Bien: Los Problemas del Amor en Santo Tomás de Aquino (Buenos Aires: Universidad Catolica Argentina, ); Albert Ilien, Wesen und Funktion der Liebe bei Thomas von Aquin (Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder, ); Raymond McGinnis, The Wisdom of Love: A Study in the Psycho-Metaphysics of Love according to the Principles of St. Thomas (Rome: Officium libri catholici, ); Avital Wohlman, “l’élaboration des éléments aristotéliciens dans la doctrine thomiste de l’amour,” Revue thomiste  (): –; Jordan Aumann, “Thomistic Evaluation of Love and Charity,” Angelicum  (): –. Two influential studies that have shaped subsequent treatments of Thomas’ theory of love are Pierre Rousselot, “Pour L’histoire du problème de l’amour du moyen âge,” in Beiträge zur Geschichte der Philosophie des Mittelalters. Text und Untersuchungen (Münster, ) B. , H. : –; H. D. Simonin, “Autour de la solution thomiste du problème de l’amour,” in Archives d’histoire doctrinale et littéraire du moyen âge  (): –. For a clear-sighted assessment of Rousselot and his critics, see Avital Wohlman, “Amour du bien propre et amour de soi dans la doctrine thomiste de l’amour,” Revue thomiste  (): –. (for we cannot love what we do not know),2 but that moral knowledge depends on well-ordered love as the principle that moves all the powers of the soul to act.3 How St. Thomas is able to reconcile these two apparently contradictory assertions is something we shall consider in the pages that follow. First, however, we shall begin by tracing an important evolution in Thomas’ theory of love. Development of St. Thomas’ Theory of Love In chapter two we noted that St. Thomas in his later works more clearly delineates the types of causality exercised by the intellect and will in the genesis of human action. The intellect functions as the formal cause of the act, while the will functions as the efficient cause. In order to illustrate this difference, Thomas introduces his celebrated distinction between specification and exercise. When we turn to Thomas’ analysis of love, we discover a similar development in thought and terminology . In his early work, Aquinas employs the language of form to describe the nature of love. Love, he tells us, is a form received into the appetite analogous to the form received into the intellect in the act of cognition. In his mature work, however, Aquinas reserves the language of form to the intellect and now describes love as a pleasing affective affinity (complacentia) or an inclination. As with the distinction between specification and exercise, we should avoid the common tendency to exaggerate the significance of this development. As we shall see, there is a fundamental continuity between Aquinas’ earlier and later theories of love. Nevertheless, Aquinas did clarify his understanding of the relationship between intellect and will, and this clarification influenced his mature description of love. Specifically, it served to integrate the acts of knowledge and love more closely together in mutual dependence and interaction. 64 Knowledge and Love in Human Action . Augustine, De trinitate . (PL , ): “nullus potest amare aliquid incognitum.” De trinitate . (PL , ): “non enim diligitur nisi cognitum.” . Augustine, De moribus ecclesiae catholicae . (PL , ). Love in the Commentary on the Sentences In the Sentences, Peter Lombard introduces his analysis of charity in the context of his treatment of the Incarnation.4 Following the Lombard ’s lead, it became standard for those commenting on the Sentences to offer their own analyses of charity at this...