Whether Mutual Indwelling Is an Effect of Love?
Objection 1: It would seem that love does not cause mutual
indwelling, so that the lover be in the beloved and vice versa. For
that which is in another is contained in it. But the same cannot be
container and contents. Therefore love cannot cause mutual
indwelling, so that the lover be in the beloved and vice versa.
Obj. 2: Further, nothing can penetrate within a whole, except by
means of a division of the whole. But it is the function of the
reason, not of the appetite where love resides, to divide things that
are really united. Therefore mutual indwelling is not an effect of
love.
Obj. 3: Further, if love involves the lover being in the beloved and
vice versa, it follows that the beloved is united to the lover, in
the same way as the lover is united to the beloved. But the union
itself is love, as stated above (A. 1). Therefore it follows that the
lover is always loved by the object of his love; which is evidently
false. Therefore mutual indwelling is not an effect of love.
_On the contrary,_ It is written (1 John 4:16): "He that abideth in
charity abideth in God, and God in him." Now charity is the love of
God. Therefore, for the same reason, every love makes the beloved to
be in the lover, and vice versa.
_I answer that,_ This effect of mutual indwelling may be understood
as referring both to the apprehensive and to the appetitive power.
Because, as to the apprehensive power, the beloved is said to be in
the lover, inasmuch as the beloved abides in the apprehension of the
lover, according to Phil. 1:7, "For that I have you in my heart":
while the lover is said to be in the beloved, according to
apprehension, inasmuch as the lover is not satisfied with a
superficial apprehension of the beloved, but strives to gain an
intimate knowledge of everything pertaining to the beloved, so as to
penetrate into his very soul. Thus it is written concerning the Holy
Ghost, Who is God's Love, that He "searcheth all things, yea the deep
things of God" (1 Cor. 2:10).
As the appetitive power, the object loved is said to be in the lover,
inasmuch as it is in his affections, by a kind of complacency:
causing him either to take pleasure in it, or in its good, when
present; or, in the absence of the object loved, by his longing, to
tend towards it with the love of concupiscence, or towards the good
that he wills to the beloved, with the love of friendship: not indeed
from any extrinsic cause (as when we desire one thing on account of
another, or wish good to another on account of something else), but
because the complacency in the beloved is rooted in the lover's
heart. For this reason we speak of love as being "intimate"; and "of
the bowels of charity." On the other hand, the lover is in the
beloved, by the love of concupiscence and by the love of friendship,
but not in the same way. For the love of concupiscence is not
satisfied with any external or superficial possession or enjoyment of
the beloved; but seeks to possess the beloved perfectly, by
penetrating into his heart, as it were. Whereas, in the love of
friendship, the lover is in the beloved, inasmuch as he reckons what
is good or evil to his friend, as being so to himself; and his
friend's will as his own, so that it seems as though he felt the good
or suffered the evil in the person of his friend. Hence it is proper
to friends "to desire the same things, and to grieve and rejoice at
the same," as the Philosopher says (Ethic. ix, 3 and Rhet. ii, 4).
Consequently in so far as he reckons what affects his friend as
affecting himself, the lover seems to be in the beloved, as though he
were become one with him: but in so far as, on the other hand, he
wills and acts for his friend's sake as for his own sake, looking on
his friend as identified with himself, thus the beloved is in the
lover.
In yet a third way, mutual indwelling in the love of friendship can
be understood in regard to reciprocal love: inasmuch as friends
return love for love, and both desire and do good things for one
another.
Reply Obj. 1: The beloved is contained in the lover, by being
impressed on his heart and thus becoming the object of his
complacency. On the other hand, the lover is contained in the
beloved, inasmuch as the lover penetrates, so to speak, into the
beloved. For nothing hinders a thing from being both container and
contents in different ways: just as a genus is contained in its
species, and vice versa.
Reply Obj. 2: The apprehension of the reason precedes the movement of
love. Consequently, just as the reason divides, so does the movement
of love penetrate into the beloved, as was explained above.
Reply Obj. 3: This argument is true of the third kind of mutual
indwelling, which is not to be found in every kind of love.
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