Whether Love Exists in God?
Objection 1: It seems that love does not exist in God. For in God
there are no passions. Now love is a passion. Therefore love is not
in God.
Obj. 2: Further, love, anger, sorrow and the like, are mutually
divided against one another. But sorrow and anger are not attributed
to God, unless by metaphor. Therefore neither is love attributed to
Him.
Obj. 3: Further, Dionysius says (Div. Nom. iv): "Love is a uniting
and binding force." But this cannot take place in God, since He is
simple. Therefore love does not exist in God.
_On the contrary,_ It is written: "God is love" (John 4:16).
_I answer that,_ We must needs assert that in God there is love:
because love is the first movement of the will and of every
appetitive faculty. For since the acts of the will and of every
appetitive faculty tend towards good and evil, as to their proper
objects: and since good is essentially and especially the object of
the will and the appetite, whereas evil is only the object
secondarily and indirectly, as opposed to good; it follows that the
acts of the will and appetite that regard good must naturally be
prior to those that regard evil; thus, for instance, joy is prior to
sorrow, love to hate: because what exists of itself is always prior
to that which exists through another. Again, the more universal is
naturally prior to what is less so. Hence the intellect is first
directed to universal truth; and in the second place to particular
and special truths. Now there are certain acts of the will and
appetite that regard good under some special condition, as joy and
delight regard good present and possessed; whereas desire and hope
regard good not as yet possessed. Love, however, regards good
universally, whether possessed or not. Hence love is naturally the
first act of the will and appetite; for which reason all the other
appetite movements presuppose love, as their root and origin. For
nobody desires anything nor rejoices in anything, except as a good
that is loved: nor is anything an object of hate except as opposed to
the object of love. Similarly, it is clear that sorrow, and other
things like to it, must be referred to love as to their first
principle. Hence, in whomsoever there is will and appetite, there
must also be love: since if the first is wanting, all that follows is
also wanting. Now it has been shown that will is in God (Q. 19, A.
1), and hence we must attribute love to Him.
Reply Obj. 1: The cognitive faculty does not move except through the
medium of the appetitive: and just as in ourselves the universal
reason moves through the medium of the particular reason, as stated
in _De Anima_ iii, 58, 75, so in ourselves the intellectual appetite,
or the will as it is called, moves through the medium of the
sensitive appetite. Hence, in us the sensitive appetite is the
proximate motive-force of our bodies. Some bodily change therefore
always accompanies an act of the sensitive appetite, and this change
affects especially the heart, which, as the Philosopher says (De
part. animal. iii, 4), is the first principle of movement in animals.
Therefore acts of the sensitive appetite, inasmuch as they have
annexed to them some bodily change, are called passions; whereas acts
of the will are not so called. Love, therefore, and joy and delight
are passions; in so far as they denote acts of the intellective
appetite, they are not passions. It is in this latter sense that they
are in God. Hence the Philosopher says (Ethic. vii): "God rejoices by
an operation that is one and simple," and for the same reason He
loves without passion.
Reply Obj. 2: In the passions of the sensitive appetite there may be
distinguished a certain material element--namely, the bodily
change--and a certain formal element, which is on the part of the
appetite. Thus in anger, as the Philosopher says (De Anima iii, 15,
63, 64), the material element is the kindling of the blood about the
heart; but the formal, the appetite for revenge. Again, as regards
the formal element of certain passions a certain imperfection is
implied, as in desire, which is of the good we have not, and in
sorrow, which is about the evil we have. This applies also to anger,
which supposes sorrow. Certain other passions, however, as love and
joy, imply no imperfection. Since therefore none of these can be
attributed to God on their material side, as has been said (ad 1);
neither can those that even on their formal side imply imperfection
be attributed to Him; except metaphorically, and from likeness of
effects, as already show (Q. 3, A. 2, ad 2; Q. 19, A. 11). Whereas,
those that do not imply imperfection, such as love and joy, can be
properly predicated of God, though without attributing passion to
Him, as said before (Q. 19, A. 11).
Reply Obj. 3: An act of love always tends towards two things; to the
good that one wills, and to the person for whom one wills it: since
to love a person is to wish that person good. Hence, inasmuch as we
love ourselves, we wish ourselves good; and, so far as possible,
union with that good. So love is called the unitive force, even in
God, yet without implying composition; for the good that He wills for
Himself, is no other than Himself, Who is good by His essence, as
above shown (Q. 6, AA. 1, 3). And by the fact that anyone loves
another, he wills good to that other. Thus he puts the other, as it
were, in the place of himself; and regards the good done to him as
done to himself. So far love is a binding force, since it aggregates
another to ourselves, and refers his good to our own. And then again
the divine love is a binding force, inasmuch as God wills good to
others; yet it implies no composition in God.
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