Whether There Is Order in Charity?
Objection 1: It would seem that there is no order in charity. For
charity is a virtue. But no order is assigned to the other virtues.
Neither, therefore, should any order be assigned to charity.
Obj. 2: Further, just as the object of faith is the First Truth, so
is the object of charity the Sovereign Good. Now no order is
appointed for faith, but all things are believed equally. Neither,
therefore, ought there to be any order in charity.
Obj. 3: Further, charity is in the will: whereas ordering belongs,
not to the will, but to the reason. Therefore no order should be
ascribed to charity.
_On the contrary,_ It is written (Cant 2:4): "He brought me into the
cellar of wine, he set in order charity in me."
_I answer that,_ As the Philosopher says (Metaph. v, text. 16), the
terms "before" and "after" are used in reference to some principle.
Now order implies that certain things are, in some way, before or
after. Hence wherever there is a principle, there must needs be also
order of some kind. But it has been said above (Q. 23, A. 1; Q. 25,
A. 12) that the love of charity tends to God as to the principle of
happiness, on the fellowship of which the friendship of charity is
based. Consequently there must needs be some order in things loved
out of charity, which order is in reference to the first principle of
that love, which is God.
Reply Obj. 1: Charity tends towards the last end considered as last
end: and this does not apply to any other virtue, as stated above (Q.
23, A. 6). Now the end has the character of principle in matters of
appetite and action, as was shown above (Q. 23, A. 7, ad 2; I-II, A.
1, ad 1). Wherefore charity, above all, implies relation to the First
Principle, and consequently, in charity above all, we find an order
in reference to the First Principle.
Reply Obj. 2: Faith pertains to the cognitive power, whose operation
depends on the thing known being in the knower. On the other hand,
charity is in an appetitive power, whose operation consists in the
soul tending to things themselves. Now order is to be found in things
themselves, and flows from them into our knowledge. Hence order is
more appropriate to charity than to faith.
And yet there is a certain order in faith, in so far as it is chiefly
about God, and secondarily about things referred to God.
Reply Obj. 3: Order belongs to reason as the faculty that orders, and
to the appetitive power as to the faculty which is ordered. It is in
this way that order is stated to be in charity.
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