Whether God Ought to Be Loved More Than Our Neighbor?
Objection 1: It would seem that God ought not to be loved more than
our neighbor. For it is written (1 John 4:20): "He that loveth not
his brother whom he seeth, how can he love God, Whom he seeth not?"
Whence it seems to follow that the more a thing is visible the more
lovable it is, since loving begins with seeing, according to _Ethic._
ix, 5, 12. Now God is less visible than our neighbor. Therefore He is
less lovable, out of charity, than our neighbor.
Obj. 2: Further, likeness causes love, according to Ecclus. 13:19:
"Every beast loveth its like." Now man bears more likeness to his
neighbor than to God. Therefore man loves his neighbor, out of
charity, more than he loves God.
Obj. 3: Further, what charity loves in a neighbor, is God, according
to Augustine (De Doctr. Christ. i, 22, 27). Now God is not greater in
Himself than He is in our neighbor. Therefore He is not more to be
loved in Himself than in our neighbor. Therefore we ought not to love
God more than our neighbor.
_On the contrary,_ A thing ought to be loved more, if others ought to
be hated on its account. Now we ought to hate our neighbor for God's
sake, if, to wit, he leads us astray from God, according to Luke
14:26: "If any man come to Me and hate not his father, and mother,
and wife, end children, and brethren, and sisters . . . he cannot be
My disciple." Therefore we ought to love God, out of charity, more
than our neighbor.
_I answer that,_ Each kind of friendship regards chiefly the subject
in which we chiefly find the good on the fellowship of which that
friendship is based: thus civil friendship regards chiefly the ruler
of the state, on whom the entire common good of the state depends;
hence to him before all, the citizens owe fidelity and obedience. Now
the friendship of charity is based on the fellowship of happiness,
which consists essentially in God, as the First Principle, whence it
flows to all who are capable of happiness.
Therefore God ought to be loved chiefly and before all out of
charity: for He is loved as the cause of happiness, whereas our
neighbor is loved as receiving together with us a share of happiness
from Him.
Reply Obj. 1: A thing is a cause of love in two ways: first, as being
the reason for loving. In this way good is the cause of love, since
each thing is loved according to its measure of goodness. Secondly, a
thing causes love, as being a way to acquire love. It is in this way
that seeing is the cause of loving, not as though a thing were
lovable according as it is visible, but because by seeing a thing we
are led to love it. Hence it does not follow that what is more
visible is more lovable, but that as an object of love we meet with
it before others: and that is the sense of the Apostle's argument.
For, since our neighbor is more visible to us, he is the first
lovable object we meet with, because "the soul learns, from those
things it knows, to love what it knows not," as Gregory says in a
homily (In Evang. xi). Hence it can be argued that, if any man loves
not his neighbor, neither does he love God, not because his neighbor
is more lovable, but because he is the first thing to demand our
love: and God is more lovable by reason of His greater goodness.
Reply Obj. 2: The likeness we have to God precedes and causes the
likeness we have to our neighbor: because from the very fact that we
share along with our neighbor in something received from God, we
become like to our neighbor. Hence by reason of this likeness we
ought to love God more than we love our neighbor.
Reply Obj. 3: Considered in His substance, God is equally in
all, in whomsoever He may be, for He is not lessened by being in
anything. And yet our neighbor does not possess God's goodness equally
with God, for God has it essentially, and our neighbor by
participation.
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