Whether Peace Is the Proper Effect of Charity?
Objection 1: It would seem that peace is not the proper effect of
charity. For one cannot have charity without sanctifying grace. But
some have peace who have not sanctifying grace, thus heathens
sometimes have peace. Therefore peace is not the effect of charity.
Obj. 2: Further, if a certain thing is caused by charity, its
contrary is not compatible with charity. But dissension, which is
contrary to peace, is compatible with charity, for we find that even
holy doctors, such as Jerome and Augustine, dissented in some of
their opinions. We also read that Paul and Barnabas dissented from
one another (Acts 15). Therefore it seems that peace is not the
effect of charity.
Obj. 3: Further, the same thing is not the proper effect of different
things. Now peace is the effect of justice, according to Isa. 32:17:
"And the work of justice shall be peace." Therefore it is not the
effect of charity.
_On the contrary,_ It is written (Ps. 118:165): "Much peace have they
that love Thy Law."
_I answer that,_ Peace implies a twofold union, as stated above (A.
1). The first is the result of one's own appetites being directed to
one object; while the other results from one's own appetite being
united with the appetite of another: and each of these unions is
effected by charity--the first, in so far as man loves God with his
whole heart, by referring all things to Him, so that all his desires
tend to one object--the second, in so far as we love our neighbor as
ourselves, the result being that we wish to fulfil our neighbor's
will as though it were ours: hence it is reckoned a sign of
friendship if people "make choice of the same things" (Ethic. ix, 4),
and Tully says (De Amicitia) that friends "like and dislike the same
things" (Sallust, Catilin.)
Reply Obj. 1: Without sin no one falls from a state of
sanctifying grace, for it turns man away from his due end by making
him place his end in something undue: so that his appetite does not
cleave chiefly to the true final good, but to some apparent good.
Hence, without sanctifying grace, peace is not real but merely
apparentapparent.
Reply Obj. 2: As the Philosopher says (Ethic. ix, 6) friends need not
agree in opinion, but only upon such goods as conduce to life, and
especially upon such as are important; because dissension in small
matters is scarcely accounted dissension. Hence nothing hinders those
who have charity from holding different opinions. Nor is this an
obstacle to peace, because opinions concern the intellect, which
precedes the appetite that is united by peace. In like manner if
there be concord as to goods of importance, dissension with regard to
some that are of little account is not contrary to charity: for such
a dissension proceeds from a difference of opinion, because one man
thinks that the particular good, which is the object of dissension,
belongs to the good about which they agree, while the other thinks
that it does not. Accordingly such like dissension about very slight
matters and about opinions is inconsistent with a state of perfect
peace, wherein the truth will be known fully, and every desire
fulfilled; but it is not inconsistent with the imperfect peace of the
wayfarer.
Reply Obj. 3: Peace is the "work of justice" indirectly, in so
far as justice removes the obstacles to peace: but it is the work of
charity directly, since charity, according to its very nature, causes
peace. For love is "a unitive force" as Dionysius says (Div. Nom. iv):
and peace is the union of the appetite's inclinations.
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