Sect. 84The Affections (Affectus) of the Divine Will, Especially LoveThe Affections (Affectus) of the Divine Will, Especially Love
I. The Divine perfection excludes all affections which imply bodily activity, excitement of the mind, passivity, and, à fortiori, passions which dim the mind and upset the will. When speaking of the affections of the Divine Will, we consider its acts in as far as they bear on their objects in an eminent manner, a relation analogous to that which our will bears to its objects when moved by our various feelings. Affections not essentially connected with imperfection, such as love and delight, exist formally in God; other affections, which imply imperfection, or a certain unrest, such as fear and sadness, are only improperly or metaphorically attributed to Him. In other words, God contains formally only such affections as are determined by His own Essence. The Divine Will cannot be affected by anything external; hence, if by analogy with ourselves we distinguish many affections in God, they ought not to be conceived as really distinct or conflicting, but as virtually contained in the one act of the Divine Substance. Between the affections which have God Himself for their immediate object, such as complacency in His goodness, love, benevolence, and joy, it is almost impossible to find even a virtual distinction. The other Divine affections, which have creatures for their object, spring from the former, and are ramifications of the Divine Self-Love.
II. With the aid of these principles, it will be possible to determine in detail which affections can be attributed to the Divine Will.
1. The affection most properly attributable to the Divine Will is delight in what is good and beautiful. The primary object of this Divine complacency is the infinite Goodness and Beauty of the Divine Essence; the secondary objects are its created representations. From the complacency in what is good, the hatred or abomination of what is wicked is inseparable. This affection is connected, in created wills, with a feeling of disgust and displeasure, increasing with the degree of appreciation of the evil attained. This painful sensation, however, is not essential to the abomination of evil. It does not exist in God, Who knows that by His power and wisdom evil itself is made subservient to the ultimate end of creation.
2. A benevolent inclination towards Himself, the Highest Good, and towards the beings which participate in His Goodness, is another formal and proper attribute of the Divine Will. The contrary affection, viz. hatred or malevolence, is impossible in God. Hatred consists in wishing some one evil precisely as evil; it takes pleasure in the evil of the person hated, and strives, to a greater or lesser extent, to destroy the hateful object. Such an affection is not only unworthy of God and incompatible with His absolute repose and beatitude, but is also contrary to the nature of the Divine Will, inasmuch as the latter operates on creatures only to communicate the Divine Goodness to them. God continues His benevolence to sinners, even when they are damned in hell, for He wills their natural good even in hell, and does not begrudge them happiness; He wills their punishment only inasmuch as by it the order of the whole of creation, of which the sinners are members, is maintained; and the sinners themselves receive the sole good available to them, viz. the forced submission to the order of God’s universe. When Scripture speaks of God’s hatred of sin, or uses similar expressions, the “hatred of what is wicked” ought always to be understood, and not mere malevolence.
3. Other affections formally attributable to the Divine Will are joy and delight in God’s infinite Beauty and Goodness, as enjoyed by Himself or shared by His creatures. Pain and sadness, on the contrary, are affections entirely incompatible with the repose and happiness of the Divine Will, and are only metaphorically applicable to God. The same is true of pity, the noblest kind of sadness. God acts, indeed, as if He felt pity; but, although the effect is there, the affection is wanting. The desire for things not yet possessed is likewise impossible in God.
4. If hatred and sadness can find no room in the Divine Will on account of the imperfections they imply, much more must affections like hope and fear, respect and admiration, anger and repentance be excluded. Holy Scripture hardly ever attributes hope or fear to God, but often anger and repentance. This way of speaking is adopted in order to make the actions of God intelligible to the reader. God acts as we conceive an angry man would do under the same circumstances.
III. Love is foremost among the Divine affections; it is the type upon which all His other affections are modelled. God is Love, all Love, and Love pure and simple; whatever is against love is against the Nature of God, and is essentially excluded from Him; whatever is according to love, is according to the inclination and disposition of the Divine Nature. Hence the meaning of the expressions: “God, Whose nature is goodness” (St. Leo), and “God is charity (ἀγάπη),” 1 John 4:8. Love, caritas, ἀγάπη), and bonitas here must be taken as expressing benevolent love, by which we wish well to other beings just as we do to ourselves. Love, as here described, is indeed foremost among, and characteristic of, all Divine affections; but it is not their living root and their real principle. This is Love only in as far as by love we understand the complacency which God finds in the infinite Goodness of His Essence, and which takes the form of the noblest kind of love, charity.
IV. God’s benevolent love of His creatures is characterized by the following properties:—
1. God’s benevolent love of creatures actually existing is, in substance, His love of Himself freely directed towards determinate beings which receive their existence in virtue of His Love.
2. It is a gratuitous love, freely bestowed without any claim on the part of the creature, and without any profit on the part of God.
3. By reason of its origin in the Divine Wisdom and Self-Love, God’s love of creatures is essentially wise and holy, directed towards their salvation, and necessarily subordinating them to the highest good. It is, therefore, infinitely different from a blind and weak tenderness, which would sacrifice to the capricious desires of creatures their own salvation and the honour of God. Such tenderness is unworthy of God; it would be impure love, not deserving the name of charity. Holiness is an essential element in pure love, and if we distinguish pure love from holy love it is only in order to point out the absolute gratuity of the former.
4. The Divine Love of creatures is eminently intimate. It is identical with God’s Love of Himself, and embraces creatures in their innermost being, and tends to unite them with Him in the fruition of His own perfection. Hence arises the unitive force proper to Divine Love. The love of creatures for each other brings them together, but the Love of God for creatures unites the creature to the Creator.
5. The Divine Love is eminently an ecstatic love—that is, God causes His Love, and with His Love His goodness, to expand and to overflow ad extra, and to pervade and replenish His creatures. Humanly speaking, it may even be said that, in the Incarnation, God, out of love for His creatures, “empties” Himself (Phil. 2:7), inasmuch as, without sacrificing His internal glory and absolute honour, He renounces, in His adopted humanity, all external glory. The “ecstasis” of the Divine Love aims at bringing the beloved creatures into the closest union with God; whence that famous circle of the Divine Love described by Dionysius the Areopagite, De Div. Nom., c. iv.
6. The Divine Love is eminently universal and all-embracing. On the part of God the love is the same for each and all its objects, because in the Divine act itself there are no degrees. But it manifests itself in various degrees, so that, on the part of the beloved objects, more love is shown to the better ones than to the less perfect. In this respect God loves one object more than another, because He has willed the one to be better than the other, and has adorned the one with choicer gifts than the other.
7. The Divine Love is eminently fertile and inexhaustible.
8. Lastly, the negative attributes of infinity, immutability, and eternity belong also to the act of Divine Love, although its external manifestations are subject to the limitation, mutability, and temporality of their objects.
All the distinguishing properties of the Divine Love shine forth most brilliantly in the supernatural “love of friendship” which God has for His rational creatures. By this supernatural love, He loves them as He loves Himself, elevating them to the participation in His own beatitude, and giving Himself to them in many ways. It is that “charity or love of God” which the New Testament chiefly and almost exclusively recommends.
I. The Divine perfection excludes all affections which imply bodily activity, excitement of the mind, passivity, and, à fortiori, passions which dim the mind and upset the will. When speaking of the affections of the Divine Will, we consider its acts in as far as they bear on their objects in an eminent manner, a relation analogous to that which our will bears to its objects when moved by our various feelings. Affections not essentially connected with imperfection, such as love and delight, exist formally in God; other affections, which imply imperfection, or a certain unrest, such as fear and sadness, are only improperly or metaphorically attributed to Him. In other words, God contains formally only such affections as are determined by His own Essence. The Divine Will cannot be affected by anything external; hence, if by analogy with ourselves we distinguish many affections in God, they ought not to be conceived as really distinct or conflicting, but as virtually contained in the one act of the Divine Substance. Between the affections which have God Himself for their immediate object, such as complacency in His goodness, love, benevolence, and joy, it is almost impossible to find even a virtual distinction. The other Divine affections, which have creatures for their object, spring from the former, and are ramifications of the Divine Self-Love.
II. With the aid of these principles, it will be possible to determine in detail which affections can be attributed to the Divine Will.
1. The affection most properly attributable to the Divine Will is delight in what is good and beautiful. The primary object of this Divine complacency is the infinite Goodness and Beauty of the Divine Essence; the secondary objects are its created representations. From the complacency in what is good, the hatred or abomination of what is wicked is inseparable. This affection is connected, in created wills, with a feeling of disgust and displeasure, increasing with the degree of appreciation of the evil attained. This painful sensation, however, is not essential to the abomination of evil. It does not exist in God, Who knows that by His power and wisdom evil itself is made subservient to the ultimate end of creation.
2. A benevolent inclination towards Himself, the Highest Good, and towards the beings which participate in His Goodness, is another formal and proper attribute of the Divine Will. The contrary affection, viz. hatred or malevolence, is impossible in God. Hatred consists in wishing some one evil precisely as evil; it takes pleasure in the evil of the person hated, and strives, to a greater or lesser extent, to destroy the hateful object. Such an affection is not only unworthy of God and incompatible with His absolute repose and beatitude, but is also contrary to the nature of the Divine Will, inasmuch as the latter operates on creatures only to communicate the Divine Goodness to them. God continues His benevolence to sinners, even when they are damned in hell, for He wills their natural good even in hell, and does not begrudge them happiness; He wills their punishment only inasmuch as by it the order of the whole of creation, of which the sinners are members, is maintained; and the sinners themselves receive the sole good available to them, viz. the forced submission to the order of God’s universe. When Scripture speaks of God’s hatred of sin, or uses similar expressions, the “hatred of what is wicked” ought always to be understood, and not mere malevolence.
3. Other affections formally attributable to the Divine Will are joy and delight in God’s infinite Beauty and Goodness, as enjoyed by Himself or shared by His creatures. Pain and sadness, on the contrary, are affections entirely incompatible with the repose and happiness of the Divine Will, and are only metaphorically applicable to God. The same is true of pity, the noblest kind of sadness. God acts, indeed, as if He felt pity; but, although the effect is there, the affection is wanting. The desire for things not yet possessed is likewise impossible in God.
4. If hatred and sadness can find no room in the Divine Will on account of the imperfections they imply, much more must affections like hope and fear, respect and admiration, anger and repentance be excluded. Holy Scripture hardly ever attributes hope or fear to God, but often anger and repentance. This way of speaking is adopted in order to make the actions of God intelligible to the reader. God acts as we conceive an angry man would do under the same circumstances.
III. Love is foremost among the Divine affections; it is the type upon which all His other affections are modelled. God is Love, all Love, and Love pure and simple; whatever is against love is against the Nature of God, and is essentially excluded from Him; whatever is according to love, is according to the inclination and disposition of the Divine Nature. Hence the meaning of the expressions: “God, Whose nature is goodness” (St. Leo), and “God is charity (ἀγάπη),” 1 John 4:8. Love, caritas, ἀγάπη), and bonitas here must be taken as expressing benevolent love, by which we wish well to other beings just as we do to ourselves. Love, as here described, is indeed foremost among, and characteristic of, all Divine affections; but it is not their living root and their real principle. This is Love only in as far as by love we understand the complacency which God finds in the infinite Goodness of His Essence, and which takes the form of the noblest kind of love, charity.
IV. God’s benevolent love of His creatures is characterized by the following properties:—
1. God’s benevolent love of creatures actually existing is, in substance, His love of Himself freely directed towards determinate beings which receive their existence in virtue of His Love.
2. It is a gratuitous love, freely bestowed without any claim on the part of the creature, and without any profit on the part of God.
3. By reason of its origin in the Divine Wisdom and Self-Love, God’s love of creatures is essentially wise and holy, directed towards their salvation, and necessarily subordinating them to the highest good. It is, therefore, infinitely different from a blind and weak tenderness, which would sacrifice to the capricious desires of creatures their own salvation and the honour of God. Such tenderness is unworthy of God; it would be impure love, not deserving the name of charity. Holiness is an essential element in pure love, and if we distinguish pure love from holy love it is only in order to point out the absolute gratuity of the former.
4. The Divine Love of creatures is eminently intimate. It is identical with God’s Love of Himself, and embraces creatures in their innermost being, and tends to unite them with Him in the fruition of His own perfection. Hence arises the unitive force proper to Divine Love. The love of creatures for each other brings them together, but the Love of God for creatures unites the creature to the Creator.
5. The Divine Love is eminently an ecstatic love—that is, God causes His Love, and with His Love His goodness, to expand and to overflow ad extra, and to pervade and replenish His creatures. Humanly speaking, it may even be said that, in the Incarnation, God, out of love for His creatures, “empties” Himself (Phil. 2:7), inasmuch as, without sacrificing His internal glory and absolute honour, He renounces, in His adopted humanity, all external glory. The “ecstasis” of the Divine Love aims at bringing the beloved creatures into the closest union with God; whence that famous circle of the Divine Love described by Dionysius the Areopagite, De Div. Nom., c. iv.
6. The Divine Love is eminently universal and all-embracing. On the part of God the love is the same for each and all its objects, because in the Divine act itself there are no degrees. But it manifests itself in various degrees, so that, on the part of the beloved objects, more love is shown to the better ones than to the less perfect. In this respect God loves one object more than another, because He has willed the one to be better than the other, and has adorned the one with choicer gifts than the other.
7. The Divine Love is eminently fertile and inexhaustible.
8. Lastly, the negative attributes of infinity, immutability, and eternity belong also to the act of Divine Love, although its external manifestations are subject to the limitation, mutability, and temporality of their objects.
All the distinguishing properties of the Divine Love shine forth most brilliantly in the supernatural “love of friendship” which God has for His rational creatures. By this supernatural love, He loves them as He loves Himself, elevating them to the participation in His own beatitude, and giving Himself to them in many ways. It is that “charity or love of God” which the New Testament chiefly and almost exclusively recommends.
Seção 29% da obra, de A Manual of Catholic Theology (Wilhelm & Scannell, sobre a Dogmatik de Scheeben). Ver o original.