9. The Causes of Love: Good, Knowledge, Likeness, and Hope
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Main Topics #
The Four Causes of Love #
Thomas Aquinas identifies four principal causes of love:
- The Good (Bonum): The object of love; what is lovable
- Knowledge: The good as known; a necessary condition for love to move the heart
- Likeness (Similitudo): Similarity between lover and beloved
- Other Emotions or Acts of Will: Hope, desire, pleasure, and other affections that can cause or intensify love
The Good and Knowledge as Causes #
The good is the primary object of love, but knowledge is the condition by which the good becomes an object of the heart. The good as known (rather than merely existing) is what moves us to love. Knowledge and love have different perfections: knowledge requires analysis and distinction, while love regards the thing as a whole. Therefore, we can love something more than we know it (e.g., loving God more than we can comprehend Him).
Likeness as a Cause of Love #
Likeness operates in several modes:
- Univocal Likeness: Same form in both parties (two wise men)
- Proportional Likeness: Corresponding forms (masculinity in a man, femininity in a woman)
- Analogical or Distant Likeness: Ability in one party corresponding to actuality in another (the sick love health; the poor love wealth)
Crucially, likeness seems to operate more on the side of the lover than the loved. We most strongly love ourselves—not because we are like ourselves, but because we are ourselves. This self-love is natural to all beings; the commandment is not to love oneself, but to love oneself rightly (not too much) and to love the neighbor as oneself.
The objection that likeness causes hate (potters quarrel with potters) is resolved: likeness as such causes love, but when two similar people compete for the same limited good, competition impedes the natural attraction accidentally, not essentially.
Other Emotions as Causes of Love #
Hope, desire, and pleasure can cause or increase love, but they themselves presuppose a prior love. Example: love of wisdom → desire for wisdom → love of the wise person. All other emotions ultimately depend on some foundational love.
Hope is particularly important: despair of obtaining something weakens or destroys love for it. Augustine notes that one loves lukewarmly or not at all a thing one has no hope of obtaining. Modern despair of knowing truth has led to loss of love of truth.
Being Loved as a Cause of Love #
Augustine and Thomas both emphasize that nothing moves us more to love than the experience of being loved, especially with unselfish love (the love of friendship/wishing well). This operates through:
- The Good: Being loved is itself good; returning love is just
- Likeness: When someone loves us as we love ourselves, they become like us in their love, creating a bond
To be loved is in a way to be honored (Aristotle’s observation). The fact that we tend to seek being loved more than seeking to love reflects our disordered state; St. Francis prays to love more than to be loved.
Key Arguments #
The Problem of Knowledge and Love #
Question: Is knowledge a necessary cause of love?
Objections:
- We desire things we don’t know; therefore knowledge isn’t necessary
- If knowledge causes love, more knowledge should cause more love, but we love God more than we know Him
Resolution: Knowledge is the condition by which the good becomes an object of the heart. Perfect knowledge and perfect love differ in their perfections. Love can exceed knowledge in intensity because love regards the whole, while knowledge requires distinguishing and dividing.
The Problem of Likeness Causing Hate #
Question: If likeness causes love, why do potters (who are alike) quarrel with each other?
Resolution: Likeness as such causes love, but when two similar people compete for the same limited good, competition impedes the natural attraction. This is accidental to likeness, not essential. True likeness in the love of friendship (wishing well) naturally generates love, not hate.
Unlikeness and Distant Likeness #
Question: Can we love what is unlike us?
Resolution: We can love what we lack (e.g., health) through distant likeness—the ability in us to achieve what the other possesses in actuality. The sick have likeness to health as potentiality to actuality.
The Relationship Between All Four Causes #
All causes of love ultimately reduce to the good and likeness:
- Hope, desire, and pleasure cause love by moving us toward good things or by creating likeness in affection
- Being loved causes love in return both because it is good and because it creates likeness
- These secondary causes all presuppose a prior, foundational love
Important Definitions #
Bonum (The Good): The object of love; what is lovable. Specifically, the good as known (not merely as existing) moves the will to love.
Similitudo (Likeness): Similarity between lover and beloved. Can be univocal (same form), proportional (corresponding forms), or analogical/distant (ability corresponding to actuality).
Affectio (Affection): The attachment or inclination of the heart toward what is loved; related to the formal constitution of love itself.
Dispositio (Disposition): An easily lost state (contrasted with habitus, a firm, stable disposition). Example: a mood is a disposition; a virtue is a habit.
Spes (Hope): An act of the will that strengthens desire and increases love by moving us toward goods we hope to obtain. Despair weakens or destroys love.
Examples & Illustrations #
From Literature #
Shakespeare’s Two Gentlemen of Verona:
- “Hope is a lover’s staff. Walk hence with that and manage it against despairing thoughts.”
- Illustrates how hope supports love; despair undermines it
Shakespeare’s The Tempest:
- Prospero says of Ferdinand and Miranda: “They are both in either’s power. But this swift business I must uneasy make, lest the light winning make the prize light.”
- Shows how difficulty in attaining something increases love for it
From The Merchant of Venice:
- Portia’s reasoning about Bassanio and Antonio: “Did angle for me, matting my eagerness with her restraint, as all impediments in fancy’s course.”
- “Fancy” (imagination) becomes love; obstacles increase love
From Folklore and Philosophy #
The Fox and the Grapes:
- When the fox despairs of reaching the grapes, he turns against them (calls them sour)
- Illustrates how despair transforms love into dislike
The Seven Wise Men of Greece:
- “Know thyself” and “Nothing too much”
- Implicitly recognize that self-love is natural and needs no command; the command is to love oneself rightly (not too much)
Aristotle on Wealth:
- A poor man who worked hard to gain money loves it more than a wealthy man born into wealth
- Difficulty in attaining something increases attachment to it
From Augustine #
Augustine’s De Catechizandis Rudibus (On Catechizing the Uninstructed):
- Advises that catechetical instruction should aim at moving the audience to love God
- “For there is nothing that invites love more than to be beforehand in loving.”
- Even in base love (seduction), people display their love to win love in return
- If this holds true for base passions, how much more for friendship and divine love?
- “When one who does not yet love perceives that he is loved, or when he who loves already hopes that he may yet be loved in return, or actually has proof that he is loved, there is no greater reason for the birth or growth of love.”
Augustine’s De Trinitate (On the Trinity)
- A passage on the desire to know and speak all languages
- The splendor of such knowledge arouses zeal in learners because “the closer he comes to this faculty and hope, the more ardently he is inflamed with love”
- One who is “not buoyed up by the hope of acquiring something either loves it tepidly or does not love it at all, though he may perceive how beautiful it is”
Augustine’s City of God:
- “All the affections of the soul are caused by love”
From Monastic/Medieval Sources #
St. Bernard of Clairvaux:
- On the love of God: we begin by loving our own happiness, then desire God’s help, then through knowing God, begin to love God for Himself
- One love can cause another love through intermediate desires
St. Alphonsus Liguori:
- On meditation on the Passion: the main purpose is to move the heart, not the mind
- By becoming aware of Christ’s love for us, we are moved to love Him
St. Catherine of Siena:
- “Pay the debt of love to your neighbor”
- References the idea of justice in love: we owe love in return
Contemporary Application #
Modern Loss of Love of Truth:
- Modern philosophers despair of knowing truth, then begin to run down truth’s value
- Originally they wanted to know truth; they lost hope, and their love weakened and diminished
- Shows how hope generates love and despair destroys it
Notable Quotes #
Augustine, De Catechizandis Rudibus:
“For there is nothing that invites love more than to be beforehand in loving. And that heart is overhard, which, even though it were unwilling to bestow love, would be unwilling to return it.”
Augustine, De Catechizandis Rudibus:
“Either one loves lukewarmly or one does not love at all that thing which one has no hope of obtaining, even though one sees how beautiful it is.”
Augustine, De Trinitate:
“For in the light of truth he realizes how great and how good it is to understand and speak all the languages of all countries… And so the closer he comes to this faculty and hope, the more ardently he is inflamed with love.”
Thomas Aquinas, Summa Contra Gentiles, Book 4, Chapter 54:
“Nothing, however, leads us to love someone as the experience of the same towards us.”
Thomas Aquinas, Summa Contra Gentiles, Book 4, Chapter 54:
“For it is the property of love to unite the lover with the loved so far as is possible.”
Questions Addressed #
Is Knowledge Necessary for Love? #
Resolution: Yes, as a condition, not as the primary efficient cause. The good is primary; knowledge is the condition by which the good becomes an object of the heart. Knowledge perfects love by making the beloved known, but love can exceed knowledge in intensity.
How Can We Love More Than We Know? #
Resolution: Love and knowledge have different perfections. Knowledge requires analysis and distinction; love regards the whole. Therefore, we can love God with greater intensity than the measure of our knowledge of Him.
Does Likeness Always Cause Love? #
Resolution: Likeness as such causes love, but when two similar people compete for the same limited good, competition impedes love accidentally. In the love of friendship, likeness generates love naturally.
Why Does Hope Matter for Love? #
Resolution: Hope strengthens desire and increases love by removing despair. Without hope of obtaining something, we cannot love it intensely. Therefore, pastoral practice must sustain hope (especially in God) to sustain love.
How Does Being Loved Cause Love in Return? #
Resolution: Through both the good and likeness: being loved is good in itself; returning love is just; and when someone loves us as we love ourselves, they become like us, creating a bond. This is especially powerful when the love is unselfish and comes from a superior (as God’s love comes to us).