10. Union as the First Effect of Love

Subscribe in Podcast App | Download Transcript

Lecture Notes

Main Topics #

Two Types of Union as Effects of Love #

• Union by affection (unio per affectionem): The emotional binding or attachment that constitutes love itself; exists even in the beloved’s absence
• Union in things (unio in re): Physical presence or intimate contact with the beloved; what the lover seeks to achieve as a result of love
• Thomas distinguishes these as two distinct effects of love:
  • Union by affection is the formal effect of love—the mere fact of loving creates this binding
  • Union in things is the efficient effect of love—love moves us to seek physical presence

Three Relationships of Union to Love #

1. Union as a cause of love: Self-identity and likeness generate love (e.g., loving oneself, loving those who are like us)
2. Union as essentially love itself: The binding together of affection that constitutes love formally
3. Union as an effect of love: The pursuit of physical or intimate presence resulting from love

Thomas’s Responses to Objections #

• Absence and union: Love produces union by affection even in absence; desire arises when union in things is absent, but love itself remains
• Types of natural union: Union by affection is a distinct third type of union, different from natural unions (form-matter, substance-accident, part-whole) and unions of likeness
• Love vs. knowledge: Love unites the thing itself with the lover more perfectly than knowledge does; knowledge creates a likeness (the form of the thing in the mind), but love creates an attachment to the thing itself

Key Arguments #

Against Union Being an Effect of Love #

Objection 1: Absence opposes union; yet love can exist in absence. How can union be an effect of love?

• Response: Union by affection (the essential effect) exists even in absence. Union in things (which absence prevents) is what lovers seek as a further effect of love—thus absence does not prevent the first and most proper effect.

Objection 2: Union is caused by nature (form to matter, substance to accident, part to whole) or by likeness (genus, species, accident). Love causes none of these.

• Response: Union by affection is a third kind of union, distinct from natural and likeness unions. It is the binding together that constitutes love itself.

Objection 3: Knowledge unites more than love (the knower becomes one with the known in act). Therefore union is not properly an effect of love.

• Response: Love unites the thing itself with the lover through attachment, whereas knowledge unites through likeness (the form of the thing in the mind). Love is more directly unifying than knowledge.

Important Definitions #

Unio (Union) #

• The binding or joining together of the lover with the beloved
• Per affectionem (by affection): The emotional attachment and binding of hearts; constitutes love formally
• In re (in things): Physical presence or intimate contact
• Formal cause: Love makes union by affection formally—the union is the love itself
• Efficient cause: Love makes union in things efficiently—as a mover that causes the desire for presence

Amor Concupiscentiae (Love of Wanting) #

• Loving something as pertaining to one’s own well-being
• The beloved is grasped as suitable to oneself and pertaining to oneself
• Examples: loving food, loving wisdom for one’s own intellectual perfection

Amor Amicitiae (Love of Friendship) #

• Willing good to another just as one wills good for oneself
• A friend is another self (ἄλλος αὑτός / alter ego)
• The lover and beloved are united through mutual willing of good

Examples & Illustrations #

From Shakespeare #

As You Like It: The progression of union at first sight

• “No sooner met, but they looked; no sooner looked, but they loved; no sooner loved, but they sighed…; no sooner sighed, but they asked one another the reason; no sooner knew the reason, but they sought the remedy.”
• Demonstrates how love creates union of affection immediately, followed by desire for union in things
• The metaphor of two rams coming together shows love unites despite natural distance

All’s Well That Ends Well: Union despite social distance

• Helena loves Bertram despite vast social distance (he is a count, she is the daughter of a physician)
• She expresses this through the paradox: “Poor all one, that I should love a bright particular star and think to what it is. How could I marry a star?”
• Yet love attempts to bridge even this impossible gap through virtue and action
• Shows that union by affection exists even when union in things seems impossible

The Phoenix and the Turtle: Union making two become one

• Shakespeare uses the mathematical paradox: “Number there in love was slain” because “the two became one by the other and one is not a number”
• Illustrates that reason is confounded by how two distinct beings can be united: “Love hath reason, reason none”
• Shows that union by affection makes two a single reality in some sense

Rosalind and Orlando: Unity through love despite separation

• “Let me confess that we two must be twain. They can’t be joined together in that third sense, right? Although our undivided loves are one.”
• Shows lovers can be united by affection (undivided loves are one) while remaining physically separated by circumstance

From Classical Literature #

Ovid and Caesar’s Veni, vidi, vici: The contrast with love

• Caesar came, saw, and conquered (veni, vidi, vici)
• In contrast, lovers come, see, love at first sight, and desire marriage
• Shows love creates union more swiftly and completely than military conquest

Questions Addressed #

Can union exist in absence? #

• Question: If love creates union, how can lovers be separated? Doesn’t absence destroy union?
• Answer: Union by affection (emotional attachment) exists and grows even in absence. Union in things (physical presence) is what lovers seek but may be prevented by circumstance. The first and essential effect of love is union of affection, which absence does not prevent.

How can two become one through love? #

• Question: Shakespeare asks: “How true a twain seemeth this concordant one”—how can two remain two yet be one?
• Answer: The union is not a fusion of natures or destruction of individuality, but an attachment of affection. Two remain distinct beings while being bound together in will and heart. One is not a number, so the union does not contradict plurality.

Does love create union or does union create love? #

• Question: If union is a cause of love (identity creates self-love; likeness creates love of the similar), how can union also be an effect of love?
• Answer: Union relates to love in three ways: (1) as a cause—identity or likeness generates love; (2) as essentially love itself—the union of affection constitutes the love formally; (3) as an effect—love moves us to seek further union in things.

Why is love a “uniting power”? #

• Question: What makes love fundamentally a force that unites?
• Answer: Because love grasps the beloved as pertaining to oneself (in the love of wanting) or as another self (in the love of friendship). This grasping creates an attachment that binds the lover to the beloved, making them no longer separate in affection.

Notable Quotes #

“Love is a uniting power” — Dionysius, Divine Names IV

“A friend is another self” — Aristotle (Greek proverb quoted by Aquinas: Hophilos estenalus autos)

“Love is as a certain life joining together, or desiring to join together some two: namely the lover and what is loved” — Augustine, De Trinitate VIII

“Number there in love was slain, why because the two became one by the other and one is not a number” — Shakespeare, The Phoenix and the Turtle

“Half of my soul” — Augustine’s expression of friendship, cited by Aquinas

“Absence makes the heart grow fonder” — Proverbial expression contrasted with Pauline absence in Galatians