13. Love as Perfecting or Corrupting the Lover

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Lecture Notes

Main Topics #

Love as Perfecting or Corrupting #

• Love is fundamentally not a harmful passion, but rather a conserving and perfecting passion (following Dionysius)
• The formal aspect of love: fitting the desiring power with some good through conformity of the heart with its object
• Critical distinction: Love of a suitable good perfects the lover; love of an unsuitable good harms and corrupts the lover
• This is fundamentally different from knowledge: all knowledge is formally good, but not all love is formally good

The Difference Between Knowledge and Love #

• Knowledge: All knowledge is formally good as such (even knowledge of bad things). One becomes corrupt not by knowing evil, but by desiring to do evil with that knowledge
• Love: Not all love is formally good. The object of love matters essentially—one becomes good or bad based on what one loves
• Love unites one with the thing itself; knowledge merely comprehends it. If the thing is good, union perfects you; if bad, it corrupts you
• Scripture: “They are made abominable as those things which they have loved” (Hosea 9:10)

Love and Reason #

• Romantic objection: “Love and reason keep little company nowadays”
• Thomas’s position: For love to be good, it must be moderated by reason
• Love can be excessive or disordered, lacking proper measure and proportion
• Example from Merchant of Venice: Portia recognizes love’s excess and prays for moderation

Love as Making One Weak, Foolish, or Blind #

• Common saying: “Love is blind” and “A fool in love”
• Etymology: English word “fond” originally meant foolish; later came to mean affectionate
• Love can cause weakness (physical and mental)
• Love can destroy logical faculty and clear reasoning
• BUT: These are effects of excessive bodily change, not of love formally considered

Formal vs. Material Aspects of Love #

• Formal aspect (from the desiring power): Love is a fitting of the will to good, always perfecting when the good is suitable
• Material aspect (bodily passion): The excessive bodily change can be harmful (similar to how excessive sound can deafen, excessive light can blind)
• The bodily effects must be distinguished from the essential nature of love itself

Four Proximate Effects of Love #

Thomas identifies these successive effects:

1. Melting (liquefaction): The softening of a hard heart so it becomes receptive to love

   • Opposed to hardness/freezing of heart
   • Scripture: “I will take away their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh”
   • A disposition prerequisite for love to enter

2. Enjoyment (delectatio): Delight when the loved object is present and possessed

3. Faintness/Weakness: Sadness over the absence of the loved object

   • Metaphorically called weakness or sickness
   • Cicero (Tusculan Questions III) names sadness as a kind of sickness
   • Sadness makes one weak and unable to apply oneself intensely

4. Raging/Boiling: An intense desire for obtaining the loved object

   • Signifies excess in heat and intensity
   • Manifested in passionate speech and action

Love Shapes Character #

• “We are shaped and fashioned by what we love” (George Eliot quote)
• Love of noble things ennobles the lover; love of base things makes one base
• This occurs because love unites one to the thing itself, not merely to knowledge of it
• The contrast: Silas Marner, corrupted by love of money; the Spy, ennobled by love of country

Love as Root Cause of Action #

• The sixth effect of love: What love causes one to do (actionable effects)
• Love is the original cause; hate of impediments is derivative
• Romeo’s insight: “Here’s much to do with hate, but more with love” (fighting between houses is caused fundamentally by love of one’s own house, not by hate)
• Love itself is the mover producing effects; hate follows from love of what is impeded

Key Arguments #

Argument for Love as Harmful (Objections) #

1. Weakness objection: Love causes weakness (Song of Songs 2:5, “I faint with love”); weakness harms the one weakened; therefore love is harmful
2. Melting objection: Melting signifies dissolution and destruction (Song of Songs 5:6, “My soul melted”); therefore love is corrupting
3. Boiling objection: Boiling signifies excess in heat which corrupts; love causes boiling (seraphim described with “acute and boiling order”); therefore love is harmful
4. Wounding objection: One wounded by love is not in a good state (St. Teresa of Avila pierced by angel of divine love); yet wounding is not good

Argument for Love as Perfecting (Thomas’s Resolution) #

1. The fitting principle: What is fitted to something suitable to it advances and becomes better; what is fitted to something unsuitable is harmed and becomes worse
   • Example: Ill-fitting shoes harm the feet
2. The unity principle: Love, which is formal conformity of the desiring power to good, perfects the lover when the good is suitable
3. Two conditions for good love: (a) the object must be good, and (b) the mode of loving must be good (measured by reason)
4. Distinction of aspects:
   • Formally (as desiring power conforming to good): Love always perfects when the object is suitable
   • Materially (as bodily passion with excessive change): Love can harm through bodily excess, but this is not essential to love itself

How Love and Hate Relate (Causality) #

• Hate of impediments is an effect of love, not a cause
• The lover hates what opposes the beloved because the lover loves the beloved
• “The cause of the cause is more the cause”
• Example: Romeo’s explanation of the feuding—the fighting (hate) arises from love of house
• Grammatically in Shakespeare: sometimes the effect is the adjective modifying the noun (cause), sometimes reversed

Important Definitions #

Melting (Liquefactio) #

• The softening of the heart’s resistance so it becomes suitable for receiving love
• Not corruption but a necessary disposition for love to function
• Opposed to hardness and freezing, which prevent love from entering

Enjoyment (Delectatio) #

• The delight or pleasure experienced when the loved object is present and possessed
• A direct effect of love when union is achieved

Faintness (Languor) #

• Sadness metaphorically expressed as weakness or sickness when the loved object is absent
• A real bodily weakness that accompanies the emotional state of sadness

Raging/Boiling (Ebullitio) #

• The intense, passionate desire and movement toward obtaining the absent loved object
• Represents the active striving and fervor of love

Examples & Illustrations #

From Shakespeare - Effects of Love #

Two Gentlemen of Verona - Proteus’s Romance

• “I leave myself, my friends, and all for love” — illustrates ecstasy of love
• “Thou, Julia, thou hast metamorphosed me” — shows transformation through love
• Love causes him to neglect studies, lose time, make him weak with musing and heartsick with thought

Romeo and Juliet - Love and Its Effects

• Romeo wandering at night, shutting himself in his room during the day
• “Sadness lengthens Romeo’s hours”
• “Alas, that love so gentle in his view should be so tyrannous and rough in proof” — love as a tyrant ruling the lover
• “Here’s much to do with hate, but more with love” — showing love as root cause of apparent hatred
• “Oh, brawling love, oh, loving hate” — reversing the grammatical relationship between cause and effect

The Merchant of Venice - Moderation of Love

• Portia, when she sees Bassanio has chosen the right casket: “Oh, love be moderate… Allay the ecstasy… In measure reign thy joy… I feel too much thy blessing”
• Shows concern that love’s intensity might exceed proper bounds

Troilus and Cressida - Love Overwhelming Other Bonds

• Cressida to her uncle: “I have forgot my father… no kin, no love, no blood, no soul so near me as the sweet Troilus”
• Shows how love can override natural familial attachments
• “Make Cressida’s name the very crown of falsehood” — her passionate declaration, showing intensity of feeling

Much Ado About Nothing

• Claudio in love with Hero: described as melancholy, beyond thought, excessive affection
• Illustrates the weakness and distraction love can cause

From Literature - Character Transformation #

James Fenimore Cooper, The Spy

• Anecdote from John Jay about a man ennobled by love of country during Revolutionary War
• Shows how love of common good can elevate and perfect a person
• Contrasts with selfish loves that corrupt

George Eliot, Silas Marner

• “He had clung with all the force of his nature to his work and his money… His loom… had fashioned him into correspondence with themselves… His gold… gathered his power of loving together into a hard isolation”
• Example of how love of base goods (money, mechanical work) narrows, hardens, and corrupts the lover

Henry Clay’s Life (Historical Example)

• Lost five daughters before adulthood, one daughter in childbirth
• Son suffered head injury and mental asylum confinement; another son was a drunkard
• Experienced great sadness from loss of loved ones, which made him weak and unable to act
• Illustrates how sadness from absence of loved ones causes real weakness

Physical/Emotional Manifestations #

• A young woman threatened to jump from school building when boyfriend left her
• Berquist’s godmother collapsed at her child’s funeral after train accident
• Andrew Jackson and General Patton using apparent rage to achieve objectives
• Sherlock Holmes’s observation that love is destructive of logical faculty

Questions Addressed #

Is Love Fundamentally Good or Bad? #

• Answer: Depends entirely on the object. Love of God most perfects; love of sin most corrupts. Love itself is not formally good or bad; the goodness depends on what is loved and how it is loved.

How Can Love Make One Weak If It Perfects? #

• Answer: Distinction between formal and material aspects. Formally (as conformity of will to good), love perfects. Materially (as bodily passion), excessive change can cause weakness. This is accidental to love, not essential.

Is All Knowledge Good While Not All Love Is Good? #

• Answer: Yes. Knowledge comprehends opposites neutrally; love unites with the object itself. Therefore knowledge as such is always good (one doesn’t become what one knows), but love makes one like what one loves (one becomes contaminated or perfected by the union).

How Are Hate and Love Related? #

• Answer: Hate of impediments is an effect of love, not a cause. One hates what stands in the way of what one loves because one loves the thing that is impeded. Love is the original cause; hate is derivative.

What Makes a Love Good vs. Bad? #

• Answer: Two conditions: (1) The object of love must be good, and (2) The manner of loving must be good (measured and moderated by reason). Love of a bad object is bad; love of a good object in a disordered way is also bad.

Notable Quotes #

“We are shaped and fashioned by what we love.” — George Eliot, cited approvingly by Berquist as capturing the philosophical truth that love transforms the lover by uniting the lover with the object itself.

“They are made abominable as those things which they have loved.” — Hosea 9:10, used to show that one becomes like what one loves.

“The cause of the cause is more the cause.” — Thomas Aquinas’s principle showing why love (the original cause) is the deeper explanation than hate (the instrumental cause) in understanding human action.

“Love makes you better or worse. It depends upon what you love.” — Berquist’s formulation of the central thesis distinguishing love from knowledge.