{"id":875,"date":"2009-06-02T06:56:24","date_gmt":"2009-06-02T10:56:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/?p=875"},"modified":"2009-06-02T06:56:24","modified_gmt":"2009-06-02T10:56:24","slug":"richard-of-st-victor-4-%e2%80%93-charity-is-shared-by-equals-jt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/richard-of-st-victor-4-%e2%80%93-charity-is-shared-by-equals-jt\/","title":{"rendered":"Richard of St. Victor 4 \u2013 Charity is shared by equals (JT)"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Equals.
Equals. Period. None have been greater. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

STAGE 3. Next, Richard tries to establish that God can only charitably love an equal. He introduces this idea by raising the following objection: if God must direct his charitable love at a distinct person, then why couldn\u2019t he direct his charitable love at a created person<\/em>? That would satisfy T5 from the last post, so that should be enough to perfect God\u2019s charitable disposition, right?<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Richard says no. Perfect charity, he says, would be \u2018disordered\u2019 if it were directed at someone who didn\u2019t deserve perfect charity. Perfect charity must be directed at an equal. Of course, God\u2019s charity cannot be disordered, so God can only direct his charity at an equal. Here\u2019s the quote:<\/p>\n

\u2018For charity would be disordered if He [God] loved supremely someone who should not be supremely loved. But in that supremely wise goodness it is impossible for charity to be disordered. Therefore, a divine person could not have supreme charity toward a person who was not worthy of supreme love\u2019.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Richard goes on. Since perfect charity is the best possible feature (see T3 above), charity will only be perfect if there\u2019s nothing better than it. Now, if a person loved only themselves, then they wouldn\u2019t be exercising their charity perfectly (see T5 above). But that wouldn\u2019t be the best possible charity, for there could still be a better charity, namely someone who loved another. Here\u2019s the quote:<\/p>\n

\u2018in order that charity be . . . supremely perfect, it is necessary that it be so great that . . . nothing better can exist. However, as long as anyone loves no one else as much as he loves himself, that private love which he has for himself shows clearly that he has not yet reached the supreme level of charity\u2019.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

A key notion here is that perfect charity has to be directed at someone worthy<\/em> of it.<\/p>\n

(T6)\tFor any person x<\/em>, if x<\/em> has a charitable disposition P<\/em>, x<\/em> is not perfect if x<\/em> directs P<\/em> at some person y<\/em>, and y<\/em> does not deserve it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In the divine case, the charitable lover is the Father, and the Father is an awesomely perfect divine person. So the recipient of the Father\u2019s charitable love must be at least as perfect as the Father himself, and the only sort of thing that perfect is a divine person. As Richard puts it:<\/p>\n

\u2018But a divine person certainly would not have anyone to love as worthily as Himself if He did not have a person of equal worth. However a person who is not God would not be equal in worth to a divine person\u2019.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Thus, since God is perfectly good, and being perfectly good requires having perfect charity, and since perfect charity requires loving another person who deserves it, and since the only thing that can deserve it would be another divine person, it follows that there is another divine person in God to whom the first can direct his charitable love towards.<\/p>\n

\u2018Therefore, so that fullness of charity might have a place in that true Divinity, it is necessary that a divine person not lack a relationship with an equally worthy person, who is, for this reason, divine\u2019.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And Q.E.D. There are at least two persons in God. Or at least, that\u2019s what the argument is supposed to conclude up to this point. In the next post, I\u2019ll raise some objections to the argument thus far.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

STAGE 3. Next, Richard tries to establish that God can only charitably love an equal. He introduces this idea by raising the following objection: if God must direct his charitable love at a distinct person, then why couldn\u2019t he direct his charitable love at a created person? That would satisfy T5 from the last post,… Read More »Richard of St. Victor 4 \u2013 Charity is shared by equals (JT)<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":876,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[14,9,13,3],"tags":[40,41,22],"class_list":["post-875","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-history","category-philosophy","category-theologians","category-theories","tag-richard-of-st-victor","tag-social-trinitarianism","tag-trinity"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/875","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=875"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/875\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":897,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/875\/revisions\/897"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/876"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=875"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=875"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=875"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}