WE OUGHT TO LOVE THE DIVINE GOODNESS SUPREMELY FAR MORE THAN OURSELVES.
Aristotle was correct in saying that the good is truly worthy of love, though each individual finds that lovable which is good for oneself personally. Thus our love for others has its origin in the affection we have for ourselves. How could a philosopher who not only did not love God but hardly ever even spoke of the love of God say anything else? Nevertheless, love for God precedes all love for ourselves even according to the natural inclination of our will, as I have shown in Book One.
Indeed, the will is so dedicated and, if we may say, so consecrated to goodness that if an infinite goodness is shown to it clearly, it is impossible, without a miracle, for it not to love that goodness supremely. Thus the Blessed are carried away and necessitated, though not forced, to love God whose supreme beauty they see clearly. Scripture shows this sufficiently in comparing the contentment that fills the hearts of the glorious inhabitants of the heavenly Jerusalem to a fountain (Ps 36:9) and a river with a strong flow (Ps 46:4). The waters of this river cannot be kept from spreading over the plains they come across.
But in this mortal life, Theotimus, we are not necessitated to love so supremely since we do not know him so clearly. In Heaven, where we shall see him face to face (1Cor 13:12), we shall love him heart to heart. In other words, as we shall all see, each in one’s measure, his infinite beauty with a supremely clear sight, so shall we be enraptured with the love of his infinite goodness by a rapture that is supremely strong. We shall neither desire nor be able to desire to make any resistance to such rapture. Bur here below on earth, where we do not see this supreme goodness in its beauty, but only catch glimpses of him amid the darkness that surrounds us. Indeed, we are inclined and allured but not necessitated to love him more than ourselves. On the contrary, though we have this natural inclination to love the Divinity above all things, yet we do not have the strength to put it into practice, unless the same Divinity pour out supernaturally into our hearts its most holy charity.
Yet it is true that the clear view of the Divinity produces infallibly the necessity of loving it more than ourselves. So the glimpse, that is, the natural knowledge of the Divinity produces infallibly the inclination and tendency to love it more than ourselves. I ask you, Theotimus, since the will is wholly ordained to the love of good, how can it know, ever so little, a supreme good without being even slightly drawn to love it supremely? Of all goods which are not infinite, our will will always prefer in its love the good nearest to it, and especially its own good. But there is so little proportion between the infinite and the finite, that our will having knowledge of an infinite good is without doubt moved, inclined and aroused to prefer the friendship of this abyss of infinite goodness to every other sort of love, and even to the love of ourselves.
This inclination is strong above all because we are more in God than in ourselves, we live more in him than in ourselves (Acts 17:28). We exist to such an extent from him, by him, for him and belonging to him that we cannot calmly reflect on what we are to him and what he is to us, without being forced to cry out, Lord, I am yours (Ps 118:94), “and must belong to no one but you. My soul is yours and must live only by you. My will is yours and must love only for you. My love is for you and must tend only to you. I must love you as my first cause, since I am from you. I must love you as my end and rest, since I am for you. I must love you more than my own being, since my being subsists by you. I must love you more than myself, since I am all yours and all in you."
Suppose there were or could be some supreme good of which we were independent. And suppose we could be united to it by love. Then we should be aroused to love it more than ourselves since the infinity of its sweetness would always be more powerful to attract our will to its love than all the other goods, even our own good.
But if by imagination of something impossible there were an infinite goodness on which we had no dependence whatever, and with which we could have no kind of union or communication, we should indeed esteem it more than ourselves. We would know that being infinite it would be more worthy of esteem and love than we are. Consequently we would be able to make simple desires of being able to love it. Yet, properly speaking, we would not love it since love seeks union. Much less could we have charity towards it, since charity is friendship and there can be no friendship unless it is reciprocal, having communication as its foundation and union as its end. This I say for the benefit of certain fanciful and empty-minded people who on baseless imaginations are very often led to dwell on sad thoughts which afflict them badly.
But as for ourselves, Theotimus, my dear friend, we see clearly that we cannot be true human beings without having this inclination to love God more than ourselves. Nor can we be true Christians without putting this inclination into practice. Let us love more than ourselves him, who is to us more than all things and more than ourselves. Amen. This is the truth.