The Infinity Of Charity
Whether charity increases indefinitely?
. . . let none of the faithful say: “Enough.”
. . . the wayfarer’s charity can ever increase more and more. . . . [C]harity has no limit to its increase, since it is a participation in the infinite charity which is the Holy Ghost. . . .
The capacity of the rational creature is increased by charity because the heart is enlarged thereby . . . so that it still remains capable of receiving a further increase (II-II,24,7).
~St. Thomas Aquinas
“St. Thomas is a rational, logical, judicious, careful, thoughtful, conservative kind of intellectual, not naturally given to exaggeration, fanaticism, passionate outbursts, Romanticist exuberance, poetic extremes, or Existentialist impatience with limits. Those who know only this dimension of him may be surprised to find this other dimension in him too. It is his ‘vertical’, not ‘horizontal’, dimension. The word for limits and finitude, the word ‘enough’, expresses a primary ‘horizontal’ virtue regarding all things human and natural. It is the virtue of moderation. ‘Nothing too much’, or ‘moderation in all things’, was one of the two virtues (the other was ‘know thyself’) inscribed over the door of the temples to Apollo, especially that of the Delphic oracle, in ancient Greece; and St. Thomas wisely approves this. But when it comes to the relationship with God, with the supernatural, he is an ‘extremist’. All the natural virtues are means between two opposite extremes, as Aristotle said; but the three theological, or supernatural, virtues do not follow this formula. No one can have too much faith (trust in God), too much hope in God’s generosity, or too much love for God...”
~Peter Kreeft
. . . let none of the faithful say: “Enough.”
. . . the wayfarer’s charity can ever increase more and more. . . . [C]harity has no limit to its increase, since it is a participation in the infinite charity which is the Holy Ghost. . . .
The capacity of the rational creature is increased by charity because the heart is enlarged thereby . . . so that it still remains capable of receiving a further increase (II-II,24,7).
~St. Thomas Aquinas
“St. Thomas is a rational, logical, judicious, careful, thoughtful, conservative kind of intellectual, not naturally given to exaggeration, fanaticism, passionate outbursts, Romanticist exuberance, poetic extremes, or Existentialist impatience with limits. Those who know only this dimension of him may be surprised to find this other dimension in him too. It is his ‘vertical’, not ‘horizontal’, dimension. The word for limits and finitude, the word ‘enough’, expresses a primary ‘horizontal’ virtue regarding all things human and natural. It is the virtue of moderation. ‘Nothing too much’, or ‘moderation in all things’, was one of the two virtues (the other was ‘know thyself’) inscribed over the door of the temples to Apollo, especially that of the Delphic oracle, in ancient Greece; and St. Thomas wisely approves this. But when it comes to the relationship with God, with the supernatural, he is an ‘extremist’. All the natural virtues are means between two opposite extremes, as Aristotle said; but the three theological, or supernatural, virtues do not follow this formula. No one can have too much faith (trust in God), too much hope in God’s generosity, or too much love for God...”
~Peter Kreeft
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