Dist. 27, Art. 2, Q. 5
by St. Bonaventure
Source text: Public Domain Mark 1.0. English translation/apparatus/encoding: CC BY-NC 4.0, Wroot Press.
https://bonaventure.wrootpress.com/browse/3/d/27/q/bon-sent-III-d27-a2-q5
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### Question V. *Whether the act of love toward God has a measure.*

Fifth, it is asked whether the act of love toward God has a measure. And it seems that it does:

1. *Wisdom* eleven: *You have arranged all things in number and measure and weight, O Lord:* therefore the motion of charity toward God has a measure; and everything that has a measure, has a mode: therefore it is necessary that the motion of love toward God be moded.

2. Likewise, everything finite is terminated, and everything terminated is measured, and everything such is moded: therefore *from the first* everything finite has a mode; but the motion of charity toward God is finite, since it is created and [proceeds] from a finite power: therefore it is necessary that it have a mode.

3. Likewise, wisdom is above charity, as Bernard says in the book *On the Love of God*, that « love advances into charity, and charity into wisdom »; but wisdom must have a mode, according to what the Apostle says to the Romans, chapter twelve: *Not to be more wise than it behooves to be wise* etc.: if therefore wisdom ought to have a mode, by like reasoning it seems, indeed by a much stronger one, that charity itself has a mode.

4. Likewise, mode, species, and order are compared to one another, as one, true, and good; but the good presupposes the true, and the true presupposes the one: therefore by like reasoning order presupposes species, and species presupposes mode. But the motion of charity toward God is ordered: therefore also moded.

**On the contrary:** 1. Bernard, *On Loving God*: « The cause of loving God is God, the mode is to love without mode »; and again: « Faith tells me that God is to be loved so much the more, the more I understand that He Himself is to be esteemed above me »; but I understand that He is to be esteemed above me infinitely: therefore He is to be loved infinitely. But nothing such has a mode: therefore the motion of charity does not have a mode.

2. Likewise, the ground of loving God is the supreme Goodness itself; but the supreme Goodness is infinite, having neither mode nor measure: therefore so also is the habit, which has [the property] of moving and inclining according to that ground: it seems therefore that the motion of love toward God has neither term nor mode.

3. Likewise, charity is an equal weigher, since it is an ordered affection; but he who weighs equally and orderly esteems and loves each thing as much as it is to be esteemed and loved: if therefore the supreme Good infinitely exceeds every created good, it seems that the motion of charity toward God infinitely exceeds the motion of charity toward the neighbor: therefore it does not seem that it has a mode.

4. Likewise, everything that has a mode can be vitiated through its own excess: therefore if the motion of charity toward God had a mode, it could be vitiated through its own excess. But no one is blameworthy, however affectionately and intensely he loves God: if therefore the motion of charity toward God cannot be vitiated through excess, it seems that in itself it has no mode.

> **Conclusion.** The act of love toward God has a measure from the limitation of the virtue and from the addition of due circumstances, but not a measure from a mean between the superfluous and the diminished.

**I respond:** It must be said that an act can be said to have a measure in three ways: in one way by limitation as regards *itself*; in another way by the aggregation of circumstances; in a third way from a mean between the superfluous and the diminished. In the first way one is to say that the act of every created virtue has a measure. For every created virtue is finite and limited; and therefore every act of it has finitude and measure, speaking of limitation and finitude not according to possibility, but according to act.

— In the second way, however, one is to say that the measure is about the act of a *moral* and *meritorious* virtue, because no act is done praiseworthily unless due circumstances concur with it. — In the third way one is to say that the act of every *cardinal* or political virtue has a measure. For all of them consist in a mean between the superfluous and the diminished, from this very fact that they have a created and finite object.

Since therefore charity is a *created* virtue and a *gratuitous* virtue and a *theological* virtue; hence it is that its act has a measure from *the limitation of the virtue*; it also has a measure from the *addition of due circumstances,* as is plain, because the measure that is about the act of charity is this, that one love God above all and for His own sake *with one's whole heart, with one's whole soul, and with one's whole mind*. But that measure which is from a *mean* between the superfluous and the diminished it does not have, because its object is immense and infinite.

From these things the response to the question proposed is plain: that the motion of love toward God, in a certain way of taking the measure, has [reason] to be moded, but in a certain way by no means. — And according to this the reasonings run to opposite parts. For the reasonings which are brought forward for the first part, which show that the motion of charity has a measure, conclude about the measure that consists in the limitation of the act as regards itself. — Yet that reasoning about wisdom does not compel: because wisdom in one way is named from *to know* (*sapere*), in another way from *taste* (*sapor*), so that in one way it consists in *cognition,* in another way in *affection.* And insofar as it consists in *affection,* so Bernard says, that « charity grows into wisdom »; and in this way it cannot be vitiated through excess. But insofar as it consists in *cognition,* so it can be vitiated through excess and the curiosity of investigation; but in this way it is not superior to charity, nor is it more worthy than it: and therefore it does not follow that the motion of charity toward God has a measure, insofar as the measure expresses a mean between the superfluous and the diminished. — But the other three reasonings conclude what is true, and therefore they are to be conceded.

1. To the reasonings, however, which are adduced for the opposite, the response is likewise plain. For that [saying] of Bernard *On Loving God,* that God is to be loved without mode; does not take away the measure of due circumstance, or the finitude of the created virtue; but it takes away this, that no one ought to set for himself a term below his own power, because no one can love God superfluously, and thus it removes the measure spoken of in the third way.

2. To that which is objected, that the ground of loving God is infinite Goodness; it must be said that although charity moves conformably to that ground, insofar as it can, yet it never makes [itself] equal; and therefore, although the supreme Goodness itself is infinite, nevertheless it is not on this account necessary that the affection of charity, which is moved according to it, should have infinity and lack all measure; for this reason, that, just as the light of the divine brightness, which we are to see in the homeland, is *in itself infinite,* yet *will be known finitely* by us, and the knowable brightness will infinitely exceed the brightness of our cognition: so also it is to be understood on the part of the *affection,* that the goodness of that supreme lovable Good will be much greater than is the affection of the one loving.

3. To that which is objected, that charity is an equal weigher; it must be said that it is true; this also is true, that it loves God infinitely more than the creature; but yet it does not follow on this account that it loves God altogether infinitely without measure, because a line infinitely exceeds a point, and yet it is in itself finite.

4. To the last [objection], which is raised about excess, the response is plain: because it objects about the measure which is not only on the part of the *moving virtue,* but also on the part of the *object,* which also holds a middle place with respect to the superfluous and the diminished: and this is not to be found about the act of love of God, as was touched upon before, on account of the immensity of the object itself.