81. Love as Passion: Injury, Melting, and Universal Cause

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Lecture Notes

Main Topics #

Love as Injurious or Perfective #

Thomas distinguishes between two effects of love on the lover:

• Love of true good: Perfects and elevates the lover toward greater excellence
• Love of apparent good or evil: Injures and degrades the lover, making them “abominable just as the things which they loved”

Berquist emphasizes that this distinction is critical and often not made in preaching or moral instruction. The example of abortion advocates illustrates how those pursuing apparent goods become progressively worse, not better.

Four Proximate Effects of Love (Formal) #

Thomas identifies four formal effects of love according to the desiring power’s relation to its object:

1. Liquefactio (Melting): A softening or dissolution opposed to congealing/hardness of heart. This implies the heart becomes capable of receiving an impression from the beloved. The metaphor suggests love’s capacity to open the heart.

2. Languor (Languishment): A weakness or faintness, particularly when the beloved is absent. Referenced in the Song of Songs (5:8): “Because I languish with love.”

3. Fruitio (Fruition/Enjoyment): The pleasure that follows when the loved object is present and possessed.

4. Fervor (Fervent Desire): An intense desire for obtaining the absent beloved, signified by longing and intensity of appetite.

Bodily Effects vs. Formal Effects #

Thomas makes a crucial distinction: the effects listed above describe love taken formally (according to the desiring power’s relation to its object). However, in the passion of love as an emotion involving bodily change (passio corporalis), there are additional effects proportioned to the changing of bodily organs. These bodily effects can be harmful but are secondary to the primary formal effects.

Love as Universal Cause of All Action #

Every agent acts for an end. The end is the good desired and loved. Therefore, every agent acts from some love. This principle operates universally across:

• Intellectual love (angels)
• Rational love (humans)
• Animal love (brutes)
• Natural love (non-sentient beings)

Objection addressed: Not all actions proceed from the passion of love, but from choice or other causes. Response: The objection mistakes passionate emotion for love taken universally. Love understood broadly is the first cause from which all other passions proceed.

Other Passions as Proceeding from Love #

All other passions (desire, sadness, pleasure, anger, hate) are caused by love and proceed from it as from a first cause:

• If one loves something absent: sadness follows
• If one loves something desired: intense desire follows
• If one loves something present: pleasure follows
• If one loves one’s own dignity excessively: anger (directed at those who threaten it) follows
• If one loves one good: hatred of what is contrary to it follows

Key Arguments #

Article 5: Does Love Injure the Lover? #

Objection 1: Love causes languor and melting, which are injuries or weaknesses. Scripture speaks of languishing with love. Therefore love is injurious.

Objection 2: Love causes melting (liquefactio), a dissolution or loss of form. This seems harmful.

Response:

• Love taken formally (in the desiring power’s relation to its object) makes the lover better or worse depending on the object loved
• Love of a good suitable to the lover perfects and elevates him
• Love of what is unsuitable or evil injures and degrades him
• The bodily effects (melting, languor) that can be harmful are accidental to love itself; they are proportioned to bodily change
• The key distinction is the object: does the loved thing perfect or corrupt the lover?

Article 6: Is Love the Cause of Everything the Lover Does? #

Objection 1: Not all human actions proceed from passion; some from choice, some from ignorance. Therefore not all actions are from love.

Objection 2: If all things proceed from love, then other passions (desire, etc.) would be superfluous.

Objection 3: Some things proceed from hate (contrary to love). Therefore not all things are from love.

Response:

• Every agent acts for an end, and the end is the good desired and loved
• Therefore every agent acts from some love
• This must be understood of love taken universally: intellectual love, rational love, animal love, and natural love—not merely the passion of love
• The objection about other passions: All other passions are caused by love and proceed from it as from a first cause. They are not superfluous but serve as proximate causes.
• The objection about hate: Hate is itself caused by love. One hates what is contrary to what one loves (e.g., hating rock and roll because one loves the beautiful; hating salmon because one loves what tastes good)

Important Definitions #

Liquefactio: A softening or melting of the heart; the dissolution of hardness/congealing that would prevent the beloved from making an impression upon the heart.

Languor: Faintness, weakness, or feebleness that can follow from intense love, especially in absence of the beloved.

Fruitio: Enjoyment or pleasure in the possessed good; the satisfaction that follows when the loved object is present.

Fervor: Intense or fervent desire for the absent good one loves.

Congelatio (Congealing): Hardness or rigidity of heart that prevents receiving an impression from another; the opposite of melting.

Passio corporalis: Emotion understood as a bodily passion or affection involving change in bodily organs.

Examples & Illustrations #

Literary Examples #

Coriolanus: Shakespeare’s Coriolanus is a hard-hearted warrior until his mother kneels before him. His love for her causes him to “melt”—to soften and lose his resolve to destroy Rome. This exemplifies liquefactio: love dissolves the hardness of heart.

Song of Songs (Canticles) 5:8: “Prop me up with flowers… because I languish with love.” Used to illustrate languor as a weakness accompanying intense love.

Shakespeare’s Sonnets: Referenced for the theme of absence causing weakness/sickness in love.

Personal Anecdotes #

Kitten Selection: Berquist describes visiting a woman who bred kittens. One kitten would leave the pack and approach visitors, making an impression. This illustrates how the beloved makes an impression on the lover’s heart—a softening or reception that the lover permits.

Dog Selection: Similarly, when a breeder brought puppies to the monastery, one immediately ran to a specific monk, who exclaimed “This is the one!” The beloved makes an impression and chooses its lover.

Salmon House: A local house painted an odd shade called “salmon” that makes Berquist “sick to my stomach” when he sees it. This illustrates how hate follows from love of something contrary (love of aesthetic beauty causes hate of the salmon color).

Philosophical Examples #

Red Wine Tasting: The more precisely one tries to identify a wine’s components, the less certain one becomes. Confusion and general knowledge are more certain than precise distinctions in sensory matters. This illustrates Berquist’s point about how Descartes wrongly identified certitude with distinction.

Classical Music Recognition: Pieces by Haydn, Beethoven, and Johann Christian Bach can be confused with Mozart. As one tries to be more precise about authorship, certainty decreases—illustrating that the confused is more known than the distinct.

Notable Quotes #

“Therefore, love is a passion that is injurious” [to the beloved] (Thomas, from the objection)

“But love is, what? Therefore, it is, what? Love of a good which is not suitable to the one loving is injurious and making worse the lover.”

“They were made abominable just as the things which they loved” (Wisdom 12:9, cited to show how love of evil degrades the lover)

“Every agent acts in account of some end. But the end is the good desired and loved by each one. Therefore, every agent, whatever he be, acts whatever action from some love.” (Thomas’s resolution to Article 6)

“Dionysius says, in the fourth chapter of the divine names, that on account of love of the good, all do whatever they do.”

Questions Addressed #

Article 5: Is Love Injurious to the Lover? #

Resolution: Love is not injurious to the lover as such. Rather:

• Love of a true good perfects and elevates the lover
• Love of an apparent good or evil injures and degrades the lover
• The bodily effects of love (melting, languor) are secondary and accidental; they can be harmful but are not the essential harm or benefit of love
• The fundamental distinction is between suitable and unsuitable objects of love

Example: Am I made better by loving truth? Yes. Am I made better by loving candy? Not necessarily—it may bring pleasure but doesn’t improve my character. Am I made worse by loving sin? Yes, progressively so.

Article 6: Is Love the Cause of All Things the Lover Does? #

Resolution: Yes, universally understood. Every agent acts for an end, the end is the good desired and loved, therefore every agent acts from some love. This includes:

• Actions from choice (proceeding from rational love)
• Actions from passion (proceeding from animal love)
• Even actions seemingly from other causes, like anger or hate, which themselves proceed from love as their first cause
• Natural operations (proceeding from natural love)

Key clarification: This does not mean all actions proceed from the passion of love as an emotion, but from love taken universally across all levels of being.

Key Thomistic Principles Illustrated #

1. The good is the end: Every agent acts for an end, and the end is always some good (real or apparent) that is desired and loved.

2. Distinction of objects matters morally: Whether one’s action perfects or corrupts the agent depends entirely on whether the loved object is a true or apparent good.

3. Causality levels: Love serves as a first cause from which proximate causes (other passions) proceed.

4. Universality of principles: What appears to be many different causes (desire, anger, hate, sadness) all trace back to love as their root cause.

5. Form and accident: The formal effect of love (opening the heart to impression) must be distinguished from accidental bodily effects that may or may not accompany it.