Aquinas on the Order of Love

In this thesis, I will investigate Aquinas’s theory of the order of love. The scholastic concept of the order of love (ordo amoris) refers to the ethical phenomenon that a lover (X) naturally loves, and ought to love a beloved person (Y) more than another (Z). Following Aristotle, Aquinas defines interpersonal love as a benevolential actuality of wishing some good to some person; consequently, there are two basic ways of ordering interpersonal love: X can love Y more than Z either by wishing to Y a greater good, or by willing Y’s good more intensively. According to the first way of ordering love, Aquinas argues that we naturally and ought to love God most, and love those created persons closer to God more than those who are less close (i.e., the “objective order of love”). On the other hand, according to the second way of ordering love, it is still God whom we naturally and ought to love most; while among created persons, we love ourselves most, and love our neighbors in proportion to their proximity to us (i.e., the “subjective order of love”).

As I am going to argue, Aquinas’s theory of the order of love, especially his theory of the subjective order of love reveals a tension between Aquinas’s emphasis on the lover self as an authentic measure of the order of love and the divine commandment of loving God more than all the creatures. Both horns of the dilemma are deeply grounded in some of Aquinas’s fundamental philosophical commitments. Aquinas tries to bring the two into a consistent whole, but his attempt, as we will argue, is not fully successful. At the end of the day, the claim that we naturally and ought to love God more intensively than ourselves significantly compromises the existence and value of the self-centered part of the subjective order of love. Nevertheless, from a positive point of view, this unsolved problem of Aquinas’s theory also illuminates the essence, significance and difficulty of the self-centered order of love, which is a controversial issue not only for medieval schoolmen, but also for contemporary philosophers.