The Process of Human Intellectual Love, Or Spirating A Pondus

Abstract

THE PROCESS OF HUMAN INTELLECTUAL LOVE, OR SPIRATING A PONDUS IN IDS REFLECTIONS on the procession of love in God Cardinal Billot raises an interesting question about the process of creatures' intellectual love. That question might be stated in this manner: Does a distinct reality exist within the loving will which corresponds analogously to the mental word produced by the intellect in its act of knowing? 1 He is considering human love and knowledge insofar as they offer to us a foundation for our understanding something about the Divine Processions according to knowledge and love. Within human knowledge, of course, our normal mode of knowing consists in producing an immanent term which we call the mental word. This word is an apprehension of or judgment about something. Some reality which does or can have extramental existence is produced intentionally within the intellect as known. Through this mental word we look intellectually at the reality itself to enjoy a vision of it. Let us suppose on the other hand that in our will there is an operation of love? Or rather, on the contrary, must we confess within our will a similar intentional term of the beloved? Does that being which is loved really exist in some intentional way within our appetite? If so, is it really distinct from the operation of love? Or rather, on the conrtary, must we confess that no such term is produced within our act of loving? Cardinal Billot is prepared to concede that such a distinct volitional term does not exist within our love. Although I 1 De Deo Uno et Trino, Ludovico Billot, S. J. (Rome: Gregorian University, 1935), p. 365. Among other and more recent studies on love is The Experience of Love, by Jules Toner (Washington-Cleveland: Corpus Books, 1968). Although this is an interesting analysis of the total experience particularly of " radical love " and contains a remarkable criticism of other works on love, it does not explicitly dwell upon the exact question treated here. 39 40 WILLIAM ROSSNER respect Billot as a fellow Jesuit who loves St. Thomas Aquinas, I should like to disagree, amiably, however, as becomes brothers. Such a concession might seem to reduce our experience of an impulse toward what we love to some kind of myth. It might also appear to render less intelligible our process thought about Divine Love and the second procession according to which the Father and Son are the principle of the Holy Spirit. As favoring his position Billot cites a text of St. Thomas Aquinas: "The will does not have something proceeding from itself in the manner of something produced; but the intellect has in itself something proceeding from it, not only in the manner of operating but also in the manner of something produced." 2 I should prefer rather to say that in normal human speculative knowledge the intellect conceives a concept of something or speaks a mental word through which we know extra-mental reality. This grounds our human supernatural knowledge of the analogy in God where the Father speaks a word which is a generating of the Son who is the second Person of the Holy Trinity. And similarly in human intellectual love the will produces a distinct term which is intentionally the beloved; and this too grounds our knowledge of the procession according to love in God whereby the Father and Son breathe forth the Holy Spirit. I. THE QuESTION OF THE PROCEss OF LovE The problem raised here is interesting to anyone who finds attraction in the subject of love as it is found in creatures or in God. When raised to trinitarian heights it allures not only dogmatic theologians but also philosophers. In God each procession grounds a distinct person. The procession according to knowledge becomes generation of a Son from the Father. The procession according to love, although it grounds the distinct Holy Spirit as proceeding from Father and Son, nevertheless is not itself generation. In other words, within the • De Veritate, q. 4, a.~. ad 7. PROCESS OF HUMAN INTELLECTUAL LOVE 41 divinity, while the procession according to knowledge is itself a generation, the procession according to love is not itself a generation. The...