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Charity is the best of the theological virtues (1 Corinthians 13:13). This is as a result of it’s the solely theological advantage that is still in heaven. Once we see God head to head, we now not want religion or hope. But our friendship with God stays. Charity is even higher than is commonly realized; it’s a participation in God’s very love for Himself.
In the Gospel of John, Jesus says, “As the Father has cherished me, so have I cherished you” (John 15:9). God loves us within the very approach that God loves God. Christ instructed us to like our neighbors as we love ourselves (Mark 12:31). But Christ, being a superb teacher, doesn’t ask us to do issues which He has not first achieved Himself. God loves us as He loves Himself and so can inform us to like others as we love ourselves.
But Christ calls for even larger issues from us than merely loving others with the identical pure love that we now have for ourselves. In the Gospel of John, Christ continues, “This is my commandment, that you just love each other as I’ve cherished you” (John 15:12). Not solely should we love others as ourselves, however we should love them as God loves them. And, as we simply noticed, God loves others as He loves Himself. So, the Gospel requires that we love different individuals in the identical approach that God loves Himself.
The love that we’re discussing is charity. St. Thomas Aquinas explains that the great we want to others with the love of charity is that they get to heaven—we would like others to be in everlasting intimate union with God. So, the love we should have for others requires that we would like them to be in heaven with us endlessly. The good of heaven shouldn’t be merely an extrinsic good that we are able to want for others, like a pizza. Instead, it’s primarily a union. First, a union of the particular person and God. But additionally, since we too need to be in heaven (we should love ourselves with charity), it’s a union of the opposite particular person and ourselves collectively in Christ. God is so intimately united with Himself that He is three Persons in the identical divine Nature. With charity we should want a union with the opposite particular person based mostly on joint unity with God.
So, the frequent saying that “we don’t must like our neighbors however simply love them,” may be very weak. It is contradictory to say that we would like an intimate and everlasting union with one other particular person, that we need to spend eternity with them praising God, if we don’t like them. Viewed from one other angle, God needs to spend eternity with that particular person, and we should want the identical factor. How then can we probably say, “I don’t must like you?”
Charity requires that we love the opposite as God loves them, which is how God loves Himself. Such a robust love doesn’t refuse to “like” one other particular person. At very least, if the particular person shouldn’t be “likeable” as a result of they’re evil, then like God, we would like the opposite particular person to show from their sin so as to grow to be good, to grow to be extra “likeable.” But, like God’s love, we can not wait till the particular person is completely likeable earlier than we start loving them with charity, earlier than we would like a union with them: “God exhibits his love for us in that whereas we had been but sinners Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). Charity ought to drive us to love the opposite particular person since we are attempting to spend eternity with them in heaven.
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