Hostname: page-component-76d6cb85b7-7262s Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-07-15T06:11:14.240Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Love of God and Neighbor: Living Charity in Aquinas’ Ethics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2024

Meghan J. Clark
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of charity in the moral life by focusing on the nature of charity and its requirements. What does it mean to say that someone has charity? Through an examination of the virtue of charity: subject, object and order, I will establish the necessary way in which charity functions as love of neighbor, including the love of God through love of neighbor. Focusing then on love of neighbor, I will examine what, for Aquinas, is constitutive of living charity through mercy, beneficence and almsgiving. Throughout, I will argue that one cannot have charity without living charity through love of neighbor.

Keywords

Aquinascharityvirtueethics

Information

Type
Original Articles
Information
New Blackfriars , Volume 92 , Issue 1040 , July 2011 , pp. 415 - 430
Copyright
Copyright © 2011 The Author. New Blackfriars © 2011 The Dominican Council.

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Aquinas, St. Thomas. Summa Theologica. Translated by Fathers of the English Dominican Province. Allen, Texas: Christian Classics, 1991. 5 volumes.Google Scholar
Gilleman, Gerard. Primacy of Charity in Moral Theology. Westminster, MD: Newman Press, 1961.Google Scholar
Keenan, James. Distinguishing Charity as Goodness and Prudence as Rightness: A Key to Thomas's Secunda Pars” The Thomist 56 (1992) p. 407–426.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
John Paul, Pope II. Sollicitudo Rei Socialis” (1987) http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-ii_enc_30121987_sollicitudo-rei-socialis_en.htmlGoogle Scholar
Pope, Stephen J. Aquinas on almsgiving, justice and charity: an interpretation and reassessment Heythrop Journal 32 (April 1992) p. 167–191.Google Scholar
Pope, Stephen J. Christian Love For the Poor: Almsgiving and the Preferential Option Horisons 21.02. (1994) p. 288–312.Google Scholar
Pope, Stephen J. Evolution of Altruism and the Ordering of Love. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 1994. p. 50–70.Google Scholar
Pope, Stephen J. The Order of Love and Recent Catholic Ethics: A Constructive Proposal Theological Studies 52 (1991). P. 255–288.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Porter, Jean. De Ordine Caritatis: Charity, Friendship and Justice The Thomist 53 (1989). P. 197–213.Google Scholar
Waddell, Paul. The primacy of love: an Introduction to the Ethics of Thomas Aquinas. New York: Paulist Press, 1992.Google Scholar