Amor Dei in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries 9789042036864, 9789401209458, 9042036869

Table of contents :
Kenneth A. Bryson: Editorial ForewordPrefaceIntroductionAugustine: The Experience of LoveInterpreting Love in AugustineNature and KnowledgeProblems with Love in AugustineTruth, Conversion, and ConflictAugustine's Intellectual JourneyManichean ConversionPlotinian InfluencesFrom "Darkness" to the Free WillAugustine and PelagianismAugustine on GraceAugustinianism: Sixteenth and Seventeenth CenturiesEarly Modern PhilosophyGasparo ContariniL'Ecole Francaise and Pierre de BerulleGuillaume GibieufWilliam ChalmersJansen of YpresScotus Eriugena and Dionysius the AreopagiteDivine Amplitude: The Agency of LoveMalebranche and the Love of GodMalebranche, Lamy, and Norris"Vision in God"John Norris: Malebranche's DiscipleGod's KnowledgeThree Letters to Bernard LamyVision in God and Divine LoveSweetness of GodRalph Cudworth and the DivineFree WillCudworth's God of LoveHuman Response to Divine LoveCudworth and AugustineConclusionWorks CitedAbout the AuthorIndex

Citation preview

AMOR DEI IN THE SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES

VIBS Volume 265 Robert Ginsberg Founding Editor Leonidas Donskis Executive Editor Associate Editors G. John M. Abbarno George Allan Gerhold K. Becker Raymond Angelo Belliotti Kenneth A. Bryson C. Stephen Byrum Robert A. Delfino Rem B. Edwards Malcolm D. Evans Roland Faber Andrew Fitz-Gibbon Francesc Forn i Argimon Daniel B. Gallagher William C. Gay Dane R. Gordon J. Everet Green Heta Aleksandra Gylling Matti Häyry Brian G. Henning

Steven V. Hicks Richard T. Hull Michael Krausz Olli Loukola Mark Letteri Vincent L. Luizzi Hugh P. McDonald Adrianne McEvoy J.D. Mininger Peter A. Redpath Arleen L. F. Salles John R. Shook Eddy Souffrant Tuija Takala Emil Višňovský Anne Waters James R. Watson John R. Welch Thomas Woods

a volume in Philosophy and Religion PAR Kenneth A. Bryson, Editor

AMOR DEI IN THE SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES

David C. Bellusci

Amsterdam - New York, NY 2013

Cover photo: www.dreamstime.com Cover Design: Studio Pollmann The paper on which this book is printed meets the requirements of “ISO 9706:1994, Information and documentation - Paper for documents Requirements for permanence”. ISBN: 978-90-420-3686-4 E-Book ISBN: 978-94-012-0945-8 © Editions Rodopi B.V., Amsterdam - New York, NY 2013 Printed in the Netherlands

Philosophy and Religion (PAR) Kenneth A. Bryson Editor

Other Titles in PAR Rem B. Edwards. What Caused the Big Bang? 2001. VIBS 115 Deane-Peter Baker and Patrick Maxwell, Eds. Explorations in Contemporary Continental Philosophy of Religion. 2003. VIBS 143 Constantin V. Ponomareff and Kenneth A. Bryson. The Curve of the Sacred. 2006. VIBS 178 Brendan Sweetman. The Vision of Gabriel Marcel: Epistemology, Human Person, the Transcendent. 2008. VIBS 193 Avi Sagi. Tradition vs Traditionalism: Contemporary Perspectives in Jewish Thought. Translated from Hebrew by Batya Stein. 2008. VIBS 197 William Sweet and Hendrik Hart. Responses to the Enlightenment: An Exchange on Foundations, Faith, and Community. 2012. VIBS 241 Jim Kanaris, Ed. Polyphonic Thinking and the Divine. 2013. VIBS 257 Editorial Board of PAR

Rod Nicholls (webmaster)

Harriet E. Barber

Deane-Peter Baker D. de Leonardo Castro G. Elijah Dann Russ Dumke Carl Kalwaitis Ruby Ramji Gregory MacLeod

Stephen Clark Gwen Griffith-Dickson Jim Kanaris William Sweet Pawel Kawalec Esther McIntosh Ludwig Nagl

Dedicated to my beloved parents, Rosa Bellusci (nee Montagano) 1926–2002 Nicola Bellusci 1913–2007

“We have given you, Oh Adam, no visage proper to yourself . . . . It will be in your power to descend to the lower, brutish forms of life; you will be able, through your own decision, to rise again to the superior orders whose life is divine.” Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, Oratio

CONTENTS EDITORIAL FOREWORD KENNETH A. BRYSON

xiii

PREFACE

xv 1

INTRODUCTION ONE

Augustine: The Experience of Love 1. Interpreting Love in Augustine 2. Nature and Knowledge 3. Problems with Love in Augustine

TWO

Truth, Conversion, and Conflict 1. Augustine’s Intellectual Journey 2. Manichean Conversion 3. Plotinian Influences 4. From “Darkness” to the Free Will 5. Augustine and Pelagianism 6. Augustine on Grace

THREE

Augustinianism: Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries 1. Early Modern Philosophy 2. Gasparo Contarini 3. L’École Française and Pierre de Bérulle 4. Guillaume Gibieuf 5. William Chalmers 6. Jansen of Ypres 7. Scotus Eriugena and Dionysius the Areopagite 8. Divine Amplitude: The Agency of Love

FOUR

Malebranche and the Love of God 1. Malebranche, Lamy, and Norris 2. “Vision in God” 3. John Norris: Malebranche’s Disciple 4. God’s Knowledge 5. Three Letters to Bernard Lamy 6. Vision in God and Divine Love

11 11 15 25 27 27 28 36 41 45 57 59 59 60 65 70 75 80 91 98 99 99 101 104 105 113 124

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Sweetness of God 1. Ralph Cudworth and the Divine 2. Free Will 3. Cudworth’s God of Love 4. Human Response to Divine Love 5. Cudworth and Augustine

139 139 141 144 145 146

CONCLUSION

149

WORKS CITED

155

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

159

INDEX

161

EDITORIAL FOREWORD “God is love.” How do we know this? Can we know divine love only through faith, or do we have personal experience that God loves us? Reason is limited to the natural world and yet reason can lead to the Divine and “amor Dei.” Several aspects of the relationship between reason and faith cry out for explanation. We see a dance of reason and faith: experience provides reasons to believe in God’s love for us, yet our knowledge of divine love is deepened through faith. Does personal experience generate an awareness of God’s love? Presumably, faith and reason come from a common source. Saint Augustine’s writing suggests that we begin with seeking truth and love, and enter into a profound experience of that love that orders life, while for Pelagius, knowledge of the Divine shapes moral conduct. During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the thorny problem involved how God’s love moved individuals without compromising human freedom. If it the case that God’s love moves us, Augustine must be right in the way he sets the stage, that is, God’s love must provide the foundation for entering into relationship with God. We can only be motivated to enter into this relationship with God if we recognize that we do so because God calls us. If Pelagius is right, loving God is a purely human act requiring human effort. This volume demonstrates three main points based on Augustine’s Confessions: amor Dei is communicated to all at creation; the experience of human love enables one to acknowledge the presence of divine love; and the cognizance of divine love requires the ordering of human experience. Perhaps we can judge the nature of Augustine’s freedom and love of God by the effects it generates in him. It seems that increased human freedom confirms the gratuitous nature of God’s love for us. Augustine realizes after his conversion that God seeks us out to move us and lead us towards our intended end. I am pleased to welcome David Bellusci’s volume, Amor Dei in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries to the PAR family of scholarly books. His work makes a strong contribution to Augustinian literature and the body of work that celebrates divine love. Kenneth A. Bryson Editor PAR special series Value Inquiry Book Series

PREFACE My research on the “love of God” was the result of a question I asked myself as a philosopher: What can Philosophy say about God’s love? Can anything at all be said about God’s love using reason-based arguments? On the one hand, it would appear that to speak of the human and of the divine are mutually exclusive exercises, a finite being making assertions of God’s love would seem presumptuous if not unfounded. On the other hand, philosophy is about human experience and so God cannot be bracketed as though experience with the Divine belongs to the domain of religion, revelation, or theology. To bring God into the discourse of human experience is also to reflect upon the fundamental human values of love and freedom. Amor Dei exists in relation to God’s rational creatures who can reason, reflect and make choices. This work, I might say, is the result of my obsession with God. Original sources were consulted at the libraries of Dominican University College as well as St. Paul’s University, enabling me to work directly from the Latin. Original works are now also available in a digitized format on-line such as the “American Libraries Internet Archives” as well as the “Librairie National de France, Gallica.” All the French, Italian and Latin translations are my own. In the case of Augustine’s Confessions I used William Watts’ translation, and On the Freewill I referred to Anna S. Benjamin and L.H. Hackstaff’s translation. I am grateful to the scholars who helped me with this work, in particular I would like to name Leslie Armour for his enthusiastic response to this project on Amor Dei, and for identifying the areas of continuity and conflict on the subject. I am grateful to Maxime Allard for his thorough reading, criticisms and suggestions of my several drafts. I thank Thomas Lennon for his comments and bringing to my attention the Malebranchean distinction between love and pleasure. I also thank the late James Bradley, who expressed interest in my research and provided me with concrete suggestions for publication. A very special thanks to Elizabeth D. Boepple for helping me prepare this manuscript for Rodopi/VIBS.

Introduction God is love! Spoken often, the assertion is heard with the immediate presumption that its meaning makes sense. But what does the assertion actually claim? Can speaking of “God’s love” be taken literally? Or does it differ from speaking of “God’s anger” or a “jealous God”? These are different ways of describing the same divine reality; ways that God is expressed in the human world. An understanding of “God is love” is inseparable from the phrase, “amor Dei.” Although translated literally, amor Dei means “love of God,” the meaning is ambiguous, expressing either “God’s love for me” or “my love for God.” I will address the implications of this ambiguity in this study. The objective of this book is to determine the philosophical foundation, and to consider the implications of the assertion, “God is love.” Such an aim presupposes that the notion “God is love” belongs to philosophical discourse, as much as to theological study. The problem is precisely the proximity between reason and faith in analyzing the claim “God is love.” While I demonstrate that a philosophical treatment of divine love is possible, the discourse in some areas appears more theological than philosophical; this is because the philosophical assertions have theological implications. The question, therefore, is, “Why make Amor Dei a philosophical book, rather than a theological one?” I answer this question by determining how far rational discourse can take the philosopher in analyzing the structure of “divine love.” At this stage, I would like to offer some precision in terms of my references to “philosophy” and “theology.” My thesis is that “divine love” can be philosophically treated means that a person does not require sacred scriptures or a revealed tradition to argue that “God is love.” It follows, then, that discourse limiting itself to theology would be one that relies on sacred scriptures or revealed tradition, though this does not exclude reason. Reason and faith would seem to overlap, certainly at the juncture where one is analyzing divine love. The difference between philosophy and theology, however, is the starting point. Philosophy begins with human experience that does not exclude the experience of God in one’s life; theology has the faith experience as a point of departure. Augustine represents a challenge in this respect: his faith experience and his philosophical discourse are so closely bound that the distinctions between faith and reason, for the modern reader, seem to be blurred. My book will demonstrate that there are three types of love in Augustine’s Confessions, cupiditas (worldly love), caritas (spiritual love), and gratia (divine love), and God’s love is associated with all three. To consider the philosophical foundations and implications of the assertion, “God is love,” my methodology involves a historical study. I focus on Augustine’s Confessions in Chapter One, and in Chapter Two, I develop the religious polemics of the period concerning Pelagius. In Chapter Three, I

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begin with Gasparo Contarini, and I then examine the writings of Pierre de Bérulle, Guillaume Gibieuf, William Chalmers, and Cornelius Jansen, with references to Scotus Eriugena and Pseudo-Dionysius at the end of the chapter. Nicolas Malebranche and John Norris of Bemerton, and Bemerton’s correspondence with Mary Astell and Damaris Masham are examined in Chapter Four. Finally, Chapter Five examines a central passage from Ralph Cudworth’s writings on divine love. Philosophical works are considered with significant reference to the historical context, especially in Chapters Two–Four. My research shows that the proposition “God is love” includes philosophical assertions that have theological implications, which is also demonstrated in Chapters Two through Four. This historical approach is significant because it shows how philosophical thought builds on previous thinkers through critical reflection. The development of ideas also occurs within a historical context. As I show throughout the book, “God is love” is understood within contexts that condition the interpretation of this assertion. I argue that that this historical approach to divine love, and the human experience of “God’s love,” reflects an Augustinian understanding of love in terms of cupiditas, caritas, and gratia. The Augustinian tradition is borrowed, rejected, and reinterpreted from one movement to the next, progressively emerging into the sixteenth-seventeenth century Augustinianism and the Oratorian tradition. The book centers on the seventeenth century figures Bérulle, Gibieuf, Malebranche, and Norris because their works show a fundamental development in the idea of amor Dei. The historical development accounts for the order of the philosophers being examined, with a few exceptions in Chapter Three. First, there is Cornelius Jansen, who was a contemporary of Bérulle, Gibieuf, and Chalmers. I place Jansen at the end of these sixteenth-seventeenth century philosophers because Jansen’s views represent a significant departure from the Augustinian Oratorians. His views are attached to predestination, which raises questions about God’s love and the human response to God’s love. Second, the ninthcentury Scotus Eriugena and the earlier writings of the fifth-century PseudoDionysius appear at the end of Chapter Three, following the much later writings of Jansen. These two earlier writers, Eriugena and Pseudo-Dionysius, reflect a Neoplatonic tradition that resurfaces in Contarini and the Oratorians. I place these earlier writers, who continue this Neoplatonic tradition of God’s love that communicates and manifests itself in the individual, after Jansen. This tradition is disrupted by Jansen, who emphasizes a deterministic God and human love that responds with causal determinism. Jansen does not fit the Neoplatonic pattern; but this is made clear when he is located within the Augustinian tradition underscoring union between God’s love and his human creation. I also place the two Rationalists, Malebranche and Norris, together in Chapter Four, Norris having been significantly influenced by Malebranche’s writings. I include in this chapter correspondence between Norris and the two English women, Mary Astell and Damaris Masham; the exchange of letters

Introduction

3

especially addresses moral problems concerning the “love of God,” both God’s love for humanity, and the human love shown for God. Cudworth continues as a Cambridge Platonist emphasizing the goodness and love of God that descends upon humanity. From Augustine to Cudworth, God’s love is communicated, and this love begins with the Divine. In Chapter One, I examine Augustine’s experience of “love.” In the Confessions, Augustine relates his journey of amor Dei, God’s love for him, and his love for God; the autobiographical work also emphasizes the experience of raw human love, erotic and passionate. A problem immediately surfaces: Where does one begin? With God’s love? Or with the human experience of love? The Confessions is about God’s love for a wretched soul, lost but seeking truth and true love. Is it God who makes the first move? Or is it Augustine who progressively orders his experience of love? Augustine writes his journey of conversion recognizing his desire to love and to be loved. He considers his desires before his conversion as disordered because they were driven by lust and even wickedness. Nevertheless, he emphasizes the human experience of love, and love that was motivated by a search for truth. I also treat “nature” and “knowledge”: persons respond to powerful forces from within, but persons also act according to the knowledge they have. Such being the case, ontology and epistemology have ethical implications. I examine appetitus: cupiditas and caritas. The notions of cupiditas and caritas are central: they are present throughout all five chapters; they represent a fundamental part of the experience of love. In this regard, I consider Hannah Arendt’s work, Der Liebesbegriff bei Augustin: Versuch einer philosophischen Interpretation, her doctoral dissertation, which was published first in 1929, and is available in English as Love and Saint Augustine (1996). My work questions whether love in Augustine can be limited to cupiditas and caritas. I further consider the four different types of love, cosmic, positive, rational, and benevolent, that Oliver O’Donovan discusses in The Problem of Self-Love in St. Augustine (1980). While O’Donovan provides an in-depth analysis of love, his interpretation differs from mine. Of these four types, I consider cosmic love, that which is most natural, central to the human experience of love; it is in cosmic love where the notion of natural movement is developed: movement is towards an object, and in love, this is a desired object, so this also implies an order. Positive love builds on this natural movement, but natural reason is also highlighted. Love as erotic at the cosmic level becomes ordered so that it is no longer just a desired object that brings pleasure, but ordering this desire, distinguishing between desiring the object, and enjoying the object. The aspect of “order” becomes progressively more significant in determining what is meant by amor Dei. Rational love advances beyond the order of positive love of the eudaemonist tradition to discover a love that is a means to an end, and not an end in itself. Augustine moves from loving a person, a created object, to loving God, the Creator. Thus, the person is

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not loved for the sake of the person, but for some higher good, some higher love that exists. These three types of love show a progressive order, an ascent from the natural cosmic order, to a more spiritual love, to one that is ordered towards the Transcendent. This leaves the fourth type of love, benevolent love. Of these four types, this would be the perfect form of love since it means loving someone for the good of the person; it is a gratuitous love. The movement goes from loving God as the ultimate end, and then, being able to love a person, for their good, which is loving the person for the sake of God, rather than for the sake of the person. Benevolent love presupposes that rational love has been established. I will give consideration to problems that arise from Arendt’s and O’Donovan’s analysis of love in Augustine. I also present other problematic areas, namely the Manichean dialectic, free will, and Pelagianism, and the philosophical foundation of amor Dei. As in Chapter One, Chapter Two looks at divine love from the perspective of human experience: the movement is a gradual ascent from cupiditas ascending towards caritas and recognizing gratia. In this chapter, Augustine’s journey of personal conversion involves his search for truth and his ongoing interior struggles. I move from the different ways in which love can be interpreted in the Confessions, to Augustine’s intellectual journey, which has implications for how he perceives God’s love. Augustine’s search begins with his Manichean conversion; I will offer a significant development of Manichean doctrine to show how Augustine had been marked by an extensive Manichean phase during his life. Central to the Manichean doctrine is the opposition between light and darkness, the spiritual and the material realms. Manicheanism provides Augustine with a solution to evil, one of the ongoing problems that plague him. However, Manicheanism not only presents a solution to evil during his pre-conversion period, but it will also influence his perception of human love later in his life. Augustine deals with attachment to the senses with contempt, showing a dichotomy, reminiscent of Manicheanism, where the Creator God is loved, but the created things are seen as obstacles to loving God. After the Manichean period, Augustine is progressively under the influence of Neoplatonism. During the Neoplatonic phase, I show that Augustine was still trying to come to terms with the problem of evil, which he believed was not adequately addressed in Manichean doctrine. While evil remained a fundamental moral problem that concerned Augustine, it also raised questions concerning free will, loving the Creator as opposed to loving God’s creatures. His friendship with Marius Victorinus enabled Augustine to see Christianity harmonized with philosophy. This is a significant shift in Augustine’s thought because it also means that he will no longer see evil only in dialectic terms, but progressively, from a Christian perspective, in relation to a God who creates with love that includes human freedom. The other significant role of Neoplatonism is the understanding of immateriality; Neoplatonism is shown to

Introduction

5

be instrumental in Augustine’s journey to reinterpreting love, in non-material and non-dialectic terms. I will show how Augustine has come to a different understanding of evil that is directly linked to free will. The role of evil remains central to Augustine because evil is in opposition to truth and in opposition to love: one loves what ought not to be loved. And so the question, “what accounts for wickedness?” De libero arbitrio (On free will): three books written between 387 and 395 AD; see Augustine, 1956) was written before the Confessions. Writing the first book in the year following his baptism, it represents Augustine’s views on free will. The will is responsible for establishing order. How one understands amor Dei depends on how experiences are ordered. Chapter One shows that positive, rational, and benevolent love are all concerned with ordering love. Again in Chapter Two, the importance of order resurfaces in terms of the will: ordering the human will to the will of God, as opposed to away from God, is how one chooses to love God. With the emphasis on free will to account for evil, Augustine is confronted with the Pelagian problem, which will also be addressed. One is free to sin, and freedom may reflect a disordered love of creatures rather than an ordered love of the Creator; such an interpretation of evil can resemble that of Pelagian doctrine. It is in Chapter Two where grace, God’s gratuitous love, becomes most apparent; gratia, this third kind of love, remains a fundamental part of the Confessions. Since Augustine is confronted with Pelagianism, a movement he regards as heterodox, he needs to develop the human concept of freedom that can take into account the Pelagian errors. My objective is to show the Augustinian and Pelagian interpretations of divine love: Pelagius wants to preserve the understanding of human freedom, so that the expression of human love is not determined by God in any way, except what is nature at creation, relying entirely on the natural capacity of the individual. If to love means freedom to love, then Pelagius does not want the freedom compromised in any way. Augustine’s response shows how God communicates through grace when a person loves what ought to be loved according to divine order: Augustine’s solution to the Pelagian controversy is to highlight the expression of God’s gratuitous love descending upon the individual, rather than a person who reaches up to God with personal effort, as Pelagius would maintain. The significant difference between Augustine and Pelagius concerning freedom is sin: For Augustine, Adam’s sin meant a rupture from divine order and a weakened human condition. For Pelagius, human beings continue to possess a natural capability to choose between good and evil by following the inner law of conscience. A crucial part of the Pelagian thesis is natural grace: this natural capacity that the person receives from God at creation is enough to be without sin and to be united with the will of God. Natural grace is the manifestation of God’s love; to be united with the will of God means the individual responds to God’s love, with love. For Augustine, to love what ought to be loved one

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needs divine assistance, this was the gratia, the kind of divine love rejected by Pelagius. For Augustine, the natural grace received at creation was insufficient to love God. In both cases, there is a gratuity of God’s love offered to God’s human creation, but they are received differently with different ontological and ethical implications. I look at two written texts of Pelagius, a Letter to Demetrias (Rees, 1991) and his Commentary on Paul’s Epistle to the Romans (Pelagius, 1993). In his Letter, Pelagius demonstrates that union with God means loving God and doing his will; in discussing Romans, Pelagius emphasizes that the human response to God’s love, manifested fully in Jesus, was to love God in return. In other words, for Pelagius, it is the knowledge of God’s love that prompts the person to love God; for Augustine, it is God’s grace inhabiting the individual that enables the person to respond to God’s love. In section 6, I synthesize the problems resulting from Augustine’s amor Dei in Chapter Two. The prevailing tension is between human free will and the third love, gratia. The problem is fundamentally the opposition between Pelagianism and determinism. As far as amor Dei goes, the tension does not disappear, and resurfaces among the sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Augustinian thinkers. This movement of God’s gratuitous love remains controversial: if grace is understood as the gratuity of divine love, the human response would be to love God in return. In Chapter Three, I examine the Oratorians who revive Augustine in the light of the sixteenth- and seventeenth-century religiopolitical controversies. Perspectives change in this chapter, from the ascent of the intelligence seeking truth, and the human heart seeking authentic love, to the descent of the Divine upon rational creatures, offering its love to those who are open enough to receive it. I maintain that the cupiditas and caritas oppositions that one finds in Augustine’s Confessions appear in progressive stages, ascending toward the Divine in the Oratorian tradition. I begin with the Italian Renaissance philosopher-theologian, Gasparo Contarini (1483– 1542), whose notion of “divine amplitude” plays a significant role among Oratorians. Pierre de Bérulle (1575–1629), Guillaume Gibieuf (1583–1650), and William Chalmers (1594–1660) were all contemporaries, and further developed the understanding of “grace.” Cornelius Jansen (1585–1638), also a contemporary of these three Oratorians, advanced a view on grace that was heavily influenced by Calvinism; the formulation of the Jansenist theses and their condemnation is taken up towards the end of the chapter. Also in Chapter Three, Contarini’s notion of divine amplitude is examined, and how God’s love is expressed in the individual. The notion of amplitude (amplitudo) is juxtaposed to narrowness (angusto), which gives a better sense of what is meant by the former: the wide and liberating goodness of God is contrasted with the narrow and slavish animal appetites. I will demonstrate how God’s love continues to manifest itself; the more the person is united with God’s will, the more God’s love manifests itself in the person.

Introduction

7

I maintain that for Bérulle, God’s love for humanity is manifested when God sends his Son. Bérulle’s discourse is theological, but this divine intervention on the part of God, the descent of the Divine into the created world, this “lowering” of God, is central to the Berullian thesis of God’s love for humanity. This means that the movement is from the Divine to the human; God’s love descends, and his love mixes with human love as a result: in Berullian language, “one is deified.” To intensify this love, central to the Berullian argument is that grace is present: because there is no limit to God’s love, by intensifying grace one intensifies love, and the person becomes progressively God-like. Guillaume Gibieuf’s De libertate Dei et creaturae (On the liberty of God and creatures, 1630) is also examined in this chapter. In his treatise, Gibieuf makes reference to divine amplitude, by which Gibieuf means freedom. The religious development of the period is significant, to which I also make reference: Pope Clement VIII preserves Augustine’s definition of “free will,” maintaining that human freedom comes with the presence of grace, the gratuity of divine love. I also emphasize the importance of the Gibievian notion, “God in us, without us” (Deus in nobis sine nobis). This means that, for Gibieuf, a fusion of agencies takes place, though the agents remain distinct, the person and God. The Neoplatonism that emerged in the writings of Augustine and Contarini, I argue, also reappears with Gibieuf: union with God means a oneness of agents, a return to the one, an expression of love. The Gibievian response offers a solution to Pelagian thinkers on natural grace, who maintain that God communicates his love at creation, as opposed to the Calvinist position, in which God chose in advance to whom he would offer his grace. Chapter Three also addresses the problem Chalmers poses, focusing on the problem of free will. The discussion seems to be removed from divine love, but union with the will of God means to love God. This had been the fundamental problem for Augustine: the problem of evil, and the solution, was to be found in free will, and not a Manichean vision of good and evil. This also has implications for God’s love: Does God love some people more than others by predestining them to love him in return? This is the question that Chalmers attempted to answer. But, I point out that the religio-political dimensions cannot be ignored. Chalmers was quite concerned about bringing Scotland back to the Catholic faith: Jansenism, a Catholicized Calvinism, may have been the solution. Jesuit critics of Chalmers’s philosophical system found that he wavered between free will and predetermined free will. Chalmers’s interpretation of pre-motion seemed to answer the Calvinist problem: God is the source of human motion; he is also present in the person so that God assists the will in good actions, while evil rests wholly on the will of the individual. Evil represents an attachment to creatures and a self-love that does not progress beyond sensory pleasure. Chalmers did not want to overemphasize the will to avoid falling into Pelagianism. I show that his view of

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the Divine “within” resembles Gibieuf’s view, as well as that of Scotus Eriugena and Pseudo-Dionysius. Placing Jansen at the end of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries contrasts the views that were held by Jansen and the Oratorians. The Jansenist controversy concerns grace, the gratuity of God’s love, and how God confers this grace. In his Augustinus, Jansen sets out to establish his anti-Pelagian views emphasizing grace and de-emphasizing works. Two fundamental problems arise with the Jansenist theses: God’s love is not for all; and those who receive God’s love cannot resist it. Next, I examine Scotus Eriugena’s Neoplatonism (ninth century), which is expressed in the oneness between the Creator and the creature. His union between the two echoes Contarini’s divine amplitude and Gibieuf’s Deus in nobis, whereby God manifests himself in individuals and individuals subsist in God. This fusion of agents is also found in Pseudo-Dionysius: the good is the object of love and desire, and the Supreme Good is also the cause of the Good. Pseudo-Dionysius makes a crucial assertion: God is both lover and beloved: he is the subject of love and object of love, amor Dei. I show the mystical aspect of divine love in the Dionysian system which is built on grace. This system involves the motion of descent, God’s love moving towards his rational creatures, and these creatures’ love moving in an ascent toward God. Finally, I consider the role of the infinite in divine love and the Dionysian system. Emphasis on the One in the Dionysian framework resurfaces with Bérulle, who attaches a unifying power to the One: Dionysian divine love is a binding nature that brings things into oneness. I reaffirm that divine amplitude expresses itself in a multiplicity of agents. In turn, the human agent’s response to God’s love is united with the will of God, becoming one with God: agents, divine and human, are united but distinct. How the inclination of the human will to the divine will comes about is a source of controversy, since grace is involved. I maintain the Augustinian position that, in oneness with God, true freedom is found. The focus of Chapter Four is French Rationalist Nicolas Malebranche (1638–1715) and his correspondence with the Benedictine, Bernard Lamy (1640–1715). The English Rationalist examined in this chapter is John Norris of Bremerton (1657–1711). I demonstrate that love is self-interested by examining the disputes concerning the relationship between God’s love and humanity; the focus is on Malebranche’s Traité de l’amour de Dieu (Treatise on the love of God, 1697/1963). The exchange of letters is written within the context of the Quietist controversy of the period. Malebranche and Lamy hold two opposing positions: for the former, love of God is self-interested, for the latter it is gratuitous. Malebranche’s assertion, “we see all things in God” (nous voyons toutes choses en Dieu) is treated to establish the ontological relationship between the Divine and the human. Regarding John Norris, I establish the simi-

Introduction

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larities and some differences between his metaphysics and that of Malebranche; the two Rationalists serve to show how the Augustinian tradition continues, in which the response to God’s love is made possible because of human nature: the desire for happiness. God seeks human love with the love he gives his human creatures. Chapter Four re-examines the notion of order, the notion that had been presented in Chapter One on Augustine: to get the order right means to pursue divine order. Part of this order is the human desire for happiness. Malebranche does not explain why human beings seek happiness; he simply maintains that it is how God created rational creatures. Before the Fall, this self-love served to lead one to God; after the Fall, self-love does not always lead to God, and one may show a disordered attachment to creatures. I examine the three letters in Malebranche’s correspondence with Lamy (Malebranche, 1963), arguing that these three letters emphasize different aspects of the person, ontological, epistemological, and ethical. Having considered Malebranche’s letters, I treat once again the problem of grace as it appears in Malebranche, this time considering a possible Pelagian interpretation. “Vision in God” in relation to divine love is next considered. Norris is reintroduced, and I examine his writings in relation to Malebranche, especially Norris’s Theory and Regulation of Love (1688), in which two central points stand out concerning love: love as motion, and love as ordered. I show that Norris puts love in a relationship of caritas and cupiditas that suggest an opposition, “regular” and “irregular” love, rather than progressive stages. The notion of motion recalls the order associated with cosmic love, which finds its source in Augustine. Love as ecstatic brings together Norris’s thoughts on human love and the experience with the Divine, which shows the similarity between Norris and Malebranche. Norris’s correspondence with the two English women, Mary Astell and Damaris Masham, is an exchange that deals entirely with the subject of love. These letters show two different perspectives: Astell sees love in terms of detachment from the world, while Masham sees love as being part of the world; both base their claims on human nature. This correspondence leads to the problem of sensations: human experience repeatedly involves sensory pleasure that brings happiness, but this pleasure can be disordered. A cupiditas-caritas dialectic resurfaces in the writings of Astell but not in Masham, revealing once again how the role of the senses is viewed differently in relation to their end; this end is determined by how the senses are ordered. Chapter Five is devoted to the study of Ralph Cudworth (1617–1688) and a text from his True Intellectual System of the Universe (1820) on divine love. Cudworth is a contemporary of Norris and Malebranche, and is associated with Cambridge Platonism. In my analysis of Cudworth’s text, I argue that, for Cudworth, divine love manifests itself in human love. The Cudworthian thesis is not all that different from Contarini’s amplitude, or the Oratorian tradition of the union of wills, the oneness of the Neoplatonic tradition.

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I give special attention to “fecundity,” a word Cudworth uses to describe divine love. While Cudworth de-emphasizes the cupiditas-caritas tension, he does maintain that divine love is not a type of “pulchritude,” an attachment to created beauty limited to the senses. He demonstrates that love is present where there is God. Cudworth’s view of free will is considered; for him, one can accept or refuse this goodness that comes from God. Resurfacing in Cudworth is the centrality of order: “sweetly governs” is the manifestation of divine order since it follows God’s wisdom; distorting this order is to turn away from divine love. Freedom preserves its Augustinian source. One is truly free when united with the will of God; to love God is first of all openness to his love, and Cudworth begins precisely with divine fecundity. For Cudworth, God’s love is gratuitous because it “dispenses itself uninvidiously.” In this work, one finds continuity among Contarini, Norris, and Cudworth, where animal appetites associated with brutish forces and cupiditas are in opposition to the liberating spirit of true love, caritas. It is the self-interested love that manifests itself in attachment to created things, which needs to be perfected, ordered in the Malebranchean sense, and which leads to union with the love of God. Divine love, drawing from the Neoplatonic tradition, is presented in section 4, emphasizing order and union with the will of God. The Neoplatonic elements surface in the Augustinianism of Contarini and the Oratorians. Cudworth presents significant differences in relation to Malebranche: For Malebranche, God loves himself and his creatures. God knows himself perfectly, and through this self-knowledge, he knows his creation. The Cudworthian God manifests his love by communicating his goodness; divine love is a creative more than self-contemplating exercise. Cudworth also differs from Jansenist views on divine love because he does not allow an exclusivist interpretation of God: divine love is communicated to all of humanity, and humanity is free to respond. The motion found in Cudworth is the Divine descending: God’s love “disperses.” Chapters Three and Five represent descending motions of amor Dei while Chapters One, Two, and Four show amor Dei where one reaches out to God in an ascent. This reaching out to God is possible when the three loves—cupiditas, caritas, and gratia—are ordered. My book demonstrates three points based on Augustine’s Confessions: (1) amor Dei is communicated to all at creation; (2) the experience of human love enables one to acknowledge the presence of divine love; and (3) the cognisance of divine love requires the ordering of human experience. I also argue that the proposition “God is love” generates meaning when it is reflected in human experience surfacing as “the love of God.” Amor Dei means the love one expresses towards God, and the love God directs towards the person; in the latter instance, the person experiences gratia, while in the former, love is manifested as cupiditas, moving and ascending once again in caritas.

One AUGUSTINE: THE EXPERIENCE OF LOVE 1. Interpreting Love in Augustine In this chapter, I focus on the conceptual notion of “divine love.” My study is presented from an Augustinian perspective, in which I demonstrate three points: (1) the nature of divine love means that it extends to all of humanity; (2) human love is inseparable from divine love; and (3) love draws from experience and this experience is ordered. This chapter examines the seven different ways in which love is given meaning in Augustine. Drawing from Oliver O’Donovan’s work (1980), I examine four types of love he posits: cosmic, positive, rational, and benevolent love, while cupiditas and caritas are considered in reference to Hannah Arendt’s writings (1996). Finally, I treat the problematic notion of gratia. I will show that Augustine reveals neither four, as posited by O’Donovan, nor two, as suggested by Arendt’s analysis of the Confessions, but three. Attention is first directed to Augustine’s experience of love, as narrated in the Confessions, Books 2–10, first at the human level, and then, in relation to God. I argue that there are three types of “love” that dominate in the Confessions. The first is from the position of Augustine’s past, the cupiditas, before his conversion, the passionate love of a creature moved by the flesh. Another is experienced from the position of Augustine writing, the grace-filled convert inhabited by God and moved by caritas. The third kind of love, gratia, is communicated by a God of love who shows mercy upon the wretched Augustine, transforming him as the Confessions reveals. Love that is communicated by God to the human creature is that to which I refer as gratia; this human experience of divine love will be taken up in Chapter Two. One of the main problems at this stage is how to situate love at the philosophical level without being absorbed by theological discourse. I shall look at the problem of divine love in terms of how love can be differentiated, the four kinds of love, cosmic, positive, rational and benevolent, as suggested by Oliver O’Donovan, and the cupiditas and caritas dichotomy as maintained by Hannah Arendt. Anders Nygren points out a distinction between caritas and agape, although the two types of love have often been treated as though they are the same (1953, pp. 55–56). The good-evil dichotomy in Salvatore Taranto’s (2003) treatment of Augustine accentuates Christian readings of love. Taranto’s ontology of the good, which emphasizes oneness, serves to establish God’s love, while the deontologization of the good accounts for evil. Both Nygren’s and Taranto’s work are important from the perspective of Christian interpretations of love. My concern, however, is the human experi-

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ence of love rather than a Christian interpretation of this experience. Working within the temporal framework of Augustine’s autobiography, I shall first look at the implications of his writing on the “past,” from the perspective of the “present.” A. A Convert Rewrites the Past In Book 2.1 of the Confessions, Augustine’s memory of his sinful past appears in immediate contrast to his desire to love God: Recordari volo transactas foeditates meas, et carnales corruptiones animae meae, non quod eas amem, sed ut amem te deus meus. Amore amoris tui facio istuc. (I will now call to mind my over-passed impurities, and the fleshly corruptions of my soul: not because I love them, O my God. For love of thy love I do it.) Augustine is writing the Confessions when he is forty-two years old, ten years after his baptism; he is reflecting and remembers his life before his conversion, which he identifies as “my impurities, and the fleshly corruption of my soul” (foeditates meas, et carnales corruptiones animae meae). As he recalls his past writing in the present, he contrasts his previous impurities to the present love he has for God’s love, “For love of thy love I do it” (Amore amoris tui factio istuc). The past foulness with which Augustine remembers the experiences of his youth belong to the period of his life before he was baptized, before he knew the redemptive love of God. Looking back at his youth, it appears that one word sums up what Augustine sought: “love,” as he stated in the opening lines of the Confessions: “And what was it that I delighted in, but to love and to be beloved?” (Ed quid erat, quod me delectabat, nisi et amare et amari?). Augustine does not end his thoughts with the desire of loving and being loved, but he immediately considers the implications of this love: But love kept not that moderation of one’s soul loving another soul [ab animo usque ad animum], as the lightsome bounder of true friendship; but out of that puddly concupiscence of my flesh, certain mists and bubblings of youth fumed up, which beclouded and so overcast my heart, that I could not discern the beauty of a chaste affection, from a fog of impure lustfulness. Both did confusedly boil in me, and ravished away my unstayed youth over the downfalls of unchaste desires, and drenched over head and ears in the very whirlpool of most heinous impurities. (2.2) Augustine expresses love as “moderate” when “one’s soul loves another soul” (ab animo usque ad animum): love as souls coming together in a bond of true

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friendship. The problem he identifies is that he could not distinguish between “chaste affection” and “impure lustfulness.” He sought love that manifested itself in affection, but was transformed into lust. The failure to distinguish between the two has significant, ontological, epistemological, and ethical implications: his “unchaste desires” and “heinous impurities” are treated as part of his youth during which he had been led astray by some force. The actual cause is not clear: an affection/lust dichotomy is present, but with lust dominating for some unknown reason. One knows, however, how Augustine feels at the time he is writing about his immoral conduct. He can feel remorse for his earlier behavior because he writes as a Christian and he understands the difference between affection and lust in how he had once lived. But the question remains: when does affection become lust if love is the same source for these two desires? B. Power of Lust What does this passage from the Confessions (2.2) reveal about love? Augustine was clearly torn during his youth between two types of love, but the lustful form of eroticism dominated. He wanted to love and to be beloved; he would have desired friendship to give and receive the love he sought. With his uncontrollable passionate forces, as Augustine presents them during this time of his youth, he would not have seen anything immoral about his behavior. His most inner being needed to experience love, but he did not distinguish between affection in a spiritual friendship and the corrupt flesh motivated by lustful desires. To consider his previous behavior as immoral presupposes a knowledge of true and false love, what is good, and what appears to be good, a fundamental ethical problem for Augustine. Only after he has been converted to Christianity does he make these ethical distinctions. His conversion process helped him to re-evaluate the good, before he could understand love. Augustine continues in chapter 2, “at what time the madness of raging lust, exercised its supreme dominion in me, I giving over all my force unto it.” (cum accepit in me sceptrum, et totas manus ei dedi, vesania libidinis licentiosae). Lust is identified as a negative erotic force, has a power of its own, a power that inhabited the young Augustine. The passage shows a division between the force within, and his own force that succumbed to this “its supreme dominion in me” (in me sceptrum). It seems that Augustine was engaged in an interior battle between the “me” and the dominating power within him. He does not say that he sought those things which led to impurity, but this raging force repeatedly conquered him. The conflict that existed was the desire to experience love, but love manifested itself in forms that were lustful and impure. This was not what he had chosen; the erotic powers were deepseated. But there was something else: Augustine not only succumbed to this invasive power, but he succumbed with all his “force.”

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The incident Augustine recalls relating to the “pear tree” has significant ontological implications. Augustine admits having stolen from a pear tree even though he really did not desire the pears: he was motivated neither by poverty nor by hunger, but by the yearning to commit a theft. His reflection upon the event reminds him: it was foul, yet I loved it, I loved to undo myself, I loved mine own fault, not that for which I committed the fault, but even the very fault itself; a base soul (Confessions, 2.4) (foeda erat, et amavi eam; amavi perire, amavi defectum meum, non illud, ad quod deficiebam, sed defectum meum ipsum amavi, turpis anima) Amare (to love) is a main verb that appears to love a fault, and that is the same verb he used to express love for others. The verb expresses love that is spiritual, love that is erotic, and love that is fundamentally wrong, as noted in the passage from 2.4 above. One finds that love makes a turn for the worst, from a desire for affection, to lustful desires, and now a wrong-doing that could be motivated by a desire to “sin.” Augustine admits that he stole from the pear tree for the desire to sin, and he took pleasure in the sinfulness of the act. If sin is to be understood as knowingly doing that which is wrong, the astonishing part of Augustine’s account of the pear tree is that he stole because he knew it was wrong, and it was in this knowing, and acting on this knowing, that he took great pleasure. He adds that the wrongness of his action was situated in the “base”-ness of his soul. Sin, as presented in the passage, seems to possess autonomy; it has its own ontological properties when one considers Augustine’s claims, “the very fault itself” in addition to the previous passage “its very dominion over me.” In the case of taking delight in sin, not the pleasure in the action, but the pleasure knowing the action is wrong, further serves to reinforce the ontological power of evil possessing its own existence. Augustine took delight in doing what he knew was wrong: the power of committing evil that existed within him led him to further acts of evil. Taranto claims that for Augustine, evil was the deontologization of the good, that evil is the corruption of what is good and of what God had created in a kind of progressive degeneration (2003, pp. 34–40). However, in Chapter Two, I will show that a residual Manicheanism persists in Augustine’s writings; an evil that has its own autonomous force, something quite distinct from the good.

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2. Nature and Knowledge Succumbing to the power within, erotic forces have the love of the self, rather than directing love to the Creator, as the ultimate good. Augustine may not have acknowledged a Creator during his pre-conversion phase, but he was writing the Confessions as a baptized Christian. One can infer that the misguided love for oneself leads to sin because it replaces the love of God. Arendt states, “it is the lovers of the world that turn the world God created into one that can be coveted” (1996, p. 81). The two accounts of immoral conduct, lust and theft, are presented as someone who was unable to discern the wrongness of the behavior. In the first case, Augustine fuses affection and lust into one thing, pleasure. In the second, he knew his act of theft was immoral, but only as a Christian could he admit the wrongfulness of his act. The question that arises concerns the role of knowledge: How could Augustine have known that he was acting wrongly? His account leads one to believe that he could not distinguish right from wrong, or to direct his love to the object that ought to be loved. For Augustine, the desire to love constitutes a fundamental part of human nature; the only problem is how to direct this desire to a true object of love. This appears to be a fundamentally epistemological problem. Augustine introduces the Confessions, 2.4, by stating, “Surely thy law, O Lord, punishes thievery; yea, and this law is so written in our hearts, that iniquity itself cannot blot it out.” Thus, not only does one possess this inherent desire to love, as Augustine suggests, but the law of God “written in our hearts” helps one to discern; this natural law can lead one to distinguish between what is right and wrong, it “punishes thievery.” This same law should also help discern between affection and lust. The law written in the human heart does serve to make distinctions. The problem is that somewhere along the way, these distinctions are lost, and so is the proper object of love, namely, God. “Love” in the Confessions starts off by polarizing the love for evil and the love for God. Therefore, I shall consider Arendt’s dichotomization of love in Augustine. A. Appetitus: Cupiditas and Caritas According to Arendt, Augustine considers love to be both a appetitus (craving) and a motion (ibid., p. 9). The love of the good because it brings happiness is approached from the perspective that one shuns evil; in other words, the motivation of love is fundamentally because of what human beings fear: death (ibid., p. 120). It was the fear of death that led Augustine away from carnal pleasures and to Christianity (ibid., p. 14). Placed within a temporal framework, desire is understood as the “not yet” which implies the future, a longing to be fulfilled, while the past is the fear of loss, losing what one has. The present, where there is neither fear of loss, nor desire of fulfillment, is eternity; one is in the presence of the absolute good (ibid., p. 13). Clinging to

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the world in a way that one loves the world is understood as cupiditas while the love for eternity is expressed as caritas. This is interpreted as a dichotomy between the love of evil and the love of good, cupiditas and caritas, respectively, and both have appetitus in common, that is, a craving for the good. From the perspective of desire, love implies the desiring subject and the desired object, the lover and the beloved; the two are inseparable because the subject longs for the object. Cupiditas is also associated with voluptatis (pleasure) where the senses are involved, and pleasure derived from the senses; such love remains in constant longing because created things provide only momentary pleasure. The repeated experience of loss and longing, the love of things, cannot in itself bring happiness. Arendt maintains, “insofar as Augustine defines love as a kind of desire, he hardly speaks as a Christian” (ibid., p. 21). Her position is argued on the basis that Augustine begins with his own deplorable condition. From a philosophical standpoint, it makes sense that Augustine would begin with his own experience, and his own finite condition, which he recognizes as the human state, unlike a Christian thinker who would begin with God acting in human events. However, Augustine’s Confessions, while beginning with his own wretchedness before his conversion, offers a reinterpretation of those events from the perspective of the Christian who is writing. The distinction that I have made between “past and present” is central in seeing these two temporal interpretations of Augustine: pre-conversion and human experience, conversion and the experience of God. While Arendt’s assertion is true as a starting point, whereby Augustine experiences the human nature of love, Augustine goes further by giving a Christian reinterpretation to those experiences. To love God and to love things of the world is the difference between loving a Creator and loving created things, caritas and cupiditas, respectively. Augustine answers the question what is the relationship between himself and God in the Confessions, “What do I love when I love my God?” (10.7.11). The answer that follows vividly employs the human senses in which one loves God; he shows that the relationship between human sensory experience and loving God is deep within the person, but is not the person: a relationship exists between one’s interior and loving God. While human beings are subject to all that is temporal and material, this is not true for God. By clinging to God, one clings to the eternal. This is the crucial difference between love of self and love of God, although the self is clearly implicated. Thus, as Arendt correctly observes, the eternal is an interior manifestation (1996, p. 26). Unlike Arendt, who presents love in Augustine in terms of a cupiditascaritas dichotomy, O’Donovan interprets the role of love as progressive stages. In the next section I shall examine the four kinds of love that O’Donovan identifies in Augustine, beginning with the most natural form of love.

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B. Cosmic Love While Arendt focused on two types of love, cupiditas and caritas, O’Donovan identifies four types: cosmic, positive, rational, and benevolent (1980, pp. 10– 36). The religious transition in Augustine’s personal journey leads to different types of love surfacing in his work. Cosmic love best resembles the natural cosmology of the universe, where motion toward an attracting object also resembles a person’s attraction to another person and to God. If all things move to their final goal, then, a person is expected to move the same way. Love sets things in motion; it triggers movement, while there is also the need for both stability and equilibrium. For O’Donovan “one all-embracing natural law which is a kind of love” de-emphasizes love’s nature to move things; love in this sense is a stabilizing rather than a destabilizing phenomenon. Bodies move downwards or upwards according to their weight, as in heavy and light objects, respectively. Augustine acknowledges this “physics of love,” ending the Confessions to express human love for earthly and heavenly things, “my weight is my love” (pondus meum amor meus) (13.9). This suggests that love is a movement, as with other natural bodies, that shows motion toward the object to which it is attracted. O’Donovan maintains, “the love of God is interpreted metaphysically as the proper movement of the human will” which would be toward God. Relating the story of his youth, Augustine points out that he could not distinguish affection from lust due to the powerful force of desire; this discourse is followed by Augustine’s recognition of his desire to love and be loved. The emphasis on a confused mind due to his erotic impulses does not lead one to conclude that he was choosing to do evil, but that he was overwhelmed and overpowered from a force within. Augustine illustrates more than an ethical problem with the story of the pear-tree; he points to an epistemological difficulty: the pear-tree story reveals that he knew his action was wrong, especially since stealing violates the natural law “written in the hearts of men.” However, he took great delight in performing this immoral act. If one considers stealing in relation to cosmic love, where bodies move toward each other, a motion is produced by the force of love; but this movement does not always lead to something that is good. Cosmic love at best explains the movement, the dynamism caused by love: the motion in itself is natural, but the object that is loved, is voluntary, which demonstrates the centrality of the will. (In the next section, I will take up the discussion of the “will” in De libero arbitrio.) The analogy of the way a stone naturally falls to the ground serves to show how the will is drawn to God. One also needs to take into account that it is human nature to move toward a good, to something that attracts, that one loves. However, since what is attractive may not be objectively good, that is, it could lead to unnatural desires, it is the will that directs one to the ultimate good, which is God. If love leads toward an object in a dynamic movement of activity, this motion also creates cohesion, and in this union, an equilibrium is found be-

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tween the human and the Divine: It is the soul striving for God; rest is found only when there is union with God, “For thou has created us for thyself, and our heart cannot be quieted till it may find repose in thee” (ibid., 1.1). This yearning reveals that the individual is incomplete, and as a result, the individual is restless. The motion caused by love propels the person to find completion in an object, and the will is there to lead one to God, the source of his being. The person’s love expresses this dependence on God. The fundamental seeking and belonging is the result of being separated from the human source, creating an ongoing quest, an insatiable desire to return to that originative principle. This forceful sense of incompletion in the individual, seeking union due to its ruptured nature, is given a mythical account in Plato’s Symposium. Plato conveys a fundamental truth about human nature in Aristophanes’ tale, “It draws the two halves of our original nature back together and tries to make one out of two and to heal the wound in human nature” (191d). This powerful force leads to a union as a way of correcting this “wound” of separation— union with another, corresponding to the actual human nature before it was torn and divided. Aristophanes continues, “The reason is this is our original natural state and we used to be whole creatures: ‘love’ is the name of the desire and pursuit of wholeness” (ibid., 193a). Though the text from the Symposium does not appear in Augustine, there are parallels in the incompleteness of the person, something “other” needs to complete the person; and while Plato represents this mythically as other lost “halves,” for Augustine this completeness is to be found in God. Love denotes “desire” and “pursuit,” it moves toward an object, and once this object has been obtained the person is whole. A definition of cosmic love could incorporate such notions where one is driven to an object with a gravitational force as one finds with a stone falling to the ground. Cosmic love could explain the desire to be drawn to what brings pleasure, an erotic force, or any other impulse, without giving consideration to the moral implications of the activity, whether this is stealing from a pear tree or succumbing to the power of passion. Cosmic love can also be given a Manichean interpretation by treating this powerful presence as a negative force with ontological independence which appears to have influenced Augustine’s thought in both, the affection-lust, and pear-tree examples, presented above. (Augustine’s Manichean phase will be treated in the next chapter.) C. Positive Love Writing as a convert, Augustine was confronted with the problem of how Christianity resolves this weakness in human nature, a weakness that confuses human desires both physical and spiritual. Having left his family home in Tagaste, Augustine moved to the cosmopolitan Roman port city of Carthage, where pagan cults arriving from the Orient made their mark on local customs and practices (Marrou, 1959, p. 13). Brought up in a Christian home, fol-

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lowed by his early studies in rhetoric, Augustine’s search into philosophical truths led him beyond formal rhetoric and into the semantics of the Roman authors. By the time he was nineteen, Augustine’s interior conflicts and ongoing questions were answered by Quintus Hortensius. Henri Irénée Marrou’s observation highlights the period of Augustine’s transition from rhetoric to philosophy: The cultural evolution of classical antiquity could be described as the counterpoint of two voices where in turn rhetoric and philosophy outdo each other, in opposition, or in union for a moment in a tentative synthesis. Augustine was too cultivated not to meet on his road, and his soul was too elevated not to listen to the call of the philosophical Muse. (Ibid., p. 17; author’s translation) Rhetoric opened the way to philosophy and marked the turning point, the conversion, in Augustine’s thought. Michel Ruch addresses the difficult relationship between rhetoric and philosophy and how this is manifested in Hortensius in L’Hortensius de Cicéron. Plato’s Gorgias introduces the claim that true knowledge is not possible, and so, only eloquent argumentation matters, making philosophy subordinate to rhetoric. (Ruch, 1958, pp. 27–45). The opening of Book 3 of the Confessions is revealing in terms of Augustine’s ongoing love affair with love: It was very pleasurable to me, both to love, and to be loved; but much more, when I obtained to enjoy the person whom I loved. (3.1) (Amare et amari dulce mihi erat, magis si et amantis corpore fruerer.) Augustine equates love with pleasure (dulce); he adds that the pleasure of loving was even greater when the person whom he loved could be enjoyed. The presence of “enjoy” takes on the sense of “use” where the person or thing is not only the object of desire, but realizing the desire is achieved through the “use” one makes of the object (O’Donovan, 1980, p. 24). In this sense, love is extended to the sensuous, where the bodily senses are present in order that the thing loved may be enjoyed. This definition of love carries an erotic meaning since love in this sense is distinctly physical. In terms of cosmic love, this may be the natural response to the human yearning of possessing the object so that it can be used, for only through its use, is pleasure achieved. Augustine expresses the natural human desire, the yearning of loving and being loved, and in this loving, he found pleasure. But as he points out, the pleasure of loving and being loved was greater when the person being loved could be enjoyed. Love moves from a desire, something to be obtained, to the actual obtaining where the physicality of the object enjoyed is suggested. The phrase “obtained to enjoy” means something that is “used,” and in the eudaemonist tradition, Augustine draws from Cicero; the Roman influ-

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ence remains present. This Carthaginian period of Augustine’s life was punctuated by distinct events. Moreover, he was living away from home and the influence of his devout Christian mother, Monica. Augustine’s natural drive for love evolved from the natural, to the erotic, and finally, the sexual. Cosmic love expressed these three elements, but Augustine’s Roman eudaemonism transformed the natural character of cosmic love into an ordered ultimate good (ibid.). A conjunctive relationship exists between notions such as “desire” and “pursue” on the one hand, and “gain” and “achieve” on the other. The semantic content of “love” suggests to desire something, and to pursue the object desired. The two are not the same thing, but both are the property of love. The result of pursuing is the notion of gaining or even winning the thing pursued because it is loved, and once the object is possessed, there is finally the enjoyment of the object, or achieving the satisfaction which motivates the desire to begin with. Augustine reinterprets Cicero’s eudaemonist terminology giving it a more Plotinian reading by distinguishing things of the spirit from things of the world (ibid.; cf. Arendt, 1996, p. 22; Taranto, 2003, p. 23). The eudaemonist interpretation of cosmic love gives an order to goods providing a means to an end: a created thing is not an end in itself, but a means to a higher end, that ennobles the spirit. The verb to express this “uti” denotes the sense of “use.” To enjoy, “fruor,” expresses not only “enjoy” but also to “profit by,” and hence, giving the sense of “use.” At this stage, the order is not yet identified; the person “enjoyed” is the means to an end: one possesses the person who is “desired” and “enjoyed.” However, Augustine was a Carthaginian hedonist before these writings, not a converted Christian, though he was undoubtedly writing with sensuous corporality in mind: his end was not God, nor was the person the means to an end. Clearly, he points to some difficulty in the nature of human love which needs a solution, a way out, so that love can be properly ordered, and such order finds a solution through Roman eudaemonism. The study of Cicero’s works led Augustine from carnal self-indulgence, finding love in objects producing pleasure, to the love of wisdom in the pursuit of truth, and ultimately, to God, “Now this book [Hortensius] quite altered my affection, turned by prayers to thyself, O Lord, and made me have clean other purposes and desires” (Confessions, 3.4). Gillian Rosemary Evans states that Augustine “saw that only wisdom was worth pursuing, and with all the single-mindedness of his nature a fervent desire in the attainment of wisdom” (1982, p. 10). The shift through Cicero’s Hortensius was, therefore, the pursuit of love but as wisdom, rather than as eros. Augustine believed that his love for sin and the enjoyment of friends produced pleasure, whether the object was a pear, or a person. In his conversion through Hortensius, Augustine shows that there is another object of desire that becomes the basis of his prayers: the Lord himself. This purity that is

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implied in purpose, desire, and prayer becomes the second object of love, his second amor—of discovery. But in terms of the hierarchy, the Lord comes first. What about the love for others, for humankind, a creation of God? This is the main point for Augustine: the human being is a creature, not the Creator, and human love ought first to be directed to its Creator. Emerging in Augustine’s thought as a result of the eudaemonist tradition is love as something ordered: the “end of goods” (finis bonorum) is not a subjective state of love of merely how one feels, but an ordered state, so that human finality is a supreme good which has an objective reality: God. At first sight, Augustine’s “love” appears to have four kinds of objects, God, body, self, and the other (O’Donovan, 1980, p. 26). However, body and self can be subsumed into one, but distinguished between the material and the spiritual, body and self, respectively. It is the material body with which Augustine struggles during his conversion, while he increasingly desires an authentic expression of love. In this respect, one can identify three objects of love in Augustine’s discourse (see Figure 1): GOD above OTHER beside

SELF/BODY spiritual

OTHER beside

material below Figure 1. Objects of love in Augustinian discourse.

This order of love means that some things ought to be loved more than other things. It suggests a hierarchy of love: God appears first in this hierarchy; both the self and the body are below God. The self and the body are inseparable: to love one’s self is to love one’s body, which means the converse is also true. This is why Augustine’s object of love properly speaking constitutes three categories. The love of other can be placed in two categories: beloved and non-beloved. This relational love can be the passions implied in a friendship or where the other may appear as a non-beloved. This means that both the self and the other are below God in the hierarchy. The complex part of love is the relationship between the self and the other: Which is to be loved first in this hierarchy, self or other? The other is not that which is not the self, but that which is closest to the self. So it would appear that the love of the other in a hierarchy places the other after oneself. If God is the summit of human love, then, the other is to be seen as loving the other in God: when one loves the other one is loving the person in God. This is where “use” and “enjoy” or uti and fruor distinctions, respectively, need to

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be made. The distinction, however, still needs to be unraveled: for Augustine the other, who is the object of one’s love, is in fact the means to an end. Neither is the other who is an end; otherwise, one puts the summum bonum (greatest good) in a creature and not the Creator. Moreover, this ordering expresses the objectivity of love, ordered by things themselves rather than an ordering that is imposed by the subject (ibid., p. 27). In the eudaemonist tradition, regardless of what the end is, the person makes an end. Before the Ciceronian conversion, Augustine makes pleasure found in various degrees of erotic experience his end. The influence of Hortensius suggests a transition period in the perception of love: from a love that has a pleasurable good as an end, to love that has a higher good as an end, while the instrument is a means of obtaining this end. Under the influence of Hortensius, the uti shifts from an object of love to an object that is a means to obtaining that love, the “enjoyed” (fruiti). O’Donovan’s analysis of the four objects of love is less apparent in the Confessions than he sets out to claim: a dialectic exists between two dominating loves, self-love and what slowly emerges, the love of God. Both loves extend into the two other types of love, love of body and love of other. The love of body manifests itself in self-love, while the love of other leads to the love of God. In each instance, a less erotic, less sensorial love is sought, which accounts for the tension in these forms of love, from the self to God. D. Rational Love Augustine clearly states that he derived pleasure not so much from the action of stealing pears, since he really had no use for the pears, but in the knowledge that what he was doing was wrong. He points out that, during his youth, he delighted in the wrong-doing of theft. This is before Carthage and before the exposure to Roman eudaemonist thought. If Hortensius was the beginning of a conversion process to rational love, then, love of something would carry with it some knowledge of the object that is loved: One loves someone whom, or something which, one knows to be the source of pleasure, but one must have some knowledge of the object to know this. The suggestions is that, if one derives delight from an object, or if one derives pleasure from some activity, then, one would love either the object or the activity. This makes sense in the pre-conversion period of Augustine. With eudaemonist love, a reflected knowledge of the search for human finality and the ultimate good presupposes the rationalizing of the nature of objects, regardless whether they are truly good. This suggests, therefore, that one would not love something that is evil, while one would love something that is good. The only problem with this, however, is that one needs some criteria to determine something is good or evil. During his youth, Augustine loved things that were evil as in the wrongdoing of stealing, or friendships that were driven by erotic impurity, as he

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maintains himself. Reason, therefore, needs to accompany love. Knowledge sheds light on the nature of the object, and for Augustine, knowledge is necessary if one is to love objects that are good: knowledge and love go together. Such a conclusion is a significant shift from erotic love to an ultimate good, concluding that true love requires the activity of the intellect and not just the senses. This also means that to love a person one loves what is good in a person, and not that which is wicked. Where love carries a rational character, a person needs to be informed about what constitutes good and evil in terms of people’s lives. Since the person is created in God’s image, there is something that ought to be loved in every person. Thus, one loves God’s human creatures, while one hates their errors. Rational love further supports ordered love: one may love things that are good, but by knowing who or what one loves, the things one loves, one can also know these things are not the supreme good, for the source of blessedness is found in God. The problem is one of transition from human love, love for another person, with all the cosmic depth of eros, to the emergence of a love that is directed toward a non-sensorial being, namely God. But it is precisely the human love that Augustine develops with “passion.” In Confessions, Augustine relates his passionate attachment to a beloved friend: Well said one of his friends, Thou half of my soul: for I still thought my soul and his soul to have been but one soul in two bodies: and therefore was my life a very horror to me, because I would not live by halves. And even therefore perchance was I afraid to die, lest he should wholly die, whom so passionately I had loved. (4.6) Augustine expresses a profound attachment to his friend, a union that implies the core of his being, his soul. The passage echoes Aristophanes’ discourse in Plato’s Symposium cited above. The union is intimate, as Augustine admits himself, “whom so passionately I had loved” (quem multum amaveram). This love would best be described as cosmic love as shown earlier due to the natural gravitation toward the other. In Augustine’s conversion, and in the pedagogy of love, this cosmic love serves a purpose: The erotic attachment developed during his Manichean phase did not permit the Christian categories, from which he would one day draw, to understand the different levels of love. During the Manichean period when he had returned to his town of birth to teach rhetoric, he found pleasure and ultimately love in a man, while at the same time Augustine’s notion of good and evil was shaped by Manichean doctrine. But how did this love during his early days teaching rhetoric in Tagaste help him achieve an ordered love? The eudaemonist tradition and positive love provided Augustine with another orientation, that is, love with a higher aim than something that is based on earthly pleasure. This human love reveals the attachment to a creature, and reason is needed to show that there is a higher love than the love of a created being, as Augustine states in the same

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book: “For how came that former grief so easily and so deeply to make impression in me, but even from hence, that I had spilt my soul upon the sand, in loving a man that must die, as if he never had been to die?” (4.8). Augustine does not state that loving the man was wrong, but the intensity of his love for this man was wrong; the love was disordered. The pleasure he derived from his friend was clearly at the level of fruiti and not uti to some greater end: his beloved became an end in itself, but as a mortal being. Upon the death of his friend, Augustine, too, would experience “death.” The person would be a means to something greater, and so he would come to understand human love as an order that imposes itself: in the order of love there was still a greater love than the love of a human being. In philosophical terms to love a friend for a higher good needs some unpacking, otherwise one has what sounds like a utilitarian friendship, a love with ulterior motives. To love a person in God expresses the view that the person’s perfection and the person’s true nature have their source in God, and therefore, loving a person in God is to love an individual as the person ought to be loved. In this sense uti gives way to something greater: “we seek the welfare of a friend for its own sake, while we love him ‘for God’” (O’Donovan, 1980, p. 32). Such a rational order becomes possible only after Augustine experiences the passionate love during his youth: Having loved a man not as a creation of God but for the man himself, as an independent being rather than dependent upon God, now Augustine could love someone as dependent on God, created by God, under the influence of Cicero’s rational love. This dependency where one becomes relative to God suggests an order as the following section on benevolent love shows. E. Benevolent Love Benevolent love suggests two things, “order” and “telos” (ibid.). Teleological order builds on the previous notions of love, cosmic, positive, and rational. This order further suggests that benevolent love does not require a faith experience, but represents the consequence of an ordered finality. To love someone with benevolence is to seek the person’s good; this love is expressed in an ontology whereby the person is potentially good, even a person who performs wicked actions. Benevolence means to lead the person to attain the good which potentially already exists within the individual; and as a result, benevolent love means one loves what is good in the person, while one rejects what is wicked. This love of the good and rejection of evil has an ontological foundation, and the Confessions reveals that in Augustine’s ontology, the person is fundamentally good. However, benevolent love does not clearly surface in the Confessions; benevolent love continues to evolve in Augustine’s thoughts and his perception of relationships.

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Figure 1 shows love of neighbor at a level beside the person—neither below, which is the body, nor above, which is God. This means that Augustine is gradually advancing a love that is equal between human beings and not one of dependence: Benevolence does not mean one person is dependent on another; this is not love. It means, in fact, wanting the person’s good, a “goodwill” attitude toward others. The good-will is centered on the well-being of the person who is loved, and internal to this love is seeking the good, leading the person to God. If one is motivated by self-interest, then, this cannot be benevolence. Augustine still situates himself in Roman eudaemonism: a distinction is made between utilitarian relationships that seek the personal good, and benevolent love which is concerned with the well being of the friend. One also recognizes a progressive movement from material to the spiritual, from the self to the other, from the self to the Transcendent. O’Donovan’s four kinds of love can be encapsulated by a tension between two Platonic elements, the corporeal and the spiritual. Both Arendt and O’Donovan contain this tension between loves, although in O’Donovan, love appears in stages, from the highest form of cupiditas, the cosmic love at one end, to the highest form of caritas, benevolence (benevolentia), at the other end. The Confessions expresses Augustine’s solution to these conflicting loves—cupiditas and caritas—through gratia. This means that both rational love and benevolentia are possible through gratia, as I argue, the third love. 3. Problems with Love in Augustine The main problem with O’Donovan’s analysis of four kinds of love is whether these four are representative of Augustine’s thought as presented in the Confessions. The other problem is whether one can take Arendt’s approach and reduce love in Augustine to fundamentally two, cupiditas and caritas. My main interest in the Confessions is to identify the philosophical foundation for divine love in Augustine, as well as some of the persisting problems: How is the transition made from wickedness to goodness? One might argue that that through knowledge and good actions a person redeems himself. But then this is Pelagianism, which I will take up in the next chapter. It would appear that in talking about the human response to divine love, in an Augustinian framework, grace is a necessary part of the discourse, since grace makes caritas possible, as I will also show in the next chapter. Augustine had been under the influence of Manicheanism for ten years, from the time he was thirty until he was in his forties. The Confessions covers with considerable depth this Manichean phase: his involvement with the dualist doctrine is incorporated into books 3.6–7, 10; 5.3, 5–7. In the next chapter, I will examine the kind of influence Manichean teaching had on Augustine and how this would have influenced his understanding of human nature, especially in terms of amor. This treatment of

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Manicheanism serves a two-fold purpose: I argue that the cupiditas-caritas dichotomy has its source in Manicheanism, and I show that Manicheanism and Roman eudaemonism, along with Neoplatonism, provide the philosophical foundation for Augustine’s “love of God.”

Two TRUTH, CONVERSION, AND CONFLICT 1. Augustine’s Intellectual Journey This chapter examines Augustine’s personal conversion and his ongoing struggles, both moral and intellectual. Understanding Augustine’s thought involves a study of the different phases of his life and the spiritual/intellectual movements that influenced him, especially because of their philosophical implications. The first of these that I outline is Manicheanism and the elements that constitute this sect. The influence of Gnosticism, as well, merits some discussion, since Augustine was affected by Gnosticism through Manicheanism. His disillusionment with Manicheanism, followed by the central influence of Neoplatonic thought, will also be treated. Neoplatonic circles in Italy were Augustine’s way into Christianity after his Manichean phase. The ongoing problem of the will is analyzed because this leads up to the conflict regarding grace between Augustine and Pelagius. To understand the relationship between divine grace and human freedom and its implications, I shall examine Adam’s Sin and Traducianism. Passages from the Confessions reveal the context in which Augustine uses the word “love” (amor) as something good in a true friendship, but something evil in a lustful relationship. Given the polarity of human experience in which love is known, as good and evil, Augustine proceeds with the problem of evil, since it is in opposition to the love he seeks. Love is being redefined, as he approaches God through Neoplatonism, to exclude evil. The meaning of God’s “love” is further elaborated in response to Pelagianism: the extent to which the gratuity of God’s love can be applied. Having become a Christian, Augustine had resolved the major problem of evil through the idea of free will. But he was confronted with a powerful movement, Pelagianism, that stressed the natural goodness and the natural grace of humanity. The emphasis on the will in Pelagian teaching did not oppose the views which Augustine held on the will. In fact, common views on free will are what Pelagius and Augustine shared. The fundamental difference, that which Augustine would stress as a result of Pelagianism, regarded the role of grace. The Confessions already highlights the place of grace in Augustine’s conversion, a shift from his focus on the will in the De libero arbitrio; the emphasis on grace would also provide a response to the Pelagian problem.

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Augustine introduces his Manichean period by reference to the movement in pejorative terms; he clearly rejects their teachings. Augustine does not show the hostility toward the pagan Cicero or the works of the Roman Stoics that he shows toward Manicheanism. This may be because of his admiration and respect for Roman culture. Though his reading of Hortensius does not lead him directly to Christianity, when it comes to the Manicheans, he launches ferocious attacks against the cult in spite of their Christian elements: But [Manicheans] cried out Truth, and Truth, and often sounded the word to me, yet was the Truth itself nowhere to be found amongst them. But they spake falsehood, not of thee only (who truly art the Truth itself but also of the elements of the world thy creatures). (Confessions, 3.6) Augustine’s seduction into the movement is attributed to his desire for Truth; his pursuit of Manicheanism as a follower of Mani’s teachings corresponds to his intellectual and inquisitive nature seeking a response to unanswered questions. As in the transition from cosmic love to positive love, which involves a greater role of thought and reflection, Augustine’s intense Manichean phase gravitated toward incertitude: one could not always be certain of the truth, even if individuals claimed to have true knowledge. More importantly, if love is inseparable from truth, how can one be certain of love if one is skeptical about truth? A. Mani the Prophet The teaching of the Persian prophet Mani (216–277 AD) contained both Christian and Gnostic elements, making the movement something of a Christian sect, and in some instances, the Manicheans passed themselves off as Christians. The Manichean presence in Rome suggests that Rome provided the arena where Pelagianism confronted Manicheanism, and the two heterodox movements would cause theological tension. As we shall see in this study, Augustine ultimately responds to both. Thus, the familiar Christian language was not excluded from the movement. Gillian Rosemary Evans tells us, “The Manichees held that God spoke to the soul directly, through his Word, illuminating it so that the enlightened could see him” (1968, pp. 11–12). Evans further maintains that because of the intellectual character Augustine developed in his spiritual discernment, he showed contempt for the historical books of the Old Testament. He was a receptive listener to the Manichean teachings. An attractive feature of the sect for Augustine was that “they offered him a path to God by the exercise of his reason, a way which did not require him to allow authority to anyone”; according to Evans, this would allow Au-

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gustine to believe that he found a solution through his own reasoning. For the Manicheans, the soul was not only spiritual, but divine, and they held the Platonic view that the soul was imprisoned in the body. Thus, perfection through the liberation of the soul was attainable. The teachings echoed John’s Gospel and Gnosticism, as Evans states, “God spoke to the soul directly through his Word, illuminating it so that the enlightened could see him” (ibid., p. 11). The Manichean Psalm-Book asserted the following principles (taken from Allberry, 1938): (1) “[Soul and body] are enemies to each other before creations.” (ccxlviii). (2) “This is the way of Truth, this is the stairway that leads to the height, that will lead us up to the Light” (ccxxvii). (3) “Come to me, O living Christ; come to me, O Light of day. The evil body of the Enemy I have cast away from me, the abode of Darkness that is full of fear” (ccxlvii). (4) “I am thy sheep: thou art my good shepherd” (ccli). (5) “Let us worship the Spirit of the Paraclete. Let us bless our Lord Jesus, who has sent to us the Spirit of Truth” (ccxxiii). While (1) and (2) resemble Christian teaching as a philosophy, the remaining three are explicitly drawn from Christian doctrine; (3) and (5) make specific reference to Christ, Jesus, and the Paraclete. The Christian terminology could entice new non-Christian converts, or Christian converts confused about Christian doctrine. Henri Marrou, who discusses Augustine’s conversion to Manicheanism, maintains, “Mani, the Apostle of Jesus Christ, presents himself as the Paraclete promised in [John’s] Gospel” (1959, p. 26). Ironically, the question that Augustine thought Manicheanism could answer, the nature of evil, was the same problem that Mani confronted with difficulty: How did the first disturbance come about between these two positive forces of Light and Darkness since there had been eternal order? (Burkitt, 1925, p. 20). They believed that darkness was the cause of the disturbance in the cosmos and that there was something “pleasant” beyond this region. In other words, evil stems from “an unregulated desire” (ibid., pp. 20–21). Unlike Hermes, Plato, Buddha, and Zoroaster, Jesus is unique for Mani: Jesus is a divine being, and while Mani was the last of the prophets, Jesus was his immediate predecessor. Therefore, Mani regarded himself as a disciple of Jesus (ibid., p. 38). Mani begins his letters in the same way Paul of Tarsus addresses the communities in his Epistles: “Mani, Apostle of Jesus Christ.” The fundamental difference between Christianity and Manicheanism was that a rupture existed between God and the individual in Christianity, while in Manicheanism, the opposition was between Light and Dark.

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Gnosticism Gnosticism had also been inspired by John’s Gospel, a favorite among the Gnostics, who like to speak of the Paraclete. Mani conveniently fulfils this divine mission of truth for Christ himself promised to send “the Paraclete.” As with Manicheanism, Gnosticism originally emerged from a dualism of light and darkness. The duality of light and dark differs from Gnosticism influenced by Judaism, wherein the Creator God of the Old Testament has supremacy over evil. In the Zoroastrian-influenced Gnosticism, the duality of Light and Darkness leads to an opposition (Brown, 2003, p. 119). A Gnostic redeemer was proposed, a figure of light and goodness, who was divided into small particles of light and placed into the world of darkness: the role of demons was to prevent them from returning to their heavenly source. Manichean sources show a similar account for the presence of light and dark, “In the beginning they were separate, as they should be. But in the Past the Dark made an incursion on the Light and some of the Light became mingled with the Dark, as it still is in the Present” (Burkitt, 1925, p. 17). God’s Son is sent as a redeemer in corporeal substance to liberate these souls from darkness by proclaiming the truth and giving the souls true knowledge (), to lead them back to their heavenly home (ibid.). Resemblances can be found between John’s Gospel and the Gnostics with the dichotomy of light-dark, truth-false. These oppositions preface John’s Gospel and Epistles, with key Gnostic concepts such as, “Eternal life consists in knowledge” (John 17:3). Manichean Solutions Christianity was unable to logically account for evil because the religion taught that there existed from eternity only one God, who was both good and creator. How could this explain evil in the world? The dualistic theory offered by the Manicheans claimed that two ultimate principles existed, Light (Ormuzd) and Darkness (Ahriman). These two principles are eternally at strife with each other, an example of which is found in the human body: the soul as the good principle and the body as the evil principle. Augustine’s corporeal experiences, filled with passion, part of his fundamental experience of love, raised a moral dilemma. He had discovered the higher good of Hortensius and the rational reflection that was needed to discern the value of the object of love. Manicheanism offered a solution to the tension caused by the materiality of the senses, where one could deviate from the true path of love, and the ultimate good itself, which was being sought. The dualistic vision of Manicheanism overcame the corrupt nature of human beings, the evil disposition of humanity, through an austere asceticism, one that was far more demanding than orthodox Christianity. The two principles of Being that exist in the Cosmos, Good and Evil, produced in a world that contains a mix of these two elements. This was interpreted to mean a life of sexual abstinence as well as a diet of fruit and vegetables, reflecting a life of

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light, rather than sexual indulgence and the consumption of meat, resembling a life of darkness: For the space of nine years then (that is from the nineteenth year of mine age to the eighth and twentieth) I was seduced myself, and others I seduced; deceived, and deceiving in divers lusts . . . on the other hand much desiring to purge myself from these corruptions by the help of those who were called elect and holy . . . they should forge certain angels and gods, by whom I was to be cleansed. (Confessions, 4.1) This passage reveals Augustine’s intentions; it explains his long attachment to the Manichean sect: it was his desire to cleanse himself of that which was impure, the “corruptions,” and this could only be done by those who were qualified to do so, the “the elect and the saints” (electi et sancti) through the “angels and gods” (angelos et deos) that they would forge. These lines show that Augustine sought a purification that he calls purgari (purgation). Disordered and corrupt human nature, trapped by its lustful passions, found a solution in a radical movement advocating austere measures to rid the body of evil elements. Augustine belonged to the sect for nine or ten years; thus, it was not an impulsive temporary acquaintance with the movement, but a thought out and lived association that he had with them, which undoubtedly would have left its mark on his thought. Manichean views of evil enabled Augustine to distance himself from the evil within. He could not have been himself the agent of evil, since the Manichean solution was to place evil in the cosmos. Evil, therefore, had an external source that imposed itself on the human creature. By identifying an external evil principle, Augustine would not have to attribute to himself, to his nature, the wrong-doings to which he had been inclined in the past during his wayward youth. Instead, blame could be placed on a force that was not only outside of him, but also beyond him. The Manichean language was not entirely foreign to Augustine since it included elements from Scripture, which he would have known from his childhood. The goodness of God, who could not be held responsible for evil, was also a view that Augustine would have shared. But the problem of evil needed to be resolved, including his own wickedness. Manichean doctrine offered a solution that made sense to Augustine: like the Good, Evil was an independent uncreated principle that existed in the cosmos opposing the Good (Allberry, 1938). The dualist solution that the Manicheans delivered, involved a material-spiritual division: the good of the soul in contrast to the passions and lust of the body (see Allberry, 1938; G. R. Evans, 1982). Answers to the Problem of Evil The problem of evil remained a central concern for Augustine; it was inseparable from his relentless search for truth. Though he was connected to the cult

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for some nine years, his meeting with the great Manichean leader, Faustus, turned out to be a major disappointment: Mine ears had been cloyed already with such trash, which did not now therefore seem better to me, because better said; nor therefore true, because eloquent; nor seemed the soul wise because the face had a good garb and the language a sweet tone. (Confessions, 5.6) One infers from these lines that truth was attached to rhetoric. This was how the Manicheans operated for Augustine: they were seductive because things were beautifully presented, and therefore, their claims must have been true. Augustine was over the phase of the beauty of Latin rhetoric, and had sought in the language meaning derived from content: what was true in the meaning, rather than being seduced by the form. He had placed his hope in Faustus, that the leader would resolve his problems and answer the pressing questions he had on evil. For Augustine, truth could no longer be the result of embellished language transmitted in beautiful form. Augustine moved beyond the form of truth; his own experiences enabled him to distinguish truth from beauty (Ruch, 1958, pp. 27–28). The section that follows on Neoplatonism shows a difficulty: beauty remains a central theme in Neoplatonic thought, leading to the Transcendent and the Intellectual-Principle, with the thematic source in Plato’s Symposium. At this stage, two types of beauty can be distinguished, beauty in linguistic form, and beauty as something ontological. B. Reanalyzing Love Influenced by the dualist doctrine, wherein good in the cosmos was subjected to the havoc of evil, Augustine’s perception of love preserves this dialectic vision of both the person and the cosmos inhabited by the person. In the Confessions, a comparison is made between human and divine friendship, showing precisely the polarity that exists in loving what is human, and loving what is divine: Hence is that mourning whenever a friend dies, yea, those overcastings of sorrows, that steeping of the heart in tears, all sweetness utterly turned into bitterness: hence too upon the loss of the life of the dying, comes the death of the living. But blessed is the man that loves thee, and his friend in thee, and his enemy for thee. For he alone loses none that is dear unto him, to whom all are dear, in him that can never be lost. (4.9) The opposition Augustine sets up is one of life and death, the immortal and mortal, blessedness and sadness. In each case, when one invests all one’s love in the human creature, inevitably, the anguish of loss, the love that no longer exists, follows upon the human creature’s death. Drawing from his

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own experience, Augustine suffered the loss of an intense love when his beloved friend died; he discovered that human love was terribly fragile. The limits of human love were manifested ultimately at the death of a friend, in contrast to the infinite love of God, which is beyond death or any sort of separation. Only in the immortal nature of God and divine love can a person be truly happy. A tension exists in this regard between the immaterial and the material, the eternal and temporal: Augustine is leading the individual to discover the eternal God, whose love is beyond the limits of human fragility. Significantly, Augustine prefaces 4.9 with what appears to be selfinterested love: a person loves as a response to being loved; one loves because one is first loved: This is now which a man loves in his friends; and so loves it, that he must in conscience confess himself guilty if he should not love him that loves him again, or not love that man again that loves him first expecting no other thing from him besides the pure demonstration of his love. Augustine suggests that when one loves his friend in God, when God is loved because God is the Creator of all things including the person, this is where true love lies: in God. We love a friend in God because God is the Creator of all, the source of each human creature. Directing love toward God and directing love toward one of God’s creatures have different implications: when God is the object of love, this is because one loves the Creator as source, but also because “Truth is thyself.” Such claims cannot be made for a human being, who is neither a Creator nor Truth. And so Augustine lays out why one loves other human beings: one is either loved by another or is first loved by another. One’s emotions, sensuous nature, and affectivity play an active role in human love, while in the case of divine love, knowledge of who God is, reflects the reason for loving God which he expresses with passion. In chapter ten of the Confessions, Augustine speaks with contempt when one shows a disorderly attachment to the senses: And by them let my soul praise thee, O God, Creator of all things but yet let not my soul be fastened unto these things with the glue of love through the senses of my body. For these things go whither they were to go, that they might no longer be; and they cleave the soul in sunder with most pestilent desires: even because the soul earnestly desires to be one with them, and loves finally to rest in these things which she loves. (4.10) This passage follows the discourse on divine love and exemplifies the dialectic character of the body in its spiritual and material composition: the soul is meant to praise God, but love can also be like glue due to the “senses of my body” (amore per sensus corporis). These sensuous desires that derive from the body also draw upon the soul; they mislead the soul since the soul seeks

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some kind of union. But a union through bodily desires merely results in a soul that is not settled. Augustine conveys the tension between the corporal nature of the body that is driven by the senses, the desires of the flesh, which have their own measure, and the soul, which maintains a union with the body, and therefore, succumbs to the desires of the flesh. The problem Augustine highlights is that the flesh remains unsatisfied, and so the soul is unsettled. Moreover, the flesh has the fulfillment of its desires to measure its ends, while the soul cannot be limited to the “pestilent desires” of the body. The soul, in opposition to the body, cannot be driven or led by the sensuous nature of the flesh if it is to overcome this unsettled state. We have seen in Confessions 4.10 notions of “glue” that clearly portrays the soul as having the property of “cleaving.” Such expressions refer back to the concept of cosmic love. The natural force of this love is further expressed in Confessions 4.12: Will ye not now after that life is descended down to you, will not you ascend up to it and live? But whither ascend you since you are on high, and have lifted up your head into heaven? Descend again, that you may ascend, and ascend to God. The cosmic analysis of love represents light things as moving upward, while heavy things move downwards: the ascending or descending movement depends on whether one clings to creatures or to the Creator. Augustine’s analysis of human nature shows a polarity moving in two opposite directions: descending is associated with the natural weight of the bodily senses pulling downwards, while the lightness of the spirit’s ascent pushes upward toward the Divine. Although Augustine rejected Manichean teachings, the passage above retains the suggestion of a dualistic vision of the world expressed in the polarity of opposite movements, ascent and descent. These ascending and descending processes are connected to the categories of love: cupiditas, the cosmic love, is associated with the descending pull of corporeality, while caritas moves in the direction of benevolentia (benevolence). This dichotomy expressed in a bi-directional movement reflects love as dominated by the body or by the spirit. This Neoplatonic reinterpretation of love reveals that while Augustine distanced himself from the Manichean dialectic of good and evil, he continued to express this duality within the person. Manichean Dialectic During the Manichean period of Augustine’s life, he interpreted good and evil in material terms. Good and evil were not regarded as spiritual or supernatural forces to be understood, avoided, or pursued, but literally as matter that made itself manifest corresponding to light and darkness (see Evans, 1982, p. 14). The spiritual discourse of Christianity expressed categories of good and evil not only as material, but also, and especially, as spiritual. To speak of God, the soul, and

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angels was to speak of non-material entities that could not be defined in empirical terms. In the Confessions, one senses that Augustine associates love with lust rather than something that is authentically good: But unhappy I, who had not yet the heart to imitate a woman, impatient now of all delay as if it were two long years before I was to enjoy her whom I went a wooing to, (being not so much a lover of wedlock as a slave to lust) quickly procured another (though not a wife) by whom that disease of my soul might be nursed up and kept alive, either as vigorous as it was, or more fierce upon it, under the convoy of inveterate custom into the kingdom of marriage. (6) Augustine recognizes the value of his lover’s decision to return to Africa with the intent of vowing herself to God and “never to know man more.” While he esteems this woman’s moral rectitude, he is unable to “imitate” her. He soon becomes impatient without her, and not because he is seeking marriage, but rather he is “slave to lust.” The choice of the word “slave” is significant because slaves have no freedom; slaves cannot express their will. This is the difference between the slave and a free citizen. Augustine further qualifies this powerful erotic disposition as a “disease” of his soul. Given the soul as part of the most inner being of the person, he is saying that his interior is deteriorating due to disease. He soon replaced his bedmate with another in spite of the child he had with her and the years they had been together. He knows well the implications of this new relationship, but he presents the matter as one that is beyond his nature: the new woman would “nurse” the soul not to health, but to the very disease that caused the soul’s sickness to begin with. This text raises the question of the will and the ethical implications that arise when the will chooses wrongly. Augustine’s new companion is introduced in exclusively negative terms; he also speaks of his own failure to make a choice comparable to his previous lover: the choice of continence. The negative quality of the flesh that succumbs to powerful erotic forces seemingly incapacitated the will; this lack of will is contrasted to that of his companion, who returns to Africa and vows to God to live a chaste life: choosing God, choosing continence, choosing the life of the spirit is compared to succumbing to lust, succumbing to another woman, succumbing to the flesh. This material way of looking at the world would not only impede Augustine’s transition from Manicheanism to Christianity, but would also distort his way of looking at love. A material definition of love meant that the flesh was present or absent: there was either corporeal pleasure or abstinence. Manicheanism was known for its rigorous asceticism, which included sexual abstinence. After his conversion to Christianity, Augustine became hostile toward Manichean practices concerning sexual abstinence, mainly because he

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saw Manicheans with whom he had associated to have been hypocritical regarding this matter: For nine long years, I was one of your diligent and devoted Hearers, and during that time I did not know of a single member of your Elect who was not, according to your precepts, either caught in sin or placed under suspicion of it. (1966, 2.18-19) Augustine’s writing, however, shows that he continued to struggle with the dialectic vision of flesh and spirit, love as lust, and love as affection. His Manichean contacts were slowly coming to an end, as Ambrose, Bishop of Milan, began to play a greater role in Augustine’s thought and life. Though Augustine ultimately rejected Manicheanism, the mark of the heterodox movement did not altogether disappear: In various ways the Manichean religion left an enduring impression on his mind, relics of which can still be traced in actually current notions. Certainly in the contrasted conceptions of the Civitas Dei and the Civitas Mundi there is a perceptible reflexion of the Manichee notion of the eternal realms of Light and Dark. (Burkitt, 1925, p. 11) This claim reinforces the view that Augustine’s nine-year fellowship in Manichean circles, his adherence to the doctrines, and the solutions to human evil offered by the sect never entirely disappeared from his manner of perceiving the world. To what extent he saw the world in a tension of light and darkness, as Burkitt suggests, is a matter of debate. While, as I have shown, there is evidence in the Confessions that a dialectic vision of the cosmos prevails, Augustine’s outlook had been fundamentally Christianized, which implies a shift in ontology and ethics from a radical to a moderate dualism. 3. Plotinian Influences Augustine’s Plotinian phase began in Milan under the influence of a circle of friends (platonici) who reintroduced Neoplatonic thought through the third century writings of Plotinus. The Neoplatonic works were made accessible in Rome through Porphyry, and through the Latin translations of Marius Victorinus in the middle of the fourth century (Evans, 1982, p. 17). Augustine had a few things in common with Victorinus: they were both from North Africa and they both taught rhetoric. The significant difference was that Victorinus had become a Christian, while this was not yet the case for Augustine. Victorinus had also succeeded in achieving a harmony between philosophy and Christianity, a reconciliation that Augustine had not yet been able to achieve. Paradoxically, the Manichean acquaintances who provided Augustine with the intellectual reflection led him to Neoplatonism. Augustine’s dis-

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satisfaction with the Manicheans was over the problem of evil, perhaps manifested in his own powerful sexual desires, which would have been an ongoing battle had he attempted to practice Manichean asceticism coupled with sexual abstinence. The power of human nature raised the question concerning human will and freedom with all its moral implications. A. Neoplatonism in the Italian Peninsula If Augustine’s search for an explanation to human wickedness proved dissatisfactory within his Manichean circles, an answer to the fundamental problem of human evil would be his doorway into another philosophical system. Augustine departed for Rome for practical reasons concerning his prospects of teaching rhetoric. Rome, and the Italian peninsula during the late fourth and early fifth century, was shaped by the religious milieu, material decline, and political upheaval of the third century. The rise of Neoplatonism occurred simultaneously with the material and political decline of Rome. Eastern cults had also been established in the city. Different forms of Gnosticism (established in Rome before the third century) included different mythologies with doctrines of a material world that was fundamentally evil. Gnostic teachings were combined with Christian theology; Paul’s Epistles, the dualistic view of morality, and salvation for an elect few were all adopted by these heterodox movements. Christian and Neoplatonist writers alike attacked Manicheanism, which itself was a developed form of Gnosticism (Gregory, 1991, p. 19). In a letter to his wife, Marcella, Porphyry states, “No God is responsible for man’s wickedness, but the man himself by his choice” (ibid., p. 139). Augustine’s initial attraction to Neoplatonism was through its teachings on evil, specifically, that evil is fundamentally the choice that a person makes rather than being identified with the power of an external or even uncontrollable internal force: evil as well as the good is what the person chooses, what the person wills. In Plotinus, Augustine found a solution to evil, no longer seen as a positive material force in the world, but as a privation (see Gregory, 1991, pp. 133–134). Evil was connected to goodness, and goodness was part of desire or appetitus, which is the subject of the Enneads: “It will be asked how act rising from desire can be voluntary since desire pulls outward and implies need; to desire is still to be drawn, even though toward the good” (6.8.4). If one is a slave to lust, as Augustine finds when moralizing his past actions, or in cosmic love, when a force is produced as a gravitational pull toward a good, there is the inevitable question of free will. Augustine clearly did not see his relations with his new companion as good; he was neither married to her nor did he submit to continence with the departure of his long-time lover. He submitted, instead, to his passions, which he identified as a powerful negative force. If his behavior was wicked, then why did he do it? And this question extended to the greater question, why is there evil?

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This question plagued Augustine, and the answer, or failure to answer this question was detrimental to Augustine’s association with the Manicheans. Plotinus suggests that evil is something that comes from within, the impulses of human desires are acted upon; there is appetitus, which is followed by an action. Plotinus addresses the problem of freedom as well as the implications of the movement toward the good: Can there be talk of constraint where there is no compulsion to obey an extern; and how can any movement toward a good be counted compulsion? Effort is free once it is toward a fully recognized good; the involuntary is, precisely motion away from a good and toward the enforced, toward something not recognized as a good; servitude lies in being powerless to move toward one’s good, being debarred from the preferred path in a menial obedience. Hence the shame of slavedom is incurred not only when one is held from the hurtful but when the personal good must be yielded in favor of another’s. (Enneads, 6.8.4) If Augustine is a slave to his lustful passions, it would mean that he is in fact, not free. A force beyond him, or deep within him, outside of his reach, compels him to act as he does. He knows his behavior is wrong, and yet he is not free to act otherwise. This sort of duality, however, is not to be found in the Intellectual-Principle, but rather Plotinus shows how this Principle is both “being” and “efficiency,” “act” and “potentiality.” The Intellectual-Principle does not act out of a nature, but acts “freely.” Plotinus qualifies the notion of “free” in the case of the Intellectual-Principle, because there is no external master over which to act. The problem of the appetitus in relation to freedom is developed in Enneads 6.8.2, where Plotinus states, “must be founded in impulse or in some appetite, as when we act or omit in lust or rage or upon some calculation of advantage accompanied by desire.” He immediately raises the problem that if the source of freedom derives from one’s appetite or impulse, human freedom does not differ from that of animals or beings lacking intelligence where behavior is determined by an unreasoned urge. This logic suggests that if one has a desire, the goal is to satisfy the desire. The good is in satisfying the desire, since the need being fulfilled disappears, at least temporarily. In responding to desire by fulfilling it, one is acting to obtain the good; and in this good lies freedom. Plotinus demonstrates this reasoning is faulty because the impulse itself can be based on a good that involves wrongdoing. Consider again the pear-tree example, wherein Augustine satisfies his desires; or the examples where Augustine finds his affection transforming into lust. Since Augustine writes as a Christian, his moral interpretation of his behavior before his conversion to Christianity fits into the norms of Christian ethics. Replacing one woman with another, an action for which he expresses intense remorse, may not seem as wrong as Augustine expresses; he was not married to

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the woman who returned to Carthage, and she chose to return herself. Augustine sought companionship to respond to his desires after her departure. His reaction to his submission to the flesh reflects a Christian thinker, but had Augustine already been a Christian, he may have seen the matter differently and may not even had submitted to his erotic passions. Plotinus asks the question, “How can we be masters when we are compelled?” and considers whether freedom is not in the action, but rather in the mind, since it is the reasoning person that opposes a given desire. This claim suggests that freedom is a mental activity rather than a physical one. The focus in Plotinus is not an external cause, a material principle of darkness to which human errors can be attributed, but the answer to human action, good or evil, to be found within the person, ultimately through reflection and the will as Porphyry makes clear in his own letter to Marcella. B. Immateriality in Neoplatonism Neoplatonism offered rational solutions relying on philosophy, while at the same time, allowing Augustine an alternative explanation to the dualist vision of the world, and a more compelling explanation for human wickedness. The dualist vision is reinterpreted in the ascent/descent movement of human love. Augustine as a rational thinker had been committed to Manicheanism for its intellectual and even obscurantist view of the world. The Old Testament of the Christians was discarded in preference for the Gnostic elements that were preserved by the Manicheans; this was identified with a divine knowledge that only a few individuals possessed (Evans, 1982, pp. 12–13). Neoplatonism suggested that an immaterial explanation of both divine and human activity did not go against human reason, while at the same time Neoplatonism weakened the material dualist vision of Manicheanism. In the Confessions Book 7, Augustine shows his difficulty, first with the notion of God as a material substance since material implies space and corruptibility (7.1), and second, evil is also attributed to an external substance, rather than to individual responsibility (7.3). Neoplatonism provides a reinterpretation of divine substance once the Manichean doctrines are rejected: an immaterial God, and free will. The Neoplatonic discourse takes on theological elements as Augustine seems to offer answers, followed by further questioning, in his reflective state of rational and spiritual turmoil (7.4–5). Moving from Manicheanism, Augustine progressively draws from revelation (7.7), makes specific references to books of the “Platonists” (platonicorum) in the final chapters of Book 7 (20–21). Embedded within the chapters of Biblical texts is reference to God that employs Neoplatonic language:

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AMOR DEI IN SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES He that knows the Truth knows what Light is; and he that knows It, knows eternity. Love knoweth it. O Truth who are Eternity! and Love who art Truth! and Eternity who are Love! (Trans. from Pusey, 1961) (Qui novit veritatem, novit eam, et qui novit eam, novit aeternitatem. Caritas novit eam. O aeterna veritas et vera caritas et cara aeternitas!)

A significant change in Augustine’s language is the use of caritas rather than amor. Augustine is giving God the attribute of “love” and, as a divine attribute, he uses the Latin caritas instead of amor; the latter term as shown in previous sections, was used in human relations, even if the love had as an object something spiritual. For Augustine, however, God is more than amor, the object of a desire: God is caritas, meaning not a desire, but rather, substantial goodness. Plotinus further permits Augustine to see love in non-material terms, as a progressive ascent, stripping away both materiality and corporeality: What is this other place and how is it accessible? It is to be reached by those who, born with the nature of the lover, are also authentically philosophic by inherent temper; in pain of love toward beauty but not held by material loveliness, taking refuge from that in things whose beauty is of the soul—such things as virtue, knowledge, institutions, law and custom—and thence, rising still a step, reach to the course of this loveliness of the Soul, thence to whatever be above that again, until the uttermost is reached, The First, the Principle whose beauty is self-springing: this attained, there is an end to the pain insuperable before. (Enneads, 5.9.2) The Plotinian ascent resembles the process of ascending in Plato’s Symposium. The place of the sensible world, where one begins, advances toward a non-material world, the supersensible, where one desires and loves, but rather than in material things, those things being found in the soul. The questions that follow are significant because they deal with the motivating power that causes this attraction: “But how is the ascent to be begun? Whence comes the power? In what thought is this love to find its guide?” Beauty plays a central role as an answer to these three questions. However, Plotinus makes it clear that one does not stop at beauty, and not even the soul, or the Intellectual-Principle, but continues to the Absolute Soul. The Plotinian interpretation of “love” preserves the dominating feature of Platonic dualism (ibid., 3.5). Truth also parallels the Christian Scriptures. Of particular interest in the above passage are the notions of “light” and “eternity.” Augustine’s exclamation expresses Plotinus’ view of eternity: “Eternity equally with the beauty that is among them and of them and equally with the truth that is among them” (ibid., 3.7). The language of knowledge and the truth and light imagery are suggestive of a Gnostic influence; in fact, Augustine’s preceding chapter (7.9) draws significantly from the prologue to the Gospel of John.

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The language of Book 7 of the Confessions contains elements of both Neoplatonism and Christianity, while at the same time, Augustine makes his journey from Manicheanism to the Catholic faith. Two elements can be established in terms of Augustine’s conversion within the framework of Neoplatonism: (1) the Enneads permitted an interpretation of God and divine substance in spiritual or non-material terms which was a major shift in Augustine’s conception of God; and (2) evil was no longer seen in terms of a material substance and external force. Bronislaus Wladislaus Switalski subsumes these two points into one, and considers a different second element, “The Enneads inspired and impelled Augustine’s will to sublime ideals, although they did not lead him to a final decision (1946, p. 73). Section 2B above, “Reanalyzing Love,” also shows the significance of Plotinian thought in helping Augustine reshape his understanding of love. Although Augustine moved away from the Manichean dialectic, Augustine still did not rid himself altogether of Manicheanism. The discussion on Augustine’s final journey into Christianity reflects Augustine’s solution to the problem of turning away from what is loved, from the good, and the principle of the free will. 4. From “Darkness” to the Free Will In Augustine’s relentless search for truth, and striving to love what is true, he was motivated by the fundamental question, why do people do what is wrong? The problem of human evil plagued him because evil was an obstacle to the love of God. As I suggested above, the Manicheans seemed to have a solution to this difficulty. Dissatisfied with their faulty arguments, Augustine progressively adhered to Neoplatonic teachings that combined Greek rationalism and Christian doctrine. Human evil was not to be attributed to an external force imposing itself from the outside, but rather, evil was the result of the personal choices made by the individual, good or bad. From the time he met Ambrose in Milan in 384, to his conversion to Christianity in 387, Augustine was under the influence of Neoplatonic thought, “for the works of the Neoplatonists formed the intellectual bridge between Augustine the pagan of 384 and Augustine the Christian of 387” (Augustine, 1964, p. xxiv). In 387, Augustine was baptized by Ambrose, Bishop of Milan. In the following year, Augustine began writing De libero arbitrio, which represents his thought on the problem of evil, and his solution to evil. One of Augustine’s fundamental premises was the following: Reason should be master in human life. Therefore, when reason, whether mind or spirit, rules the irrational emotions, then there exists in man the very mastery which the law that we know to be eternal prescribes. (Ibid., 1.8)

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If one thought dominated Augustine’s life, it was the role and use of reason: human intelligence differentiates human beings from lower life forms such as animals and plants. That which was significant to Augustine was that reason permitted emotions to be ordinates “When reason is master of these emotions (motus animae), a man may be said to be well ordered (ordinates)”; without reason one cannot have any order. Emotions, passions, lust had been an ongoing concern for Augustine; if they were not ordered, one became a slave, and a slave is not free. Will as Ordered For Augustine, it is through the will and acts of virtue that one strives to love God, for goodness has its source in God (ibid., 2.19). He differentiates a good will from an evil will through “order”: a good will seeks to lead an honorable life drawing from wisdom and reason, whereas a bad will seeks wealth and bodily goods, riches, honors, pleasures, and bodily beauty. Such attachments reflect the temporal law where lust abounds. This means that virtue is needed to adhere to a good will, prudence, temperance, fortitude, and justice: this is an ordered life. The pursuit of happiness, which all seek, is to live under the eternal law whereby one turns away from temporal things and turns to the purity of the eternal: “The eternal law, therefore, orders us to turn our love, away from temporal things, and to turn it in its purity to the eternal” (ibid., 1.15). Augustine affirms that God created humankind with free will, and if one does wrong, this is due to free will of the individual. Human actions express the will by choosing good and loving God. The crucial question Augustine asks in Book 3, is, “how does the movement come about by which the will is turned from the good?” (ibid., 3.1). The implications of this question—the dialogue between Augustine and Evodius, and the solution—were a source of contention in the sixteenth century. The difficulty arises with an action that is natural and an action that is voluntary. I have shown in the section on cosmic love that the motion toward, like a gravitational pull, is something natural, just as when a stone falls. However, a stone thrown is moved by an external force, this would not be natural. Augustine emphasizes that lust is not something natural but voluntary: it is within the human will to act or refrain from acting. An erotic desire is not to be confused with a stone naturally falling: desires are within the control of the person through the free will. The underlying premise is that the purpose of the human will, placed within the individual by God, is to lead one to God, and this is natural for Augustine. But when the will leads one to turn away from God and to worldly pleasure, then this is voluntary, as Augustine states, “the movement which, for the sake of pleasure, turns the will from the Creator to the creature belongs to the will itself. If this movement is accounted a defect . . . then it is not natural, but voluntary” (1956, 3.1). When the will turns from God, this movement of the will belongs to the spirit. The difference between the downward motion of a stone and the

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downward motion of the spirit is, “the stone does not have in its power to check its downward motion, whereas so long as the spirit does not will to neglect higher goods and love lesser ones, it does not move in that direction” (ibid.). This difference makes the movement of the stone natural, and that of the will voluntary. Even more problematic than passage 3.1 of De libero arbitrio shown above is the difficulty concerning God’s foreknowledge, “God’s foreknowledge does not exclude man’s freedom in sinning” (ibid., 3.3). In his dialogue with Evodius, Augustine attempts to establish that, while God has foreknowledge, and this foreknowledge means that what God knows will happen out of necessity, at the same time, God is not the cause of what happens. This argumentation is delicate because once necessity is inserted into the matter of foreknowledge, it sounds as though human beings no longer have a free will, but rather, necessarily act according to God’s foreknowledge. God’s foreknowledge may mean that an individual will necessarily act according to God’s knowledge, but this does not mean that God is the cause of the action: Augustine’s point is that foreknowledge does not impede free will; as he affirms in his concluding remarks: So, the power is not taken from me by His foreknowledge; but because of His foreknowledge, the power to will[,] will more certainly be present in me, since God, whose foreknowledge does not err, has foreknown that I shall have the power. (Ibid., 3.3.35) Augustine maintains that God not only knows that individuals have the power to choose, but he also knows the choices individuals will make. This is elucidated in Evodius’s reply: “He foreknows our sins in such a way that our will still remains free in us and lies in our power.” Evodius’s comments are a clear indication that God knows what one will choose, but this divine knowledge does not diminish human free will. This freedom which God created in individuals is part of the created order of the universe, and this order constitutes a central Augustinian theme, as he states: If souls will to sin, they sin. If they have sinned they become unhappy. If unhappiness were to go on existing even after these should had ceased to sin, or if happiness preceded sin, the order and government of the universe could properly be said to be ill-formed. If sin occurred and unhappiness did not result from it, then evil would violate order. (Ibid., 3.9.93) Whether a soul truly becomes unhappy due to sinfulness depends on the awareness of one’s sins. Augustine’s statement presupposes that one has knowledge and deliberately chooses to do evil. The significance of knowledge is asserted in De libero arbitrio from the very beginning: a true teacher teaches what is good and a student who learns understands that which

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is good. Based on these premises at the opening of De libero arbitrio, persons who learn to know and do what is good could not be happy when they sin. Augustine, of course, draws from the misery of his personal experience, which he relates in the Confessions. But he also shows that knowledge of one’s sins is the knowledge of turning away from God, rejecting God’s love. The order of the universe extends to the freedom human beings have to sin or not to sin. For Augustine, sin does not constitute imperfection. Rather, the freedom one has is the result of God’s perfection in creating humanity. How human beings use this freedom is a result of their will: “if souls will to sin, they sin.” This further means that the consequences of sin, not only unhappiness, but punishment from God, are all part of this ordered world. Although Augustine writes as a Christian, understanding that evil comes through the human will, his presentation of good and evil remains remarkably black and white; there seems to be no in-between for Augustine: either one seeks God and heavenly things of the divine order, or one seeks the world, things of bodily pleasures, leading to disorder. Man is ultimately created for God. This does not mean that human beings are God’s slaves, or that they are deprived of freedom since they were created for God. On the contrary, for Augustine, the fullness of freedom is to be found when one is in union with God, and in this sense, because humanity was created for God, it is through God that one finds freedom. It is in this freedom, this oneness with God, in which God’s love is manifest. The converse is also true: the further one sets a distance from God by showing an attachment to the world is where slavery is to be found. For Augustine, to choose the world is to go against one’s nature, since one is naturally oriented toward God. The will is involved in freely turning away from God and toward the object of worldly attraction. Because this is not natural, and because the will is used to go against human nature, human beings cannot be free in choices that create a chasm between God and them. God, in turn, derives his pleasure in seeing that human beings fulfill their vocation to be free, to be the fullest of themselves as possible, and to be in union with their origin, their source, which is God. The human will is naturally intended for God. This is Augustine’s understanding of ontology: it is not in human nature to move away from God. This leads once again to the dualism that had formed his thinking for many years, a dualism of good and evil, reward and punishment, God and person, the spiritual and the material. The problem this raises is that human beings find themselves so often between the two, seeking God and yet succumbing to evil. Would the Augustinian solution be to reward humanity for seeking God (through prayers and religious observances) or to punish individuals for evil acts? In the next section, I shall examine how Augustine responds to Pelagius and to his voluntarist doctrine. In De libero arbitrio, Augustine stresses the freedom of the will; this emphasis resembles Pelagian doctrine. The dichotomy that corporeal and spiritual love shows, finds a human solution in Pelagi-

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us’ teachings on free will. Augustine will have to go further, arguing that the will is aided not by human reason alone, but also by divine grace. This gratia is God’s love for his human creation. 5. Augustine and Pelagianism As a solution to evil and sin, Augustine adopted a Christian ethics based on human freedom: one chooses to sin or not to sin; one may choose to do good, or not to do good. Emphasis on free will means that individuals take responsibility for their actions based on the choices they make; one exercises human freedom and responsibility. Ironically, one can espouse an Augustinian notion of human freedom that resembles Pelagius’ thought. Over-emphasizing the role of human liberty and free will leaves the role of God’s grace insignificant. Augustine reconciled free will with God’s divine intervention in human affairs through grace, an expression of God’s love. The relationship between divine intervention and human freedom had been difficult to ascertain; Pelagius had his own solution to the matter. A. Pelagius The controversy surrounding Pelagius’ teachings centered on how God’s love was communicated, and the implications that this divine love had. The uncertainty regarding what Pelagius actually taught, and what the Pelagiani maintained, can be better understood if one examines Pelagius’ background. Pelagius arrived in Rome in the early 380s, but little is known of his life before his arrival, except that he was born in west Britain sometime in the middle of the fourth century (1993, p. 10). Studies further suggest that Pelagius had a good education, probably as a lawyer; he was not an ordained priest, but lived a life of moderate asceticism. Though he is identified as being Celtic in origin, different accounts associated Pelagius with Irish, Welsh, and Scottish roots (Ferguson, 1956, pp. 39–40). Theories identifying Pelagianism with Druid sources accounting for its success in Gaelic regions of Britain are unfounded. Goidelic Celts probably coming from the Rhineland brought with them the abstruse and pantheistic Druid religion, fundamentally ritualistic, establishing holy places with nature worship and human sacrifices (ibid., p. 32). Claims of Pelagius’ Druid roots remain speculative at best, but increasingly doubtful (ibid., pp. 36, 40). Brinley Roderick Rees puts the biographical knowledge available on Pelagius in very plain terms: What do we know about his birth and death? In short, precious little. We know the date and place of neither; but it is reasonably certain that he was born not long after 350 in Britain and died not long after 418 somewhere in the countries adjoining the Eastern Mediterranean. (1988, p. xii)

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Georges De Plinval argues that the Celtic idealist and imaginative nature is incongruent with Pelagius’ Stoic and Christian world view. He refutes claims that Pelagius was brought up by Druids or that he was influenced by a Druidism that produced Celtic ethics combined with Christian doctrine (1943, p. 59). He was most probably brought up in a Christian home and baptized as an adult when he knew the implications of his commitment (ibid., p. 61). He would have had a demanding education during his youth, and his chaste life prevented the sort of escapades that had tormented Augustine. This view of Pelagius’ lifestyle is justified on the basis that Christians were a minority in Britain; witnessing to the pagans who constituted the majority would be necessary. De Plinval further claims that with his studies completed in Britain, his parents would have sent him to Rome for further studies in law (ibid., pp. 61–62). During the last decades of the fourth century, Rome witnessed the emergence of a Christian aristocracy that was maturing in piety and asceticism, as well as the study of Scripture (Rees, 1991, p. 2). Pelagius found his circle of friends and supporters among the wealthy families and Roman clergy (ibid., p. 63). Augustine was familiar with Pelagius’ writings as well as his life of holiness. The first disagreement between the two may have appeared around 405 when Pelagius heard a Bishop reading from Augustine’s Confessions. Both Augustine and Pelagius were committed to, and convinced of, their own orthodox views. Augustine expressed the relationship between the will of God and the will of the individual in the Confessions: “Give me what you command and command what you will” (10.29). Pelagius considered Augustine’s way of looking at the nature of grace as unacceptable, and not in keeping with Catholic doctrine: for Pelagius, the individual as presented in Augustine, seemed impotent before God “a mere marionette” (Ferguson, 1956, p. 47). While there may have been some disagreement between the two at this time, they were not yet full-fledged opponents; Pelagius even approved of what he read in some of Augustine’s works (Evans, 1968, p. 71). However, after leaving Rome for Palestine around 409, Pelagius was also confronted with Jerome’s opposition. Jerome viewed Pelagius as unorthodox and, by 415, Augustine identified Pelagius as the leader of the heretical Pelagiani (Rees, 1991, p. 3). The passage from the Confessions 10.29 reveals something of the conflict between Pelagius and Augustine. Already in the first decade of the fourth century, these two religious men showed a significant difference in their views on grace. Pelagius was identified as the leader of the heretical movement bearing his name; but was he teaching what the Pelagiani taught? The source of the controversy that directly involved Pelagius was his work On Nature, to which Augustine responded in 415, with his own work, On Nature and Grace (Evans, 1968, pp. 70–71). A distinction should be kept between Pelagius and the Pelagian heresy in the broad sense, since, when Augustine wrote, he attacked the heretical views of this movement, and not

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Pelagius per se. However, Pelagius’ views came under under attack when he commented on Romans 5:12. At the end of the fourth century and beginning of the fifth, the Church in Rome was less organized than the African Church: Alaric had attacked Rome, which was still recovering from the psychological and physical shock of the invasion. Besides this, the prominent religious figure, Ambrose of Milan, was no longer in Italy to guide the Church. With the influence of Augustine, Pelagius was condemned at the ecumenical Council of Carthage. It is significant that while Pelagius was condemned by the African Councils, he was not immediately excommunicated by Pope Innocent, and rather reluctantly by Pope Zosimus. The African Councils pressured the Popes to have Pelagius excommunicated. Pope Zosimus felt that evidence was lacking for an excommunication and affirmed that Pelagius was not expelled from the Church (Rees, 1991, pp. 3–4). The fact that Pelagius was not immediately condemned in Rome, while his teachings had been circulating, suggests that he was not thought of as an unorthodox thinker. Moreover, the non-condemnation implies that there was a broad interpretation of doctrine in the fifth century Roman Church (see Rees, 1988, p. 136). Once the Italian peninsula lost Ambrose of Milan, their leading thinker, Augustine was the other major figure, spearheading the Catholic Church in North Africa, in the rising city of Carthage. As Augustine played an increasingly influential role in the African Church, the prospects of a positive reception decreased for Pelagius, especially with the shift of the Church from Rome to Carthage once the Vandals began sacking the papal city. Augustine succeeded in putting pressure on Pope Zosimus that was “tantamount to reversing that of his predecessor [Pope Innocent]” (Rees, 1991, p. 4). At this stage of the explosive controversy, the Emperor intervened in the dispute, condemning all those who denied the Fall of Adam, thus making the matter a political one. This was followed by further condemnations at the Council of Carthage against Pelagianism (418 AD). Later, a Council at Carthage condemned the teachings of Celestius without reference to Pelagius (432 AD) that did raise questions about Pelagius’ association with Celestius and Pelagius’ teachings. Finally, Pope Zosimus issued the Epistula tractoria condemning and excommunicating Pelagius and Celestius, and their supporters (Rees. 1991, p. 304). The paradox of the Pelagian condemnation was that, in southern Gaul, the monks found Augustine’s teachings on election and predestination (A Treatise on the Predestination of the Saints, c. 428 AD; and On the Gift of Perseverance, c. 429 AD) to be “contrary to the opinions of the Fathers and the common view of the Church” (Rees, 1991, p. 6). The opinions of the Fathers were not to be taken lightly, either; the commonly held views of the Church Fathers served as a means of determining orthodox Christian teaching, and to ensure that novel teachings were not infiltrating Church doctrine. As a result, Augustine had to defend his views on election and predestination,

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saying that his teachings were not novel and that they constituted part of orthodox doctrine. This he did by maintaining that the two doctrines on election and predestination could be traced back to Paul. The treatises did not appease the disturbance caused by Augustine’s revolutionary way of interpreting the Scriptures. The monks held that the relationship between God and humankind, as one of partnership, is based on God’s grace (ibid., p. 6). A leading Church figure entered the scene, John Cassian, who was a pupil of one of the Church Fathers, John Chrysostom. Cassian rejected Pelagianism, but he also rejected the other extreme, Augustine’s views on predestination, concupiscence, and the Fall. John Cassian was not alone in refusing to accept the Augustinian extremism; with him were other respected religious figures of southern Gaul, and among them was Vincent of Lerins. The debates showed the highly contentious issues surrounding Pelagius and Augustine. The teachings of Augustine on predestination were finally rejected and condemned by the Council of Orange in 529 (ibid.). The controversy surrounding divine love, especially concerning how God communicates this love, emerged during the late fifth and early sixth centuries, and the debates did not disappear when the Councils were condemned. The underlying problem of divine love resurfaced in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, drawing from Augustine on the one side and accusations of “Pelagianism” on the other. Pelagian Doctrine The basic teaching of Pelagius was that God created human beings with a natural capacity to choose between good and evil according to their conscience. Human beings inherit from Adam this natural capacity to choose following an inner law; they do not inherit original sin as Augustine had claimed. The Pelagian teaching asserted that only by habitually imitating Adam, his example of turning away from God and doing evil, can Adam exert any kind of influence over humankind. The Pelagian view rejected the Augustinian notion that Adam’s sin was more than a bad example, that is, the sin of Adam could have more than an external influence over humankind. Augustine’s argument that Adam’s sin carried with it ontological weight, transmitted to the very being of the individual, was unacceptable for Pelagius. Instead, Pelagius taught that grace was neither infused nor internal, which gave the impression that the relationship between God and the person was contractual. This would make Christianity a religion of righteousness rather than love (ibid.). Indeed, we have seen that for the monks of southern Gaul, the relationship between God and the person was one of partnership. Given Pelagius’ emphasis on works, one is left to infer that a contractual relationship exists between God and the individual, and that God’s love is the saving power offered through his Son and the Holy Spirit, whom God sent to assist the individual. The point here is where Pelagius places the emphasis of his doctrine: Is it on the saving power of Jesus through which humanity is

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redeemed? Or is it the meritorious efforts attached to the free will of the individual? Pelagius does not deny that God’s love saves humanity through his Son, but he emphasizes the human response through the choices that are made. In this respect, Pelagius comes across as presenting his followers with a contracting God. One is saved through God’s Son, but there are conditions attached: right choices, good effort, human works, and sacrifices are part of the bargain. Jesus saves humanity not through an ontological saving grace that touches the inner being of the person, but through the forgiveness of sins and through his teachings and example. Jesus as a formal cause, rather than an efficient cause of salvation, is central to the Pelagian thesis: Jesus sets an example by the way he lives, and he educates the individual through his teachings: by following him, one is saved (Evans, 1968, pp. 108, 111). Pelagius emphasizes the freedom bestowed upon the individual at creation. In this sense, there is a natural grace that exists, so that the will acts freely. For Pelagius, this rational capacity of the person is enough to be without sin; human nature can be attuned to the will of God, while being “unaltered by the effect of habitual sin” (ibid., pp. 95, 112). This capacity that the person receives comes from God, in this sense, can only be understood as “grace” in the natural sense. Pelagius clearly does not want an ontology where individuals act out of necessity. To act out of necessity, the person could not be free; and one who is not free could not be responsible for one’s choices. Pelagius’ position has implications for infant baptism as well as for the associated doctrine of Traducianism (see section B below). The avoidance of a doctrine that is associated with “necessity” of any kind is Pelagius’ response to Manicheanism: if a person acts out of necessity, as in the Manichean doctrine, then, the person is subjected to an exterior force that deprives them of free will. This leads to the problem of love: the freedom God gives to humanity at creation, to interact within his world, with others, with God, is a sign of God’s love, and the choice made by the individual is a sign of love for God. But Pelagius does not underscore human freedom as a sign of God’s love; to understand how Pelagius presents God’s love, his commentary on the Romans would have to be considered. Pelagius regarded God’s grace not as limited to certain chosen persons, but open to all. Once baptized, these individuals strive toward perfection, and for Pelagius, good works were necessary for the baptized to merit heaven. If Pelagius rejected Traducianism, then he would also have rejected infant baptism; his doctrine of freedom would not condone any views that conflicted with freedom or subjected the individual to act out of necessity. So, what would baptism mean for Pelagius? If individual freedom is the central feature of a Pelagian ontology, then, faith would be the result of a choice: only an adult could choose freely and become a baptized Christian. Baptism justifies the person who has faith (ibid., p. 113). The baptized person is forgiven for past sin and made righteous through Jesus. For Pelagius, there is no infusion of grace; to say otherwise would be unfaithful to Pelagian thought. If grace

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has any kind of effect on the will, such as inclining it toward the will of God, then the human will is violated, and for Pelagius, the person is no longer free (ibid., pp. 111, 114). Augustine’s struggle with sin caused by his own uncontrollable desires of the flesh would lead him to a conclusion radically opposed to Pelagius’ thought: human beings were free to choose, but to choose rightly, they needed divine assistance; God’s love was freely given to humankind. Both in the Confessions and De libero arbitrio, Augustine led the individual to God’s grace: the communicable nature of God’s grace is ultimately God’s love for humanity. Parallels exist between Pelagianism and Syriac Christianity. Both expressed Christian faith in the need to pursue the perfect way of life; both emphasized the significance of baptism and spiritual progress. Finally, both focused on the spiritual path to perfection. The third point implied a confrontation with evil and a continuous battle with bad habits by renouncing physical wealth and pleasure (ibid., p. 23). The difference between Roman and Syriac Christianity was that in the former, rigorous asceticism was seen for those who lived a monastic life withdrawn from the world, while in the Syriac Church, this was the fundamental way for all Christians to live out their lives (ibid.). Letter to Demetrias To shed further insight on the thought of Pelagius, I have chosen to give some details on his Letter to Demetrias. Although many of the letters attributed to Pelagius are not identified with any certainty, the Letter to Demetrias is the exception, considered by scholars to be the most authentic writing of Pelagius (ibid., pp. 30, 34). The letter’s Latin is more refined than any of the other letters attributed to Pelagius, and this would make sense given that the recipient of the letter was a Roman aristocrat, who had also been under the influence of Augustine and Jerome. Pelagius had to prove himself as a credible theologian. The originality of thought that comes across in the letter would also be associated with Pelagius. On the personal level, the letter reads as coming from a wise and experienced older friend, whom Demetrias knew in Rome as a child, and whom she could trust. This letter reveals the importance played by the Roman aristocrats in Pelagian circles, as well as the displacement caused by Alaric the Goth in his final attack on Rome in 410, causing Romans to flee to Carthage (ibid., p. 29). Once in Carthage, Demetrias’s family would be in the care of the north African Church, and of course, under the spiritual direction of Augustine. Her family had made arrangements for her marriage, when she unexpectedly decided to take a vow of virginity. By making such a vow, she was immediately following the path set out by Jesus and his mother. What were the implications of such a decision? Augustine’s view was that free will was being emphasized at the expense of grace. This battle between grace and free will is reflected in the correspondence with Demetrias. The letter contains Pelagian

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views on the good of human nature, natural sanctity, and how these two interconnect in freely making choices between good and evil, thereby, winning merit before God, as Pelagius rhetorically asks: Of one who cut off with the sword of faith, that is, her own free will, the very flower of a life still only just beginning and by crucifying her flesh with Christ, dedicated it as a living and holy sacrifice to God and for love of virginity renounced the prospect of providing posterity for a very noble stock? (Rees, 1991, 1.1) Characteristic of Pelagian writing is the presence of Scriptural texts showing that his thoughts were biblically founded. However, Pelagius did not draw from Scripture as a defense for his views. Two other elements that are crucial surface in this text—the place of the free will, that is, Demetrias freely made a choice to offer herself to Jesus and the radical choice that was made—took on concrete actions. Pelagius also makes a comparison between that which Demetrias chose and that which she gave up. In the second paragraph, Pelagius uses a number of verbs to focus on Demetrias’s desires and her free will: “she has rejected,” “she has renounced,” “she has spurned,” “she wants,” “she desires,” “she seeks,” “ready to fulfill by deeds.” These verbal expressions suggest that Demetrias is making the decision; the choices are coming from within her; this is what she wants: emphasis is clearly placed on the person. Pelagius focuses on the “power and quality of human nature” and the virtues that this power is capable of achieving. For him, the good of human nature refers to God, who created humankind, because only human beings have the faculties to recognize the creator God. The freedom that human beings have, in the Pelagian framework of the free will, is not just the capacity to distinguish and act, but also the possibility of transgressing or returning to previous evil: a person can change from evil to good, but a person can also return to evil from good. Freedom moves in both directions, Pelagius adds, “Our most excellent creator wished us to be able to do either but actually to do only one, that is, good, which he also commanded, giving us the capacity to do evil only so that we might do his will by exercising our own” (ibid., 3.2) By loving God, one is united with God, and this union is possible when one does the will of God. The will of God is loving the good. But how one loves the good and how one interprets God’s love, gratia, differs in the thought of Pelagius and that of Augustine: for Augustine, loving and doing what is good is not possible without grace; while for Pelagius, loving and doing what is good is unacceptable if imposed by grace. The main point here is how one goes about doing the will of God, since both Pelagius and Augustine would agree that, by doing what is good, one does the will of God.

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The emphasis in Pelagian thought would be on the freedom of the action, while in Augustine, the emphasis would be on divine assistance to know and act on the will of God. For Pelagius, one does the will of God with one’s own choice, and then, with the natural capacities with which the person was created. As I have already shown, doing good within a Pelagian framework means there is no divine interference that would diminish the autonomy of the individual. This differs radically from Augustine, since grace is needed for any good act, and even the faith that is needed requires God’s grace. From an Augustinian perspective, divine assistance, not the individual, is the starting point. Without God’s help through the grace infused at baptism, good works that unite the individual to the will of God are not possible. Contrarily, we have seen that Pelagius does not permit an ontology that diminishes freedom due to any doctrine that suggests “necessity”: for Pelagius, if one acts out of necessity, then one is not free; and to love, one must be free. Pelagius raises a significant point concerning the goodness of human nature: natural goodness, which leads the individual to perform good acts, draws from the human nature that God created. God communicates something of himself at creation. Pelagius points out that pagan philosophers have been known to be “chaste, tolerant, temperate, generous, abstinent,” qualities that are pleasing to God, but coming from pagans “strangers to God.” Pelagius’ conclusion is that these qualities must come from the “good of nature” (ibid., 3.3). This emphasis on the goodness of human nature and the potential for the good resurfaces in the writings of sixteenth and seventeenth century Augustinian thinkers, especially, Gasparo Contarini, Pierre de Bérulle, Guillaume Gibieuf, and Nicolas Malebranche, which will be examined in later chapters. Pelagius on St. Paul’s Epistle to the Romans In this section, I focus on two central passages from Pelagius’ commentary on St. Paul’s Epistle to the Romans concerning amor Dei and Traducianism (a controversial topic during the late third and early fourth century). Pelagius’ commentary on the Romans was written during his last years in Rome (c. 405–406 AD), before Alaric’s army approached the city in 410, when he would have fled Rome. The commentary is considered to have been the result of guidance and teaching provided for the Roman aristocracy (Pelagius, 1993, p. 11). Based on Romans 5:5, Pelagius maintains that God’s love for humanity is shown in two ways: he sends his Son who dies for humankind, and through Jesus’s death, the sins of the world are forgiven; and he has sent the world the Holy Spirit (ibid., p. 90). The implications for Pelagius are twofold: God’s love is causal because, as St. Paul states, humankind is saved by the death of Jesus; and by imitating” Jesus’s life one will also glory in it. The role of imitating Jesus is crucial in becoming Christ-like. Imitating means following the actions of Jesus; Pelagius is interested in what one does—how one acts. How is this possible? Through the Holy Spirit that God has sent into the world

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“who shows the glory of things to come (ibid.). This “showing” prompts the individual to do good, seeking the heavenly reward that God has promised. In Romans 5:5, Pelagius interprets caritas Dei to mean the believer’s love for God (ibid., p. 90n6). The love which has been shown toward humankind, through Jesus, is undeserved because of humanity’s sinfulness, and so, one ought to love Jesus in return. Pelagius further uses the word “benefits” twice from Paul’s Letter to the Romans (5:5–6) to show the implications of this love, how the individual benefits from it. Pelagius also accentuates the gratuity of this love, God’s grace, since God had no obligation to show how much he loves us (ibid., p. 91). Pelagius emphasizes the gratuity of divine love, the cross and death that the Son of God endured for humankind as signs of this love, and how the individual benefits through the forgiveness of sin and the prophetic presence of the Holy Spirit. This gratuity of God demonstrating love calls for a response: the believer has good reason for responding favorably to this love. It is interesting to see how Pelagius gives a rational account of why the person should respond, why the person should choose to love God. But of course, there is the problem of sin. Adam’s sin is taken up in Romans 5:12, which prompts the Pelagian view of Traducianism. B. Pelagius on Adam’s Sin Pelagius responded to Romans 5:12 in the light of the fourth century controversies concerning original sin. As shown above, the verse from Romans 5:5 highlights God’s love as causal: Jesus’ death saves humanity and the Holy Spirit gives human beings the power to do good; God leaves the world his love. Commenting on Romans 5:12, Pelagius gives an account of Paul’s explanation for the presence of sin in the world, which is identified with Adam, and this sin leads to death. Pelagius gives his own interpretation of the verse: Adam’s sin comes into the world by “example” or by “pattern” as well as death (ibid., p. 95). In this sense, sin is a formal cause, since it is the cause of a bad example that is repeated; this is contrasted with Jesus as a formal cause, who is a good example of virtue. For Pelagius, sin represents a pattern, and as Adam died due to sin, others who follow Adam into sin, also die. This brings out a significant freedom in the individual: sin is only connected through patterns with Adam, a formal cause. For Pelagius, there is no ontological connection to sin in the sense of a final cause: Adam’s sin does not touch the inner being of the person through the soul at birth. Traducianism The fourth century controversy surrounding original sin had to do with Traducianism, which needs to be examined in the light of free will. I have noted the importance of the doctrine of free will for Augustine, through which he overcame the Manichean dialectic that opposed forces of good and evil. As

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shown at the beginning of this chapter, this view of free will for Augustine was only possible after he became a Christian. Distinguishing his doctrine on free will from the Pelagian doctrine, Augustine acknowledged that a leap was necessary from the knowledge of a good action to the act itself, and this act required grace, God’s gratuitous love. Before grace, there is faith, openness to this love, and divine assistance to help those who believe to perform good works (TeSelle, 2002, p. 162). In this respect, grace has a causal function, because without this aid, the individual is incapable to independently do what is good. This is where Pelagian doctrine opposes the Augustinian teaching on grace: for Pelagius, the individual’s natural capacity bestowed upon him by God at creation can achieve good. Augustine would argue that the problem is not with the mind, the intelligence with which God created human beings. Instead, the problem lies with the will itself: the will is unstable, turning to God, turning to the world; and so grace prompts the will “arousing and sustaining the fervour of love” (ibid., p. 202). Grace serves to incline the free will toward God and things of God. The free will element constituted a central feature of Pelagian liberty, but the role of grace was greatly diminished. One might say that for Pelagius, emphasis on free will was at the expense of supernatural grace. In Pelagius’ view, a doctrine that tampered with the will would be unacceptable. His ontology was built on the complete autonomy of the will, and any kind of efficient causality diminishing human liberty was incompatible with his view of the person. Both original sin and grace as divine assistance were doctrines he could not accept because of his ontology. According to Pelagius what was necessary for free will was that the will be the will, and free. The problem that needed to be resolved was how sin came into the world. Connected to the transmission of sin was yet another issue: the question of when the soul came into existence. Rufinus of Syria, who was in Rome at the time of Pelagius, discussed three possibilities: first, the soul was created sometime between conception and birth; second, the soul was passed from parent to child, also known as “Traducianism”; the third possibility, which he considered to be erroneous, was Origen’s view, that the soul was created in advance (ibid., p. 19). Why did Rufinus object to Origen’s position? Rufinus associated with a hereditary soul, sin that was transmitted with the soul. Such a claim would eliminate or reduce individual responsibility since individuals were no longer accountable for their sins, but inherited sin from guilty parents, namely, Adam and Eve. Moreover, because baptized infants still died, so, baptism did not prevent infants from dying even if they had been cleansed from the inherited sin. Instead, baptism was understood to be part of a spiritual birth in Jesus and offered a share in his kingdom. Pelagius responded to Romans 5:12 in a way that resembled Rufinus’ rejection of Traducianism: he

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attached to the individual the liberty of choice, without having this freedom impaired by the sin of Adam and Eve. C. Pelagius on Love From what has been shown of Pelagius’ writings, the Letter to Demetrias and the Commentary on Romans, what can one infer about Pelagius’ understanding of love? Pelagius wrote a letter to Augustine in response to his deterministic view of the will. He claimed that his comments on the grace of God were to be found in the letter: without God, nothing is possible. Instead, reading the letter, what struck Augustine was the power of human nature, and it was in human nature that God’s grace manifested itself. John Ferguson states, “Whether he meant by grace the forgiveness of sin, the teaching and example of Christ, or the power of a blazing love kindled by God in our hearts, was nowhere specified” (1956, p. 48). Ferguson points out that it is not clear whether Pelagius’ comments on grace have any relationship to love. It is not from Pelagius’ Celtic roots that one can know his views on love, since the Celtic traditions in the life of Pelagius, especially his childhood, remain unclear. Nor does Pelagius write on the topic of love as a theme in itself, at least this is not evident in the Letters. What remains most clear is his response to amor Dei as it appears in Romans 5; he comments that love has a twofold understanding: the forgiveness of our sins through Jesus and the Holy Spirit, whom God sends to humanity. Pelagius looks at love in terms of what God has done for humanity, and the natural, with emphasis on the “natural,” response to this love is by “love.” God loves human creatures, whom he created; this love is communicated through his Son and his Spirit, and human beings should naturally return this love. This also means that human love will be expressed through works that are a sign of this love, works of goodness. But it does not end with works because Pelagius knows that human nature also expects to be rewarded for what is good, and similarly punished for acts of evil. The Pelagian God acts in a contractual or legalistic way, since divine grace is lacking. Grace is the gratuity of a God of love: grace permits a flow of love between God and the person, grace is the bridge, the bridge of mercy that Pelagius excludes. D. Augustine’s Response to the “Romans” Augustine’s first response to the Romans was personal: Paul’s letter marked the turning point in the life of Augustine that triggered his final conversion. His reference to Paul’s Epistles is given in the Confessions 8.6, 8; and Marrou maintains that Romans 13:13 would have made a particular impact on Augustine (1959, p. 33). His conversion culminates in the garden scene: The “gar-

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den” itself is rich in symbolism being associated with the Garden of Eden where the will was exercised in an act of defiance against God. The garden is also suggestive of the pear-tree incident when Augustine chose out of pleasure to steal pears, being moved by his will to do evil. Augustine is in another garden, with his longtime friend Alypius; this friendship in itself is an expression of love. In this garden is Paul’s Epistles sitting on the table, “Up he took, and opened it; and quite besides his expectation, found it to be St. Paul’s Epistles. . . . I once told, how that I bestowed much pains upon those writings” (Confessions, 8.6). The visitor, Ponticianus, a Christian, then relates the story of the monk, Anthony of Egypt, the monastic life, including a monastery under Ambrose outside of Milan. Paul’s Epistles marked the conversion, or literally “turning around” for Augustine, and once again, his will was inclined to make a choice; but as stated in the Confessions, his will was torn between the will’s positive volition, and the body’s incapacity to act (8.8). The struggle between the will and the flesh echoes Paul (Romans, 7:15– 16). The central role of the Epistles in Augustine’s conversion reveals the Pauline influence on the thought of Augustine. The highlighted presence of Paul is between the two garden accounts of Books 6 and 8 of the Confessions: Paul’s Epistles to the Corinthians, Romans, and Colossians, dominate Book 7. The movement from Neoplatonism to Christianity progresses through, and builds upon, Pauline material by the end of 7.21; but already in 7.20, his Neoplatonist experiences are interpreted in the light of Pauline thought: Augustine brings out the need of God’s grace, and the goodness one accomplishes is a gift from God (TeSelle, 2002, p. 36). In the year 392, Augustine was ordained to the priesthood. He wrote the Confessions in 397. This suggests that his response to Paul would at first have been more personal, and then evolved into something more doctrinal in the light of the Pelagian controversies. Moreover, the immediate impact that Paul’s Epistles had on Augustine in 386, as he struggled to answer personal questions, and his writing of the Confessions, a reflective work of his spiritual journey written ten years after his conversion, suggests that the Confessions express a mature thought in response to Paul’s writings. From the early period of Augustine’s priesthood to his response in 397 on the matter of grace, his perception of God’s love reveals a shift in his thought (Pelagius, 1993, p. 20). It can be assumed that the Confessions adequately reflects a change in Augustine’s views since he is writing to reply to some questions on Romans raised by Simplician of Milan between 397–398 (Brown, 2000, p. 84). De Bruyn maintains that “Augustine broke altogether with the sense of justice that figured in the prior discussion of Romans, and denied that anyone merits the grace of God either by works or by faith” (Pelagius, 1993, p. 20). As shown in De libero arbitrio, Augustine’s conversion rested on the central notion of human freedom wherein one chooses to do right or wrong and is accordingly rewarded or punished for these actions; this would correspond to

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divine order. In this respect, Augustine’s theology would not be significantly different from Pelagius, whose focus is on human freedom: a just God who rewards or punishes according to the choices that one makes (ibid., p. 21). The Pelagian elements of the Adamic sin are evident in Augustine’s letter Contra Fortunatum, where he maintained that one has the freedom to choose one’s actions, but as the result of Adam’s sin, the “necessity of habit” enters into the human condition where God’s grace is needed in order to do what is right (ibid., pp. 21). These views do not sound any different from those held by Pelagius. It may well have been that while in Italy, Augustine shared elements of Pelagius’ theology without really seeing any problem with it (ibid.). When Augustine is writing to Simplician five years after his letter to Fortunatus, he took a more forceful position on grace, maintaining that grace comes before any kind of merit, including that of faith. In contrast to God’s grace is a corporate human sinfulness due to Adam’s sin: “punishment of original sin” (peona originalis peccati). This is the first time Augustine makes reference to the doctrine of “original sin” (ibid.) 6. Augustine on Grace In chapter One, I argued that three loves are present in Augustine, and focused on two of them, cupiditas and caritas. I maintained that these two types of love were presented in a dichotomized relationship in Hannah Arendt’s work, while in Oliver O’Donovan’s analysis, they constitute progressive stages of development from cosmic love to benevolentia at two polar ends. I have maintained that these two categories of love are present in Augustine, but they need to be understood in terms of the gratuity of divine love, gratia. In this chapter, I presented the obstacles confronting Augustine in his journey to a fuller truth and a more authentic love, compared to that which he had known and experienced. Augustine resolved the Manichean dialectic once he was under the influence of Neoplatonism through the ascent/descent reanalysis of love. I also examined in this chapter the third kind of love, grace. Augustine’s conceptual difficulty with evil led him to free will and grace. His confrontations with Pelagius enabled him to accentuate the importance of grace. All good human acts including faith itself require divine assistance—God’s love freely given to the individual. The only problem is the extent to which this goodness is natural, as Pelagius would argue, and to what extent divine assistance would be needed, as Augustine would claim. This debate would resurface in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries with the controversies surrounding divine love.

Three AUGUSTINIANISM: SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES 1. Early Modern Philosophy This chapter will examine certain controversial figures who were involved in theologico-political disputes deriving from interpretations of Augustine; these include, Gasparo Contarini, Pierre de Bérulle, Guillaume Gibieuf, William Chalmers, and Cornelius Jansen. The Counter Reformation generated a variety of interpretations of Augustine concerning the love of God, the experience of grace. These five figures offered their own interpretations of the love of God. In the case of Jansen, further problems arise as well, which is why I will treat him separately. Neoplatonic elements in Augustine resurface in the work of both Scotus Eriugena and Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite. Neoplatonism addressed how the Divine manifests itself in human agents. Placing Eriugena and the Areopagite after the first five figures underscores the underlying Neoplatonism that reappears in the sixteenth and seventeenth century Augustinian revival. This chapter shows the development of “amplitude,” the expression of divine love in human agents leading to a union with the Divine. The question to be addressed is: how does the union of human and the Divine come about without compromising human freedom? God’s love inhabits the person, and this gratuitous presence of the Divine depends on the person’s openness to God’s love. In this chapter, “love,” understood in terms of divine gratuity, or “grace,” begins with Contarini’s notion of amplitude, and ends with the Neoplatonist participation in the Divine. The Society of the Oratory of Jesus founded by Pierre de Bérulle in Paris revives Augustine with its own emphasis on grace, which differs from Jansens’s exclusivist interpretation. This chapter demonstrates the difficulties encountered when the Divine is given the attribute of “love”: What are the implications in terms of human freedom? We have seen that “love,” with its associations, human and divine, was a dominating concern for Augustine, and crucial to his conversion. He struggled with how to reconcile the problem of evil with a God who loves. The ontological structure of human beings has ethical implications, but neither the ontology nor the ethics is separable from God. Individuals were created to love God, but they remain free to turn away from God because they are created with free will. Free will, however, needs assistance to do what is good. And so, one needs God’s help. This assistance involves giving to individuals the faith they need to turn to God. In other words, human beings do not first reach out to God; God reaches out to the individuals.

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During the process of Augustine’s long conversion, his thought was fundamentally influenced by Manichean thought and Neoplatonism. I will show that the interpretation of Augustine and “divine love” needs to be understood within the context of the theologico-political climate of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and the underlying Manichean and Neoplatonic elements. 2. Gasparo Contarini In this section, I shall consider the significance of Contarini’s writings focusing on the notion of “divine amplitude” and how God’s love is expressed through amplitude. To draw from Contarini’s philosophical principle of amplitude, one should consider how amplitude evolved out of his tormented spiritual struggle, not unlike Augustine and Paul centuries before him. Contarini had been torn between his religious calling as a monk, in which he could live a contemplative life in solitude, and an active life in the world where he believed he could equally respond to God’s call: But not being certain either of the way of Religion [a monk], or even certain of perdition in the way of civil life, but in all things being a way to salvation and to perdition, we must judge that the most wide architect of the universe gave to different men, different means to reach his end, that is, to salvation. (Letter dated 10 March 1512, Viallon, 2005, pp. 61–63) (Ma non essendo né via de Religion certa, né etiam la vita civil certa de perditione, ma in tute essendo modo di pervenir a salute et a perdition, devemo iudicare che da quel sapientissimo opifice de l’universo a diversi homeni sian state date diverse vie de pervegnir ad uno terminie, zoè a la salute.) Contarini’s real difficulty was overcoming his sins, which weighed him down. Much like Augustine, his obsession with sin afflicted him. Contarini’s spiritual life was sustained through a life of solitude at his home in Murano, in northern Italy, the example of the Benedictine Canoni di San Giorgio in Alga, his close ties with the Camaldolese monks, and his discussions with Erasmus. But these spiritual experiences led him to believe that the life of religious solitude would reinforce internal tension degenerating into further sin. Contarini’s struggle was that, in either case, he was in conflict between what could lead to perdition and what could lead to salvation. Although he believed that it was possible to reach God through a secular life, he saw a greater risk of perdition in the world. This struggle echoes Augustine’s, where God is sought, but human weakness imposes limits on the capacity to do good. Contarini was obsessed with the question about his own “way to salvation” (via della salute ) (ibid., p. 63). Neither sacrifices nor self-imposed

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penitential suffering could offer a solution to human sin, decreasing the possibilities of salvation, but he came to realize: The infinite Goodness shines infinitely, loving us worms so much, that we cannot even comprehend it with our intelligence, only out of love he created us and raised us to participate in his same happiness. . . . All those who will be united to this body [the Church] by the effect of the virtue of satisfaction that our head [Christ], can with little effort hope to satisfy his sins. The only effort we need to make is if we unite ourselves to our head [Christ] with faith, with hope and the little love that we can. As for the reparation of sins committed, and those to which human weakness succumbs, his passion is sufficient and more than enough. (Letter dated 24 April 1511, ibid., p. 63, author’s translation) The year of this writing, 1511, was significant in Contarini’s life. Unlike his friends who had become Camaldolese monks the previous year, rejecting the secular world and the light of reason, Contarini believed that reason as a gift from God could help individuals grasp the proper norms of ethical conduct (Vasoli, 1998, p. 413). One of the recurring themes in Contarini’s writings was the inability of human beings to attain salvation by their proper powers: no human penance could satisfy the justice of God. This reached a dramatic climax on the Holy Saturday of 1511, as shown in his writing above: Contarini was convinced that only faith in Jesus and his death for humanity could cancel sins; this view was reinforced by Paul’s letter to the Corinthians, that human beings are incapable of doing anything good on their own (ibid., p. 414). No doubt, an echo of Augustine’s Confessions can be found in Contarini’s interior revelation. The central terms that draw from the Augustinian God: “infinite goodness”; the contrast between the corruptible material and the incorruptible transcendence of “worms” and Creator, respectively; the participation in the divine life a common theme in Augustine where God is present in the individual, and the individual is present in God; finally the centrality of grace that is present in Contarini’s text where God’s passion, his love, suffices to repair human failure. This interior revelation indicates that Contarini does not need to perform acts of mortification, or to enter religious life as a means of obtaining God’s justice; it reveals to him that God’s grace, through the salvific passion of Jesus, is sufficient. The salvific role of Jesus’ passion means that through one’s own faith, the passion and death of Jesus’ saves the individual. This is an act of God’s grace—the expression of his love. In Contarini, it is precisely grace that is emphasized. Pelagianism focuses on the righteous actions of the individual, mortification, continence, a lifestyle that is clearly given to prayer, religious observances, and unquestionably offering in itself as a natural means of saving power. Contarini acknowledges that humanity is saved by the meritorious act of Jesus and not the efforts of individuals: Jesus died on

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the cross, and it is this act that saves humanity, through one’s faith. It is God’s grace and the individual’s faith in response to this grace that leads one to salvation: God loves and the individual responds with love. One finds in Contarini the interiorization of salvation, the inner experience of God’s love. For Contarini, it is not intellectual research that will change the person from a life of sin to a life of holiness, but divine grace, as Augustine had argued; the Pauline discourse leads to a new person, once the old is abandoned (Viallon, 2005, p. 64). Based on this claim that one only needs faith, and that it is the love of the individual that God seeks, not works or actions or any kind of effort, a problem remains. In Contarini, the extremes he confronts are evident, moving from the works, sacrifices, and efforts, to the other end where only faith matters. But the question raised in Chapter One resurfaces: What does it mean to love God, or for God to love us? Love cannot mean indifference. If love is a response, then, in human terms, some kind of standard is needed, otherwise “love” is meaningless. As these two extremes, faith and works, re-surface in the sixteenth-seventeenth centuries, one is faced with these two alternatives. The solution is to find an answer in the middle, where love neither excludes human works, sacrifices, and effort, nor excludes God’s gratuitous love; faith and works are not mutually exclusive, but complimentary. Counter Reform zeal was characterized by misguided fervor that attacked Martin Luther’s deviation on grace and free will; views exalting grace or emphasizing human weakness were suspiciously criticized. Contarini, Bishop of Belluno, reminded these fervent Counter Reformers that with the zealous intention of attacking Luther, targeting grace and free will would lead to Pelagianism. Such misguided fervor also went against the teachings of Augustine of Hippo, Ambrose of Milan, Bernard of Clairvaux, and Thomas Aquinas, deviating from Catholicism and collapsing into heresy (Viallon, 2005, pp. 65–67). Contarini and Amplitude Contarini develops the notion of “amplitude” in his work on De libero arbitrio. He first turns to the role of nature, or reason, a method of philosophical discourse employed in theology which was contested by Luther. Contarini stipulates that he is not rejecting the role reason has in theological discourse, since the natural light of reason is also a gift from God. These key concepts, nature and philosophy, express a rational discourse and would provide the foundation for what Contarini later develops. He does not base his views on any faith experience at the initial stages of his defense, but advances the discourse on the grounds of human nature to lead to the doctrine of free will (Contarini, 1571, p. 597D). After nature, with reason and philosophy as a starting point, Contarini draws from another source, Revelation: in reference to Paul of Tarsus, Contarini points out that the mind is impressed with light and nature, referring

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to Aristotle’s Physics (ibid., pp. 597E, 598H). The discussion develops around that of which the mind is capable and how one can know this: both reason and faith give answers concerning the power of the mind. The “light” metaphor, however, is not new: the image of light in relation to the mind had already been extensively developed by Aristotle in De anima, and Thomas Aquinas alluded to Plato’s “sun” in Summa theologica (I, q. 79, art. 5, sol. 3). Contarini makes reference to both reason and faith, structuring first his epistemology and then his ethics. One has the light of the mind, which is known through nature, but also through Revelation. He further postulates that the mind teaches one truth; the truth to be known is made possible through the mind’s light. Two texts of Paul, both in Romans, express the role of natural reason given to humanity by God: Ever since the creation of the world, the invisible God and his everlasting power have been clearly seen by the mind’s understanding of created things. And so these people have no excuse: they knew God and yet they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but their arguments became futile and their uncomprehending minds were darkened. (1:20–21) Paul expresses the view that natural reason helps one to know God through God’s creation, and from this knowledge, the praise of which God is worthy, follows. This passage clearly highlights that knowledge of God is through nature, or at least begins with nature. The following chapter in Romans continues with the theme of humankind’s natural intellectual capacity: So, when gentiles, not having the Law, still through their own innate sense behave as the Law commands, then, even though they have no Law, they are a law for themselves. That can demonstrate the effect of the Law engraved on their hearts, to which their own conscience bears witness. (Romans 2:14–15) Once again, the idea of “innate sense,” which serves as a guide, leads to behavior that satisfies the Mosaic Law: conscience serves as a guide with the law “engraved on their hearts.” The notion of the mind connected or relating to the Divine, or as the divine in the person, is typical of Hellenic thought. However, James D. G. Dunn tells us that the notion of mind (no) did not fit naturally into Hebrew thought. According to him, “Paul was simply using the apologetic bridge to non-Jewish religious philosophy which had earlier been constructed within Hellenistic Judaism.” Instead, the use of “heart” is more Hebraic and, as the innermost part of the person, one finds the seat of emotions, thought, and will (1998, pp. 73–75). The light to which Contarini refers is not just a Biblical image, but a symbol that has Greek philosophical sources, as in Aristotle’s De anima 3.5,

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the light imagery in Neoplatonic writings, especially in Plotinus, 5.1.2, and Alexander of Aphrodisias’ De intellectu, 111.32. Each of these concerns the mind. I have also shown in Chapter Two the positive quality of light in Manicheanism and Gnosticism; but in these, light is more associated with a moral force in the world than a mere intellectual illumination. By stating that the mind is illuminated at birth by God, Contarini is drawing from both philosophical and theological traditions. Contarini can make the forceful statement that, by this light, intelligence is driven to truth. From this claim, it can be understood that the object of the intelligence is truth. The notion of amplitude, which is understood in the light of the universal good, emerges as a part of human nature, in contrast to the narrowness of animals, which clearly are not free because they follow instinctive appetites. The contrast is made between the narrowness (angusto) or limited nature of animal appetites and the amplitude (amplitudo) of the universal good, respectively (Contarini, 1571, p. 599A). The Universal Good contains amplitude because only in God’s goodness can there be amplitude. Contarini differentiates between the narrowness of animal instincts and the amplitude of divine goodness. Amplitude occurs with both intelligence and the will: the amplitude of the intelligence refers to the capacity to understand all things, while the will’s amplitude refers to all things good (ibid., p. 599C). By departing from God, who is the highest universal good and who is the finality of humanity, a person also abandons amplitude. For this to happen, narrowness of the person must be present. This weakened state of narrowness is the result of the power of appetites rather than the will. Contarini infers that such narrowness is comparable to that of animals, having already discussed the narrowness of brutish behavior (ibid., p. 600F). Once the narrow behavior of appetites is manifest, then, liberty has been turned over to servitude. However, for Contarini, this means necessarily turning away from God because God is the highest universal good (ibid., p. 600G). An opposition is established between the unrestrained impulses of nonhuman animals that lack a will, and human beings, who, defined in the light of intelligence, are free to make choices. Contarini structures this opposition not only to underscore the difference between animals and human beings, but to show how human behavior can be “brutish” when it is determined by instincts. This opposition resembles a Platonic dialectic, but not a Platonic ascent: the material world of finite creatures is contrasted to the infinite goodness of God, whose amplitude is the source of freedom. God is both infinite and good. His efficiency is the cause of intelligent life. God is good because all things have their being from him and depend on him (Enneads, 5.9–10). God’s amplitude can express itself through human infinity, that is, the infinity and goodness that God communicates to his human creation, enabling individuals to participate in divine goodness.

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Divine and human activity comes together in the person as a result of God’s amplitude (Bellusci, 2006, p. 6). So, where is love to be found? For Contarini, love as an expression of freedom is contained in the amplitude of the good. If the highest universal good is God, then, free will is found in God’s goodness. Having established that by departing from the highest good one also departs from the amplitude of the free will and subjected to the narrowness of appetites, Contarini argues that the fullness of free will is to be found within the goodness of God and God’s infinity (1571, p. 600H). Openness to the Divine permits the manifestation of divine love—in the individual—and toward God. This notion of divine amplitude finds its way into L’École Française, a religious and intellectual movement. L’École Française and the foundation of the French Oratory were both characterized by a return to Augustine. 3. L’École Française and Pierre de Bérulle In this section, I shall be examining Pierre de Bérulle and the development of divine love in L’École Française. The implications of Adam’s sin and death, leading to the problem of original sin and the doctrine of Traducianism, resurface in the seventeenth century, bringing Pelagius back into the present discussion. Henri Marrou maintains that in the seventeenth century: If a name is to be chosen to summarise the depth and the fecundity of this influence in the area of spirituality, piety and mysticism, one can hardly hesitate to stop at the name of Cardinal Pierre de Bérulle, the first to inspire this great movement rightly called, “L’École Française.” (1959, pp. 169–170) Bérulle was inspired and motivated by Augustine’s works, which resulted in the foundation of a mystical spirituality. He expressed a particular bond with Jesus, as “slave,” to show the servitude of the creatures toward the Creator. This notion of “servitude” came from the influence of the Spanish Carmelites and the reform that had been taking place in the Spanish monasteries (see Bérulle, 1996, pp. 25–27). Bérulle sought to establish a tripartite relationship based on servitude: toward the Creator, servitude founded on Christ’s redemption, which unites the individual with him, and the specific servitude that binds the priesthood of the French Oratory with the priesthood of Jesus Christ, Sovereign Priest (ibid., p. 25). An element of Rhineland mysticism can also be identified in Bérulle’s thought, or perhaps a more direct source being that of Dionysian mysticism since “annhililation”—a total purification of the self (anéantissement)—plays a crucial role in his spirituality. For Bérulle, nothingness is not being lost in the Absolute, but rather, nothingness expresses the rational creature’s “absolute” capacity to follow the will of the Creator, God, who possessed the rational being before creation (ibid.). The

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will of God, in this absolute sense, resembles Augustine as far as being possessed by God even before creation (Confessions, 7.11). The Platonic and Neoplatonic elements are also suggested in these lines: “being possessed” by God, and the notion of being lost in God, which causes non-being, though not by absorption, but through union with God’s will. Between 1612 and 1614, Bérulle built his mystical theology on the interior life of Jesus and the participation of Christians through grace, in the mystical body of Christ (Bérulle, 1996, p. 27). While the theme of annihilation constitutes the influence of Rhineland mysticism, he transforms the mysticism into something profoundly concrete: God’s incarnation, his presence in the world, becomes the point of reference for Bérulle in a mystical theology that is ultimately enfleshed. Early in Bérulle’s career as a spiritual writer and master, doubts were raised about the doctrinal integrity of his spirituality. With the Spanish Carmelite reform under Teresa of Avila, the Carmelite presence in France was placed under Bérulle’s guidance, but Rome intervened due to complaints concerning his orthodoxy. The intervention came from the Discalced Carmelite, Father Denys de la Mère de Dieu, who lodged the following attacks against Bérulle: (1) the added Carmelite Vow is determined by the Oratorian Visitor, Pierre Bérulle; (2) the proposed servitude to Mary is idolatrous; and (3) Bérulle’s Christology reflect underlying Nestorian and Monophysite heresies. Despite these attacks, Bérulle continued to build his mystical theology on divine love. A. Bérulle and Divine Love In Discourse 9 of Discours de l’État et des Grandeurs de Jésus, Bérulle focuses on the subject of divine love, and addresses the question concerning the love of an infinite God, who can love the world and humanity: “God, the infinite and eternal God, is he capable of loving outside him-self? Is he capable of loving things so low as things of this world? Is he capable of loving them as such and even in excess” (1996, p. 344; author’s translation). Bérulle asks whether God is capable of loving outside himself, which means loving outside his own perfection, the world and humankind. This question suggests a marked contrast from an Aristotelian God, who contemplates his own perfection. Bérulle’s source, of course, is a Biblical one, and so the demonstration that God loves the world and thereby loves humankind comes from Revelation. Since this is not a philosophical argument as such, we need to recognize that the premise that God loves the world does not derive from a philosophical assertion, but a theological one, one rooted in the Christian Scripture. The basis of Bérulle’s questioning concerns a God whose knowledge of love and pleasure is engaged in eternal happiness. How is it that God could find the time for small creatures, imperfect and finite? The first point Bérulle

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makes is that perceptible material objects are transformed into something spiritual and intelligible. In this regard, knowledge differs from love. Knowledge brings the object toward the knower, rather than the knower lowering itself to the object, and this knowledge is in proportion to the knower, human, angelic, or divine. Love is the reverse movement: the lover is lowered to the loved object, by a power that submits itself to this object. The distinction Bérulle makes is significant in terms of what it means to know God and what it means to love God. The soul knows God for who God is in the person’s soul, while the soul loves God for how God is in himself (ibid.). This distinction expresses Bérulle’s understanding of the subjectivity of knowledge and the objectivity of love. The movement outward that reflects love from person to object, or soul to beloved, reflects the passionate character of this outward movement. However, bringing the object or the beloved to the soul, the lover, expresses a subjective experience of knowledge. This is analogous to the Platonic ascent and descent: knowledge is associated with ascent, ascending to the person’s intelligence where things are known, while the affective domain of love, which involves a descent, is a corporeal movement that pulls. This ascent and descent has its origin in Plato and was noted in Augustine’s Confessions. As I shall show in Chapter Five, Cudworth also makes use of this Platonic motion of descent and ascent. While this process appears to make sense for human beings, it would seem unlikely that God, who is fully satisfied with his own love and infinite goodness, would have to “lower” himself and love human beings. Bérulle raises the question that can only be answered through Revelation: “yes,” God does lower himself, he does show a love for the world and for the people he created, this divine intervention is expressed in Jesus. This “lowering” of himself, which is unwarranted given what Bérulle has just said about God, is the paradox of Christian discourse: God did not have to intervene, but he did, through Jesus, and this is how one knows that one is loved by God. This divine intervention is God’s love. Bérulle does not work through this problem within the parameters of philosophical discourse; instead, he shows how God clearly defies human expectation and human reasoning. Bérulle proffers a solution by drawing from Scripture; he places his answer in the Gospel of John. He distinguishes between knowing God and loving God, maintaining that one can know God without ever loving him (ibid., p. 346). He brings the desire to know God and the love of God together: one comes to know God best by loving him. Rather than seeing the two in opposition, Bérulle attempts to show two things: that there is an order that begins with loving God, and, by loving God, one also comes to know him. His point suggests that the converse is not true. One can know God or even increase one’s knowledge and understanding of God, but this does not mean that one’s love of God has increased.

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Bérulle elaborates this love that one has for God in Johannine terms, drawing from John’s first Epistle: “My dear friends, we are already God’s children / But what we shall be in the future has not yet been revealed” (1 John 3:2). This passage from John is a favorite among mystics because it expresses the deification of the human individual: John states, “we are already God’s children,” and if this is so, being children of God means also possessing the properties of God. Bérulle further develops the Johannine doctrine: “Because love takes us out of ourselves and into him, and what is more, makes in us what he is himself by deifying us and transforming us in God” (Bérulle, 1996, p. 346). As I maintained in the section on Contarini above, God’s amplitude is expressed in the person through the goodness of the individual, the love shown toward God; the infinite power of God does not limit goodness to himself, but extends to human agents. This movement propelled by love has its source in divine amplitude. Another point of consideration that Bérulle brings to the attention of one who seeks to love God is that one cannot know God as much as one would like. However, one can love God as much as one desires and this love can increase by asking God for the grace that it increases. Knowledge shows limits, while love seems to be limitless; one only needs to ask for the grace. Bérulle draws from God’s desire to assist those who seek him by pointing out that “grace” is present to intensify one’s love of God. B. Divine Movement Bérulle has already established that through grace, one can love God more intensely; there is no limit to this love: by loving God one moves toward God and becomes God-like or divinized. God begins this movement of love by descending upon the earth and becoming Man out of his love for humanity: God descends and takes on a human nature uniting with humanity, and conversely, through grace, humankind becomes progressively divinized rising up to God (ibid., p. 350). The God that Bérulle presents is the God of the Christian Scriptures: God is love because God expresses himself through his Son, whom he sends to save humanity. God and the Incarnation are inseparable from love; anything less than God’s Incarnation cannot manifest God’s love. Bérulle’s argumentation clearly shows that he places God’s love within the tradition of Christian doctrine, for only in Christianity does God’s love come to its fullness. In Bérulle’s mysticism, this divine love, both God’s love and the love of humankind, flow into each other, resulting in a union between God and the person: “O love of God for the world, worthy of being contemplated and worshipped by the world!” (ibid., p. 351). Bérulle maintains that the love of God “toward” the world is expressed as a physical presence in the world of humankind, the moving down, the descent, as God’s Spirit that descends upon

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Mary. This love precedes, it is the antecedent of what is expected to naturally follow from God’s love, worthy of being admired and adored by the world. C. Adam: Sin and Death Taking on human flesh means that God lowered himself to the Adamic corruption of humankind. Though Jesus did not know sin, and though only his human nature experienced death, nevertheless, he lived the life of a man to its fullest. Bérulle shifts from the divine God of infinite perfection, to the God-Man who experiences the finitude of human nature: he experienced what Adam had transmitted through the first sin. Bérulle acknowledges with awe and admiration God’s presence in the world, descending to the misery of sinful humankind out of his love for humanity. Man carries the first sin of Adam and is born into this contaminated world. I have shown the difficulty surrounding the notion of “original sin” in terms of human freedom, whereby Pelagianism and Traducianism were in opposition. Bérulle’s focus on Adam’s sin conveys a humanity plagued by a common source. He posits that God descends upon the corrupted world out of love for disease-ridden humankind. This emphasis clearly takes on Augustinian overtones whereby the person is a wretched sinner, but God responds with his gratuitous love. Bérulle cites a favorite of Augustine, Paul’s Letter to the Romans, to show the implications of the Adamic fault: “But however much sin increased, grace was always greater; so that as sin’s reign brought death, so grace was to rule through saving justice that leads to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Romans 5:20–21). Paul’s passage shows the death brought by Adam’s sin and grace brought into the world through Jesus making eternal life possible. The passage is significant because “grace” is the issue addressed, and as I have pointed out, grace was one of the most controversial doctrines of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. D. Contarini’s Influence Although Bérulle makes no direct reference to Contarini, “Contariniism” works its way into Bérulle through the influence of Guillaume Gibieuf’s philosophy. God’s infinity discussed in Discourse 9, for example, connects both divine infinity and divine love. The solution is a significant departure from an Aristotelian model of a self-contemplating God. Within the Augustinian tradition, as one finds with Gibieuf, God’s love is fully manifest at the Incarnation. This manifestation of the divine in human agents is not only an expression of God’s love, but this amplitude also reflects the openness of the individual to God’s goodness. In the next section, I develop the Gibievian framework of divine amplitude.

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Pierre de Bérulle’s committed disciple was Guillaume Gibieuf. In this section, I consider implications of Gibieuf’s De libertate Dei et creaturae (On the Liberty of God and Creature, 1630) and show how he integrates the notion of Contarini’s amplitude into his philosophy. Gibieuf was both a philosopher and theologian. He established ties with René Descartes in 1626 (Ferrier, 1980, pp. ii–iii), and he adhered to Bérulle’s spirituality in the government of the Reformed Carmelite communities of France, in spite of some resistance from the Oratorians. He founded additional Carmelite communities in France until his death in 1650. The main problem being addressed during the seventeenth century concerned “grace.” One of the issues of controversy associated with both grace and the Carmelites concerned the vow of servitude. Bérulle was confronted by several attacks, because while the vow was expected of the Carmelites, it appeared to be imposed upon the nuns by Bérulle. Gibieuf intended to further explore, develop, and defend Bérulle’s notion of servitude, since it was fundamental to both Oratorian and Carmelite spirituality in France. This controversial notion would not be settled until the eighteenth century by the Tertiary Dominican, Louis-Marie Grignon de Montfort (ibid., p. iii). This innovation in Carmelite spirituality would require a deeper understanding of “freedom.” A. Commentary on the Treatise De Libertate Dei et Creaturae Gibieuf’s ambitious literary project, De libertate Dei et creaturae, written in 1630, elaborates the notions of divine and human freedom: there is only one understanding of freedom, but with different manifestations. Freedom is total in God and progressive in human beings (Ferrier, 1980, p. 150). One of the terms Gibieuf employs to define liberty is “amplitude,” and as shown above, this term has its source in Contarini (1571, pp. 599–602). During Gibieuf’s lifetime, Pope Clement VIII (1536–1605)—without any formal decree—had preserved Augustine’s position on “free will” for three reasons. (1) Augustine’s views were successfully used to combat Pelagianism. (2) Augustine held the position that one is most free when one is freed by grace. (3) Augustine’s teachings represented a hereditary patrimony of the Church that was to be preserved. Gibieuf’s work flowed directly from the thought of Augustine. The dedication of De libertate to Pope Clement was suggested by Bérulle given the polemics of the period concerning “Grace” (Ferrier, p. 85). Gibieuf, in line with Bérulle, sensed that the opposing view, namely that of the Jesuits, favored a more active role of human reason, and expressed a rather liberal interpretation of nature. Gibieuf wanted to accentuate the role of grace in the act of the will; clearly it seemed as if the Augustinians were

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fighting another Pelagian battle. The network of contacts created an atmosphere of suspicion. It was not always certain who was a supporter. Notions such as freedom and grace required a carefully articulated response if God’s love was to have any meaning whatsoever. B. Amplitude In Book I of the De libertate, Gibieuf makes reference to Contarini’s notion of “Amplitude” (1630, pp. 44–45). He distinguishes two aspects of freedom: “state” and “exercise.” This distinction corresponds to the permanent state of “being,” which is expressed as a universal, as in: all human beings are mortal, or all human beings are free; while the exercise is the expression of this state, manifested through the multiplicity of actions (ibid., p. 5). Gibieuf’s message is clearly Augustinian: free will is truly free when it is submitted to God, but persons’ fallen nature leads them to make choices that are contrary to their ultimate vocation, namely, to be united with God. Hence, to return to one’s purpose, not only in terms of knowledge, but in doing God’s will, one’s own effort is insufficient, one needs God’s grace. As indicated above, the notion of amplitude derives from Contarini, who uses this idea to express the amplitude of the intelligence in three ways: (1) it can understand everything; (2) the will can extend to all goods including the final good; and (3) through his spontaneous will, the individual moves himself (Ferrier, 1980, p. 160). The Augustinian coloring to amplitude lies in the fact that the magnitude of the will corresponds to the magnitude of human finality, namely God. However, once limits are imposed onto the will due to human weakness, then one deviates from this ultimate end, God, and one moves toward narrowness. This echoes Augustine’s notion of freedom: When the will unites one with God, one is free, and the more the will distances the individual from God, the less one is free. Gibieuf champions the cause of freedom in relation to human finality: only by being free can the end be determined (1630, p. 8). Freedom is necessary to pursue human ends. In section 1.3 of the De libertate, Gibieuf develops the notion of amplitude in freedom, stating “by the amplitude of the highest Good” (summi Boni amplitudine). Not only is freedom attached to amplitude, but amplitude itself, in superlative terms, expresses the infinite capacity of freedom, which has its source and origin in the Supreme Good, namely, God (ibid., p. 108). Gibieuf further makes a crucial assertion that has implications for the union of the wills as well as the two subjects, God and the person: “God in us without us” (Deus in nobis sine nobis) (ibid., p. 83). This phrase suggests that God’s presence is already in “us,” but “without us”: the two agencies, subject and object, are fused. The “without us” (sine nobis) is significant: God’s presence in the individual is not one that is determined by the individual whether this means willing or acknowledging God’s presence: with or without “us,” God is in “us.”

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The Gibievian fusion of agencies has a temporal character as well: one need not wait for another world or another life for the presence of the Divine. Instead, the assertion expresses an atemporality wherein this presence is true for now, as much as this presence of God is anticipated. God’s goodness, which is infinite, makes freedom possible, a freedom that individuals also enjoy when they are united with the will of God: unity with God’s will is to be one in God’s love. Amplitude and the One Gibieuf extends Contarini’s notion of amplitude to include more Neoplatonic ideas such as the “One” and the “Infinite.” Just as God’s liberty is found in his amplitude, and moves in itself, this liberty is also true for humankind. The infinity of humankind is attained by adhesion to God. Being infinite does not mean that everything is possessed, but “one-ness” is everything; the greater the adhesion to God, the greater the amplitude (Ferrier, 1980, pp. 160–161). The influence of Eckhartian mysticism, the Rheno-Flemish tradition, is evident: adhering to God alone makes the person one with God. Gibieuf further makes specific reference to Dionysius the Areopagite: amplitude has its origin and derives its origin in Oneness (ibid.). Ultimately, to attain amplitude is to attain freedom, and if freedom is in amplitude, so is the infinite and union with God. Francis Ferrier raises the point that such a notion of amplitude and the relation between God and humankind causes problems: with such an intimate union with God, paradoxically, the person risks losing his freedom (ibid., p. 161). Gibieuf’s Augustinian arguments suggest that one cannot reject God’s will without rejecting freedom. It is in God’s will that one experiences freedom. To go against God is to negate freedom (ibid.). A parallel can also be found in Neoplatonic thought, both in the Areopagite and Proclus. Ferrier maintains, “According to the Neoplatonic schema, which Proclus also uses, beings are in the One before proceeding from the One, and then, return by conversion to their Source” (ibid., p. 163). In the Dionysian text, the Areopagite maintains that “By being the One, it is all things” (Pseudo Dionysius, 1987, 13.2). The One is God and nothing in the world is deprived of sharing in the One. All of creation participates in the One. A movement from, and back to, the One, is suggested. Gibieuf’s interpretation of Contarini from a Dionysian perspective recognizes the amplitude of God extended and expressed in individual subjects when there is union with the will of God. This union of agents—the “oneness” is a manifestation of love. Both Bérulle and Gibieuf depart from these traditional interpretations of Neoplatonism to give a reading that is more in conformity with Christian doctrine: procession is not something subordinate between the One, the Good and Being, but rather a relationship of equality much like the Trinitarian formula of procession (ibid.). The formula constructed by Augustine asserts,

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“But thou at the same time art more inward than my most inward part” (Tu autem eras interior intimo meo et superior summo meo) (Confessions, 3.6.2). This does not mean God extends his activities within the individual, otherwise, not only would human beings become an extension of God, but they would also lack freedom. This is the very claim Gibieuf is rejecting. Instead, this intimate union between God and humanity is expressed through actions that transcend humanity. There is something beyond the individual: God in union with, and interacting with, the “I” of the individual. The difference is a flowing back and forth and not just a flowing downwards. The Augustinian understanding of freedom remains present in Gibieuf. Freedom is associated with “adhesion” to God who is infinite, and gives the person an infinite capacity to be free (1630, p. 108). A distinction is made between free will open to the intelligence and free will open to God. By being open to God one finds free will, and it is upon God that freedom is based (ibid., p. 370). Gibieuf’s statement can be understood to mean that openness to God presupposes intelligence and understanding, whereas one can be understanding and intelligent without being open to God. Final cause is positioned in terms of intention, and in the order of grace the final cause is the love of God or conversion to God (ibid., p. 83). Freedom being found in God means that the more one adheres to God, the more one is free: freedom, therefore, is associated with the good because through goodness one adheres to God (ibid., p. 352). The converse is also true. When one acts wickedly, one is distanced from God, and so one is not free, but rather, one’s freedom is imperfect (ibid., p. 324). Amplitude is Freedom The assertion that “amplitude is freedom” for Gibieuf expresses two points: (1) that which is ample is not confined by limits, but is free; and (2) amplitude acts freely. This amplitude means that to act freely is to be oriented toward the ultimate good through an ongoing effort. This suggests that inferior things are not sought for in themselves, but rather, in relation to a finality and in view of this finality. In other words, to act freely is nothing other than to act according to this amplitude withdrawing from inferior things and inclining toward the ultimate good, to love God. Freedom that leads one to created things of the world is not true freedom because one becomes slave to sin. To separate, or even distance, oneself from God is to reject one’s freedom. Amplitude is to be found in the freedom with which one is directed toward God, while the constraining limits caused by worldly objects and sin cannot be associated with freedom or amplitude. This is the kind of freedom that liberates one from sin. The definition of sin is in conjunction with freedom: moving toward amplitude is moving toward freedom and away from sin. Being inclined toward God is also submitting oneself to God; this is understood in terms of allowing oneself to be moved by God, which means that the person will be

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naturally led back to God, and not elsewhere. Gibieuf stresses that the basis of all liberty is infinite amplitude, which refers to God. The freedom of human creatures is relative to the infinite amplitude of the Creator. Drawing from Augustine, Gibieuf maintains that freedom is experienced for those who repose in the divine amplitude or who are turned toward it. Freedom’s Hierarchy Gibieuf ranks five degrees of freedom from the highest to the lowest. First, because God possesses the amplitude of liberty in the absolute sense, he is also the origin and source of all freedom. Therefore, the first degree is one of absolute freedom, which only God possesses. Second, the people God created will draw their freedom from its source; the creature as a creation of God participates in the freedom of the Creator: human beings share in God’s freedom. Although Gibieuf uses the word “created” things or beings, he seldom makes explicit reference to God as the Creator; but the implicit concept is ubiquitous throughout the work. This relation with God means that a person receives infinity from God, but not so much amplitude. This is where Gibieuf accents the notion of “grace”: from God one receives infinity and grace rather than the amplitude that is expected. Third, one can be somewhat attached to God, and therefore, constrained, only moving toward Him. The fourth degree is where God’s human creatures are attached to other creatures instead of adhering to God. Finally, the fifth degree is the situation wherein one has no sense of one’s finality or the law, instead having attachment to other creatures with disordered affections, in case, one penetrates nothingness, not in the mystical Dionysian sense of nothingness, but wherein existence and being have lost all meaning. C. Gibieuf’s “Love” Given the discussion that Gibieuf develops in the De libertate, one can see the relationship that is established between freedom, love, and God. First the basis of human freedom is to be found in divine amplitude: in God, freedom is absolute and knows no limits. By participating in this freedom, then, one also participates in God’s Infinity. However, it is only through the good that one loves, that one is in union with God; and the more one is with God, the freer one becomes. This is, of course, the Augustinian dimension in Gibieuf’s notion of freedom. This means, paradoxically, that God leaves one free to sin, and this freedom is part of sharing in divine necessity. Even though the act of sin constitutes freedom, it is imperfect freedom. This further means that one cannot have acts that are indifferent since all actions are posited in relation to an end (Ferrier, 1980, p. 153).

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Freedom and love go together because in God one is free, and in God one can love. So, how does God act, Deus in nobis sine nobis? This must be God who moves the person from deep within for he knows humankind most intimately, echoing Augustine. But “God in us” also means that one is inclined toward the Divine naturally, for this is how he created the person, and so, without the person’s effort. With its Augustinian roots, the assertion Gibieuf makes offers a nice anti-Pelagian rebuttal. The statement sounds deterministic, but in fact, it shows the fusion of agencies: God and persons move simultaneously, with individuals moving themselves in relation to their end. Of course, such movement presupposes “grace,” the kind of grace to be expected in Bérullian circles, and not a deterministic, constraining grace, nor one intended for the privileged elect. In the fullness of human freedom, there is a union between a person’s will and the will of God, and therefore, the human capacity to share in the divine life, and divine love. However, the controversy of a deterministic causality, a Calvinistic interpretation of grace, and divine love, still remained unresolved. 5. William Chalmers In this section, to shed further light on divine love I will consider some difficulties arising from grace and causality based on the writings of William Chalmers. I will also look at Chalmers’s relationship with Guillaume Gibieuf and the role Chalmers played in Jesuit and Oratorian circles. When William Chalmers was born, the Calvinist Reform had made its way to Scotland. Chalmers joined the Jesuits, during the time they had been attempting to restore the Catholic faith in Scotland. At the same time, much of the intellectual debate involved the opposition between Scotists and Nominalists. Consequently, Chalmers left the Jesuits because of academic disputes regarding two of his Scotist views: the “univocity of being,” and “action à distance” (Ferrier, 1968, pp. 19–20). The tense intellectual climate during the Reformation meant that the Jesuits could not teach in their schools a view, even if entirely orthodox, that did not represent the official position of the Congregation to which the individual belonged (ibid.). Whether Chalmers refused to maintain the position of the Society or he intended to adhere to his own Scotist views, obedience still represented a major problem. His desire to return to Scotland, for which he had also been seeking permission, was another obstacle. In 1624, he had written to the Jesuit Master, Father Mutio Vitelleschi, who denied his request to return to the Scottish mission (ibid., pp. 16–17, 17n1). Chalmers’s concern for the re-Catholicization of Scotland meant that the Scottish mission remained one of his priorities. Eventually, his departure from the Jesuits allowed both his continued adherence to Scotus as well as to Scotland. Bérulle, and the new community he was establishing, was concerned

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precisely with the problems caused by the Reform in England; his community would have provided the solution to Chalmers’s Scottish mission and his intellectual orientations. Bérulle’s favorable reputation in Scottish circles gave Chalmers a further incentive to enter the Congregation. A. Chalmers and Gibieuf We have seen that, for Gibieuf, God inclines the individual to a finality that can only be good because God is the source and end of all good. This means that God brings within the person the desire for the good; God does not lead the person into sin, since sin is incompatible with the individual’s end and is also incompatible with a God who is the source of good. Divine motion inclines the person to that person’s end, and this inclination is reinforced when sin diminishes, thereby, strengthening the good. This is where good works come in: good works restore within the person the orientation and desire toward one’s end which is God. From this it is understood that divine motion not only inclines the person to the good, but also pulls one back from evil as much as it can. This interpretation—a Calvinist one according to Father François Annat, a Jesuit and Confessor of King Louis XIV (ibid., p. 115)—leads to a Gibievian relation of divine love whereby God and the person act as one in a unity of distinct agents. God can act through agents because as Contarini maintains, God’s amplitude permits divine expression in human agents, as an image of God. In Chalmers’s Selectae disputationes philosophicae (Selected Philosophical Disputations) (1630), liberty is defended along Gibievian lines: a double liberty is identified, which also draws from Contarini. Since the two agents in Gibieuf`s ontological framework, God and the person, constitute a union founded on love, Chalmers further draws from the Oratorian tradition to develop his own ontology. Chalmers does not go as far as Contarini, or his fellow Oratorian, Gibieuf, in developing the notion of amplitude; but, Chalmers raises the interesting problem of whether individuals can choose through their free will another end besides the one that is placed in him by God (Ferrier, 1980, p. 150). His reply resonates with the Oratorian tradition founded on Augustinian ontology. Distancing oneself from the end—God—is not exercising freedom, which is placed in the person by God. Rather, in doing so, one is succumbing to servitude or slavery, since only in God is there the fullness of freedom. The greater the distance persons create between themselves and God, the greater the servitude to which one is subjected. *It should be noted that the Vow of Servitude that Bérulle advocated has a different sense from the concept of servitude developed in the sections on Contarini, Bérulle, and Gibieuf above. One can be a servant of the good; but one can also be a slave to sin.

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B. The Disputationes Chalmers’s Selectae disputationes philosophicae was published in the same year as Gibieuf’s De libertate. It dealt with the question on liberty that emerged from Gibieuf’s writings: Of what does the true notion of liberty consist? Chalmers’s position shows a favorable response to Gibieuf on human liberty where a double liberty is found, as I pointed out above in section A: one liberty is defective (defectibilitatis), which expresses the desire of sin and evil; the other seeks to preserve the order of human finality (Ferrier, 1980, p. 31). Chalmers asks the question, “Which of the two liberties constitute true liberty?” concluding that liberty is not the number of objects one has to choose from, but only the choices that can be ordered to the human end; this reflects true liberty, “only ordered to an end” (tantum per ordinem ad finem). Such objects would have to exclude, therefore, actions leading to sin or wickedness. In other words, Chalmers believes that a freedom that extends to sin or defectiveness (similar to Augustine’s use of defectibilis in Sermon 362, On the Resurrection of the Dead) is not true freedom (Ferrier, 1980, p. 31). This view is also maintained by Augustine, as I showed in Chapter Two, section 4, drawing from the De libero arbitrio: if true liberty is only in relation to the person’s end, then, defective liberty is not liberty in the true sense of the word, since it deviates from the person’s end, which is God. The essence of liberty cannot have as its fundamental definition a fault which is opposed to the human end. A crucial problem that arises during this period concerns the relationship between God’s grace and free will. Human beings are responsible for their actions when they act freely, but once God is regarded as the source of human activity which is understood in terms of both human ontology and divine action, there is the question whether God can be responsible for human evil. The objective is really to avoid falling into a Pelagian vision of humankind, where the emphasis of human freedom excludes or diminishes divine intervention; at the same time a philosophical outlook that is built on an deterministic ontology must be avoided if freedom is to be preserved. A person’s will moved by God amounts to a grace-filled theology, as shown in Chapter Two, in reaction to Pelagius, but may degenerate into a Calvinistic freedom: there is none. Chalmers finds a solution to this problem by drawing from Augustine and asserting that divine intervention cannot go as far as attributing to God human errors or the sins of his creatures: divine movement perfects liberty, and so, if the individual turns from God, then it is the individual who is responsible and not divine movement (Ferrier, 1968, p. 31). Grace, however, is not efficacious because of the person’s consent, it is the favorable human response to grace that puts grace into operation, but the efficacy of grace is purely divine. The question concerning sin still holds: Is God the ultimate source of sin? If God is the first cause as motor of all secondary actions, their move-

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ment is not the result of their own self-caused movement. Chalmers relies on the Dominican, Jean Capreolus, to interpret Aquinas: A person is moved by God, but the free will follows the will of God to produce whatever is good. A sinful act cannot have any dependency on God because a privation of being cannot have as a principle the source of being. This is inspired by the Scholastic axiom: good comes from that which the cause acts in all its amplitude. Evil comes from that that the good does but is in some way defective (Bonum ex integra causa, malum exquocumque defectu, [attributed to Summa theologica, pt. 1, q. 49, art. 1; and De malo 1.3]). Although the Latin text does not use the word “amplitude,” in Ferrier’s French translation “ampleur” (amplitude) is used to signify the Latin “integra” (complete) (1968, p. 38). The suggestion is that attached to the good, with God as its source, there is amplitude: goodness is not bound by limits. The very nature of a good act is that with God as its source, it expresses itself; limiting the good could not come from God because God’s infinity does not restrict the good or free will which is engaged in an act that is good. Chalmers also makes use of two texts, one drawing from Augustine and the other from Aquinas: in the case of Augustine, the text refers to original sin, for which Pelagius made God responsible, while Augustine maintained that everything in human nature comes from God, nothing comes from God that is contrary to human nature. For Aquinas, it is clear that God does not cooperate with evil, even though he is cause of the action. More fully, while the will follows God, an evil act comes first from the will of the person, and then God as first cause, who is the source of all things. Another problem that confronted Chalmers on free will was that if the will of the person was moved by God, then the individual was servile, or even worse, violated. As I showed in Chapter Two, section 5, this was a position held by Pelagius, that a tampered will could not be truly autonomous, a view that Augustine repeatedly rejected, separating Pelagius from Augustine. The latter still upheld the integrity of personal freedom, even though the will was moved by God. Chalmers offers a solution to this problem which is rather Augustinian: a violated will only exists if the will goes against what is in human nature, that is the natural inclinations, and by inclining the human will, God inclines a will in the sense that he created the nature of this person. This is also true for servitude: being moved by God is not as though one is being moved by an external force which was a Pelagian interpretation of divine movement. Chalmers asserts, drawing from the Platonists, Augustine and Aquinas, that while God is not part of the person, he is the most sublime part of the person, the most intimate part of being with oneself (Summa Theologica, pt. 1, q. 105, art. 5). The Platonic tradition that re-emerges with Augustine and Aquinas is that the sublime part of the person, the most noble part, intimately unites the individual and God through the very interior of one’s being. There is agreement among the seventeenth century Christian Churches, Catholics, Lutherans, and Calvinists that God is the source of all motion, that

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is, God is a self-caused first cause, while all other things are not self-moved, but moved by God. The main problem is how this translates into free will. The divisive answers to account for grace generate interpretations of God’s providence ranging from cooperation with God, the Catholic view, to God being also the cause of evil. Seeing God as cause of both good and evil is the root of the doctrine of predestination, which is the Calvinist view. Chalmers’s central thesis was that of “physical pre-motion”: absolute divine causality demonstrates that such physical pre-motion exists for all natural acts. Drawing from the Aristotelian principle of a first motor to substantiate this claim, all things are moved by a divine power acting in the person since God is the origin of being in all creatures; this means that God is the cause of everything that these creatures produce by being (Ferrier, 1968, pp. 97–98). Chalmers argues that “simultaneous concurrence” is not possible between God and the creature, but rather cooperation which means that God must be present in human activity since he is intimately present in the person. Simultaneous concurrence does not demonstrate cooperation between the divine and the human. This was one of the solutions offered by the Molinists to ensure human freedom and to overcome the problem of predetermination. For his own argument, Chalmers relies on the Scholastic distinctions of “spatial continuity” (indistantiam locale) and “contiguous continuity” (indistantiam continuitatis) respectively (ibid., 98). Chalmers rejects divine indifference and simultaneity. In the case of indifference, Chalmers does not accept the view being advanced during the seventeenth century where God “waits” as a consequence of the human will to concur with it. Instead, he concurs with the human will as pure act (ibid., p. 99). Indifference could only be understood if God waited for individuals to exercise their free will; but this “wait” goes against God’s knowledge of his creatures and of all their acts: God’s infallible, perfect and absolute knowledge means that he knows future acts before the act is or is thought (ibid.). Chalmers’s thesis of physical pre-motion rests on the principle that creatures depend on the Creator: God is the first cause and all human acts that are good can be attributed to God without God being a direct cause of these actions but rather by assisting the will. But God is not the cause of evil acts though he is the first cause. Evil acts are defective and are the result of the will of the individual; God cannot be the cause of a defective act since this would be incompatible with God who is the source of being. In affirming these positions, Chalmers also goes against any kind of Monlinist view of the human and divine will concurring. Chalmers clearly wants a God who is source of actions including good human actions in order to avoid any kind of Pelagian view of the person. He also believed the Jesuits were succumbing to Pelagian heterodoxy by over-emphasizing the human will; God seemed to lack both omnipotence and omniscience in the Jesuit framework. The problem, however, in the light of the Protestant Reformation, was that not enough attention was being given to human freedom, and too much emphasis

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was placed on the divine motion of a first cause: if God acted in the person, then the person was not free, but predetermined by God. Liberty within the language of Chalmers brings together the thoughts of Gibieuf and Contarini. Liberty has Gibievian characteristics where freedom finds its fullness of expression in union with God. This also means that God’s amplitude permits such a union where there are no limits, though Chalmers does not develop this latter element. Divine activity occurs as pure act which assists the human will when God is sought and loved. Chalmers presents a relationship that derives its meaning from human finality: God’s love. What becomes natural is the oneness of the individual and God, as Augustine shows in cosmic love: what is natural is to love God. This would mean that God and the person remain distinct agents, but united in one will, and one love. C. Pre-Motion and Love With the Aristotelian foundation to a God who moves, a God who is himself unmoved, being the source of all movement, Chalmers maintains, “It is evident that while God is in union with all things and reciprocally all things are in him, and so, all things are moved by an active power of the divinity in us” (ibid., p. 97). The text does not only resemble Gibieuf with whom Chalmers had contact, but the Dionysian relation of God in human creature and the human creature in God expressing a shared agency, which is also present. This source of good, which is also the source of being puts things into motion through love: love is dynamic activity of moving outwards, beginning with God—motion in God’s love. By developing a metaphysics of pre-motion, Chalmers establishes an ontology of divine love. The very nature of love is an active force and the first act to take place in the universe is a creative act of love whereby human beings are created in the image of God allowing this act of love to reciprocate: love is not only a procession, but also a reversion. Chalmer’s “pre-physical motion” (pré-motion physique) rests on Aristotelian principles taking on a Gibievian and Dionysian character since God’s love acts within the person: God is the source of the good, and by loving, God acts within the individual—God moves the person through a union of agents and the divine amplitude expressing itself in the person. This understanding of divine amplitude which emphasizes human freedom strongly contrasts with the view of a deterministic grace as I shall show below. 6. Jansen of Ypres I have chosen to place Cornelius Jansen (1585–1638) at the end of the sixteenth-seventeenth centuries because Jansen, paradoxically, positions himself closer to the Calvinistic interpretation of grace, and therefore a deterministic perception of divine love, rather than the Augustinian tradition that emphasizes grace without compromising human freedom. Section 3

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above has shown the influential role Bérulle had as the founder of the French Oratory, but also his key role as Cardinal and his ties with the Papacy in Rome. Jansen was born within the theologico-political context of the rising Protestant Churches, and the controversial debates over grace and free will which had a spill-over effect into Catholicism as a result of the reinterpretations of Augustine. By the very religious context into which he was born, as well as the political shifts he experienced within the geography of his birth, Jansen would be a major player in the latter sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Chalmers and Jansen show some resemblance: both men, affiliated with the Oratory, originated in countries that were rapidly becoming Calvinized, Scotland and The Nertherlands, respectively. In both cases, the men were attempting to respond to the Calvinist influence in the form of a philosophical theology that would somehow accommodate the Calvinist grievances. Further, Augustine remained a key figure in the thoughts and writings of the two men. In his attempt to battle the Calvinist innovations and advances, however, Jansen became marked by a Calvinist Augustinianism. Jansen pursued his studies within the context of the controversies of the period. The Jesuits and Dominicans dominated the philosophical and theological controversies of the early seventeenth century, and Jansen believed that both the Society and the Order were on the wrong track; he also believed that a solution to the impasse on grace was an essential and simple truth, the distinction between two kinds of grace, that of Adam and that of Jesus (Orcibal, 1989, pp. 97–98). In Chapter Two, section 5, I showed that Pelagius defended humankind’s natural grace, that is, the grace with which Adam had been created, and which he believed was adequate to live a righteous life. The divine grace offered by Jesus served to imitate him more fully, ultimately, so that one could be saved. Jansen enters into the seventeenth-century controversy building on the distinction of the two kinds of grace. The Scholastics including Aquinas were considered to be responsible for defacing grace through their theology. Jansen clearly took a position on grace that departed from the traditional Thomistic thought that had been maintained until the Reformation (ibid., pp. 98–99, 101n). At the Council of Dordrecht (13 November 1618 through 3 May 1619), Catholic theologians, in an effort to reconcile themselves with the Protestant reformers, introduced a notion of grace that seemed more and more like the Protestant doctrine. The Dutch Calvinists were seen as approaching a more Catholic interpretation on both grace and predestination. From 1619 Jansen devoted his intellectual life to the study of Augustine seeking support from both influential figures in the Church and in the State. With his teaching position at the University of Louvain, Jansen acted with prudence, even declining an eventual Royal Chair at the university to avoid being under further observation; he showed a contempt for both Jesuit Molinism and

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Dominican Scholasticism (ibid., pp. 110–111). Jansen revealed that he had an interest in the Oratorians. A. Saint-Cyran and the Oratorians The common friend that Jansen and Bérulle shared was the French monk John du Vergier de Hauranne (1581–1643), Abbé de Saint-Cyran, but Bérulle found reason to slowly distance himself from the two controversial figures and their Calvinist Augustinianism. The relationship between Jansen and the Oratory seemed favorable, at least until Gibieuf’s publication of De libertate Dei et creaturae; the interaction between the Bishop of Ypres and the new priestly congregation seems at best ambivalent, or at least asymmetrical; Jansen had more to gain from favorable ties with the Oratorians than the latter could have expected from Jansen. It was during the years 1609–1616, that Saint-Cyran and Jansen studied together at Bayonne and Paris, focusing on Scripture and Biblical commentaries. It would have been during this period with Saint-Cyran that Jansen conceived and wrote Augustinus (1640) (Sedgwick, 1977, p. 20; cf. Abercrombie, 1936, p. 163). The Cistercian monastery at Port Royal served as a meeting ground for the Counter Reformers with Jansenist tendencies. The Port Royal monastery began radical reforms in 1609 under the authority of Mother Angelique. Saint-Cyran offered spiritual direction to Mother Angelique as well as Charles de Condren, who was Bérulle’s successor and head of the Oratory. Saint-Cyran was also spiritual director to Mother Angelique’s brother, Antoine Arnaud (Sedgwick, pp. 15, 18–19). Saint-Cyran’s religious beliefs and devotional practices, which Mother Angelique acquired, were influenced by his friendship with Bérulle that began in 1620 (Abercrombie, 1936, p. 167). The Bérulle-Jansen-Saint-Cyran network helped establish the French Oratory between Brussels and Paris with the arrival of French Oratorians in the Low Countries (Orcibal, 1989, p. 126). The fact that Jansen entrusted his nephew to the newly founded Oratory at Malines strongly suggests his favorable disposition toward it (ibid., p. 129). Jean-Hugues Quarré, a close friend of Jansen, attempted to have the Belgian Oratory incorporated into the University of Louvain (ibid., p. 130). Jansen appeared to be successful in establishing a “conspiracy of the masses” (conspiratio multorum), a counteroffensive for the Jesuit domination of the Louvain and hopeful sympathizers of the Augustinus. The opposition came from the French Oratorians: Guillaume Gibieuf expressed his hostility toward Jansenist thought clearly in his publication (ibid.). The Belgian Oratory at Malines eventually defended the Augustinus because the Belgian Oratorians were faithful to their Archbishop, Henry Calenus, who had authorized publication (Rapin, 1867, p. 426). Abbé de SaintCyran maintained a close friendship with the Oratorians, and Bérulle openly expressed his esteem for him (Abercrombie, 1936, p. 180). Saint-Cyran was

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imprisoned as the result of an Oratorian contact. When Cardinal Richelieu discovered that the Oratorian priest, Father Séguenot, had translated a work of Augustine with notes, which was influenced by Saint-Cyran, Richelieu had him arrested and imprisoned (ibid., p. 188). The new General of the French Oratory, Father Bourgoing, further condemned doctrines espoused in Antoine Arnaud’s 1643 De la fréquente communion (ibid., p. 208). Jansen was convinced that he would benefit far more from the support of a religious congregation rather than from isolated individuals. He admired the Oratorians as reformers with their Augustinian ideals, as well as their reputable status among the secular French clergy, such as the outstanding figure of Bérulle (ibid., p. 122). As I indicated above, Bérulle found he was caught in a controversy over the Carmelites, who were placed under his direction, over the issue of a vow of “Servitude”; this condemnation was signed by the Louvain’s Theology faculty, of which Jansen was a Doctor. Even before his interest in the Oratorians, Jansen sought a retraction of the severe Bérullian condemnations; his arguments were based on his own interpretation of Augustine. He had also come to the defense of Bérulle when the Carmelites fled their Carmelite community in Bourges for Brussels, and he used his authority to ensure that the Carmelites did not re-establish themselves in Brussels, defending the authority of Bérulle over these Carmels (ibid., pp. 122–123). B. Religio-Political Context of Jansenism Three years before the publication of the Augustinus, France was at war with Spain. For Jansen, this war expressed not only political conflicts of the period, but the religious implications that needed to be recognized. The difficult task for him was deciding with which of the two Catholic countries to side. Jansen’s position was that Spain represented the interests of Catholicism against the Swedes and the Dutch, making the war fundamentally a religious one (Sedgwick, 1977, p. 27). On the other side, France had allied itself with Protestant powers, and so the King of France, Louis XIII, was pursuing a policy injurious to the Catholic faith (ibid.). For Jansen, this meant that because he went to battle against Spain, the French King was endangering the mortal souls of his soldiers. Cardinal de Richelieu, who supported the French King, was also allying himself with Protestant powers. Therefore, he became suspicious of Jansen’s close friend, Abbé de Saint-Cyran. The Jansenists believed that Richelieu’s service to King Louis XIII was inspired by values that were not Christian (ibid., p. 28). This reinforced a rift between Richelieu and Saint-Cyran that would eventually make the latter’s imprisonment a solution to the escalating tension. Richelieu’s intervention in the matter reflected both theological and political

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differences with Saint-Cyran. The intervention was also the result of the Cardinal’s frustration with Emperor Charles V, whom Richelieu believed should have made a greater effort to arrest Martin Luther, since he was convinced that the arrest could have prevented the entire Reformation (ibid., p. 30). Finally, a charge of heresy was brought against Saint-Cyran, who was arrested on 14 May 1638, at his residence in Paris. The significance of Jansen’s outlook on the Franco-Spanish war and his ties with Saint-Cyran show that the two men distanced themselves from Protestantism in any form, political or theological. The irony of the matter is that Jansen’s powerful work, the Augustinus, would read as a Calvinized interpretation of Augustine for Catholics, while for the Calvinists themselves, it would be accepted as orthodox Christianity. If this were Jansen’s strategy to lead Calvinists back to Catholicism, it failed miserably. C. Jansen’s Augustinian Views Using an anti-Pelagian argument, Jansen strongly affirms that persons who want to raise their will above the will and power of God, finds that their own will falls on them like a weight. Man’s wounded nature could be healed only through a miracle because the human will is conditioned by sin, which weighs upon the individual (ibid., p. 214). The idea of weight pulling the individual downward echoes the Augustinian theme of human nature in cosmic terms, especially regarding love. Recall that Augustine identifies weight with love because one is pulled in the direction of one’s desires. If nature is wounded, as Jansen forcefully affirms, then, the will is subjected to a weight caused by that wounded state. This means that one certainly cannot bring the will beyond the will of God. This miracle that not only assists the human will but offers a way out of the wounded nature is the salvific power of Jesus. Jansen provides an explanation of the Fall that shows its effect on human nature. Temporal desires reflect the soul’s attempt to overcome its deprivation of interior joy, which had been lost since the Fall. Only God can offer a remedy of love that can shape the individual, the will to act, and the accomplishment of the action: all human power comes from God (ibid). We have seen that Gibieuf linked liberty with the participation of love in divine nature and its amplitude. I have also shown the development of amplitude beginning with Contarini. But for Jansen, the will is not presented in relation to any kind of amplitude. Instead, Jansen places freedom in “the dominion that the will has on actions such that they never are [actions] until it [the will] wants [them]” (le domaine qu’a la volonté sur les actions en sorte qu’elles ne soient jamais que lorsqu’elle veut) (Orcibal, 1989, p. 446n4). If freedom is that domain which the will has over actions, such actions “are not” unless they are willed, as Jansen claims. This view radically differs from one that places liberty in divine nature and its amplitude. The Gibievian position that emerges in Chalmers, as I have shown above, is rooted in

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Contarini. Gibieuf’s view expresses a divine union made possible through God’s gratuitous love. Jansen argues for freedom and willed actions centered on the will itself. Reactions to Jansenist Propositions The propositions of Jansen’s Augustinus became known even before the publication of the work, although how the contents were “leaked” remained open to speculation (Abercrombie, 1936, p. 195; cf. Rapin, 1867, p. 415). The Jesuits saw Jansen’s work as containing attacks against them. Unsuccessful in having its publication banned they immediately prepared an attack on Jansen’s new system. If Rome had approved the theology of Jesuit theologians that Jansen had condemned, then a conflict was inevitable. Hence, Jesuit theses of Louvain expressed the condemnations of Jansen’s work. Jesuit theses were given along the lines of Scripture, tradition, and neoScholastic theologians, while Jansen’s doctrines arising from the Augustinus were compared to Luther, Calvin, and Baius (Abercrombie, 1936, p. 195). The objectivity that Rome sought in the matter is reflected by the fact the Congregation of the Index, which had a Dominican secretary, did not handle the case since the inquiry originated by the Jesuits. Instead, the case was sent to the Assessor to the Holy Office, Francesco Albizzi, and resulted in the papal bull, In eminenti apostolatus, which was generally unfavorable to Jansen’s work (ibid., p. 198). From 1650, onwards, the Dominicans represented the Augustinian school in Rome so that the “left-wing” of non-Jansenist theology was maintained by the Roman Dominicans on matters of grace. This may have been a factor in the “non-committal reception” in Rome and in the Sorbonne’s censure of the Augustinus (ibid., 225). The French Jansenists relied on the Roman Dominicans for support in taking revenge on the Jesuits because the Dominicans in Rome were the only Catholics who were “suspected or accused of favoring Jansenism in this period” (ibid., p. 227). However, the Dominicans and the Augustinian Friars in Rome failed in an attempt to obtain a Papal condemnation of the Jesuit propositions concerning the theology of grace (ibid., p. 228). Cardinal de Richelieu had also instructed Isaac Habert, the Theologian of Notre-Dame-de-Paris, to preach against Jansen’s work (ibid., 198). Condemned Propositions The theologico-political context of Jansen’s work with a particular concern of the Jesuit monopoly and influence in education was discussed above. However, this influence was not Jansen’s motivation for writing the Augustinus. The Calvinized interpretation of Augustine seemed to respond more to the Reformed and Calvinist theology of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries than to a neo-Scholastic Thomism whose emphasis on reason seemed to contribute to a defective theology of grace. The Dominicans did

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not show any real sympathy for what appeared to them to be a Jesuit issue— the concerns of emerging doctrines from a Jansenist interpretation of Augustine. In the midst of the theological politics, what precisely were these propositions targeted by the Jesuits and their sympathizers? At the heart of the matter was understanding God’s love, and the human response to divine love. Pope Innocent X censured Jansen’s Augustinus with the papal bull Cum occasione, issued on 31 May 1653, which was based on five of Jansen’s postulates that he condemned as rash, impious, blasphemous, condemned by anathema, and heretical: (1) Some of God’s precepts are impossible to the just, who wish and strive to keep them, according to the present powers which they have; the grace, by this they are made possible, is also wanting (Augustinus 3.3.13) (Denzinger, 1957, p. 316). (2) In the state of fallen nature one never resists interior grace (Augustinus 3.2.24). (3) In order to merit or demerit in the state of fallen nature, freedom from necessity is not required in the individual, but freedom from external compulsion is sufficient. (4) The Semipelagians admitted the necessity of a prevenient interior grace for each act, even for the beginning of faith; and in this they were heretics, because they wished this grace to be such that the human will could either resist or obey (Augustinus 1.7 and 1.8.9). (5) It is Semipelagian to say that Christ died or shed His blood for all men without exception. The last of these was understood to suggest that Christ died for the salvation of the predestined, was declared and condemned as false, rash, scandalous, impious, blasphemous, contumelious, dishonoring to divine piety, and, therefore, heretical. Three assertions were made in response to Jansenist supporters: (1) the propositions were Jansen’s; (2) the propositions were an adequate representation of Jansen’s doctrine; and (3) the propositions condemned contained precisely Jansen’s doctrine (Abercrombie, 1936, p. 239). The position of the French Jansenists was that the propositions were not only orthodox, representing the views of Jansen, but also a corrective solution to Jesuit Molinism. In this regard, the Jesuits were instrumental in obtaining the two papal bulls, In eminenti and Cum occasione. On the other hand, if these propositions were given a Calvinist interpretation, then, they would have to be anathematized; but for the French Jansenists, this heretical interpretation was not the most obvious (ibid., p. 240). Abercrombie maintains that the first and second propositions are textually taken from the Augustinus; the deterministic views are also condemned in the third and fourth propositions (ibid., p. 157). However, the

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third proposition is not found textually in the Augustinus, but represents “a scrupulously fair and convenient summation of the sixth and eight books of De Gratia Christi (ibid., p. 158). Jansen’s deterministic views are also reflected and condemned in the fourth proposition, which is based on Volume 1, Book 7; it involves both a synopsis and abridged quotation from Jansen’s teachings (ibid.). The fifth proposition draws from Jansen’s view that Augustine did not teach universal salvation. Jansen saw this universality of grace as a Semipelagian error, which he rejected. Abercrombie further maintains that the wording of the fifth proposition, while not Jansen’s, nevertheless expresses his thought. In Augustinus, Jansen appears to emphasize the absolute necessity of the grace offered by Jesus, contrasted to the poverty of the individual as sinner; this distinction between Jesus and the person represents the basis of the individual’s humility, leading to an indispensable charity in the soul. Whether this was actually the Jansenist interpretation of Augustine, or J. van den Steen’s interpretation of Jansen is debatable. Still, from an Augustinian perspective, Henri de Lubac criticizes the position that the individual was completely dependent on the inspiration coming from the powers from above (ibid., p. 306n267). These five propositions were the cause of ongoing controversy resulting in Pope Alexander’s condemnations. The problem with Jansenism was that it sounded like a Catholic Calvinism (Clark, 1932, p. xix.). There is no doubt that the religio-political milieu of France, Holland, and Scotland, with the rise of Calvinism and Calvinist influences, meant that Jansen’s work, which would offer the reconciliation with the Calvinists that had been sought, would be a source of conflict, with the attacks against the writings spearheaded by the Jesuits. As the Jesuits had their own Molinist tradition to offer an account of grace and free will, they were not prepared to accept the Jansenist views that seemed more Calvinist than Catholic. Two camps clearly surface in the post-Reformation period, one promoted Calvinism, the other degenerated into Pelagianism, and the Catholic Church rejected both. Pope Alexander VII devised a formulary in 1665 (given at Rome, 15 February) that reflected both a concern of Jansenist influences and a response to them: The best remedy to extirpate the remains of this contagious sickness is to cause all the world to sign one formulary founded on our authority. In pursuit whereof we command that all Ecclesiastics etc. to subscribe the following formulary: I, N. submit myself to the apostolic constitution of Alexander VII, dated October 16, 1656, the chief of Bishops: and I do with a sincere mind reject and condemn the 5 propositions, taken out of Cornelius Jansen’s book named Augustinus, and in the sense intended by the same author,

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In addition to condemning the five propositions, the Papal Bull explicitly demanded: (1) submission of the individual (ecclesiastic) to the Pope; and (2) individual condemnation of the propositions. Catholicism offered a solution to the impasse concerning liberty and grace: silence. To ignore the injunction demanding silence meant one would re-open the controversies to canonical measure: condemnations. Jansen despised Scholasticism because he saw it as responsible for the decadence in theology and its powerlessness to elucidate questions concerning grace (Ferrier, 1968, p. 140). What do the five propositions mean that led to the condemnation of Jansen’s Augustinus? The first suggests that not everyone has the grace necessary to obey God’s commandments. This means that some people have the grace and others do not depending on how God dispenses his graces. If some do not have the grace to obey the commandments, this is because God did not give it to them. Further, if this deprivation is willed by God, then, consequently, their sin is willed by God. God’s love, therefore, does not extend to all people. The second proposition maintains that in the individual’s natural corrupt state, interior grace cannot be resisted. However, as with the first proposition, this implies that grace is or is not present, depending on God’s will. In fact, any kind of grace that God offers to the person can be resisted because grace by nature, and definition, is a gift, and a gift is not imposed but received. If interior grace cannot be resisted, then, the individual cannot act freely, and is subjected to something imposed, albeit from within. In this sense, God “forces” his love. This natural goodness serves to help people, but it helps the individual only so long as this goodness is sought and acted upon. This Jansenist proposal is a response to Pelagian or Semipelagian views that build on natural grace to the point of being salvific through the choices made by the individual. The fourth and fifth propositions have references to Semipelagianism: Proposition 4 leaves room for the interpretation that grace is imposed upon human beings, meaning that grace cannot be resisted, or that it must be obeyed. In this, there is confusion between necessity and freely accepting this divine assistance. Once grace can no longer be resisted or grace must be obeyed by the will, then it is, in fact, not acting from the interior, but comes from an external force. The final result of this is that the individual has no choice in the matter because God has “predestined” the person not to incline the will but to subject the will to grace. In proposition 5, there is the rejection of the universal “all.” The proposition asserts that Jesus came just for those who were chosen by God to be saved. As with proposition 4, this claim leads to the doctrine of predestination: God predestined those who would be saved and those who

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would be damned. When Jesus came, he came for those predestined by God to be saved. This would mean that the chosen individuals would accept the grace that God had planned to give them to live a Christian life. Herein is a sense of causation, where God acts as first and efficient cause in the life of the believer. Such a view differs from one where God has knowledge of future events and because he has this knowledge they will necessarily occur. This does not mean that God is the immediate or direct cause of the events. Moreover, the fifth proposition was be rejected by the Popes from the time of the publication of the Augustinus because it does not recognize universal salvation, which is God’s plan and the reason for which Jesus was sent, was crucified, and died on the cross: not for a few, but for all. Of course, within this “all,” there were those who accepted and those who rejected Jesus, but not because God caused this choice. The two Jansenist theses that drew the most fundamental criticism were: (1) God’s love is not for all, and (2) for those whom the love is intended, God’s love is not free. Grace: Divine Love as Causal Previously, I outlined the tense theologico-political context in which Jansen’s five propositions concerning grace provoked extensive controversy. The fundamental problem was how to reconcile God’s grace and human freedom: Jansen’s solution was at the expense of human freedom, wherein God’s grace acquired a deterministic character; a doctrine of predestination that he claimed had its source in Augustine. Jansen was not concerned about protecting human freedom. If God acted in individuals, this was the result of God’s willing to predestine that individual to salvation. The Oratorian school of Augustinian thought, as I have shown with Bérulle, Gibieuf, and Chalmers, permits both divine activity and human freedom without collapsing into a deterministic causality or the other extreme, a Pelagian view of freedom. God’s love is causal, but this causality does not require a deterministic interpretation in which the individual is pulled by God as though human creatures were equivalent to marionettes or dogs on a leash. The power of God’s love causes a motion, as Chalmers shows, and this motion expresses itself in the form of a movement toward, a push toward God. As I have shown with Gibieuf, this “move toward” is the result of human love uniting itself with this divine source in which human love finds its realization and freedom. Contarinian amplitude permits the possibility of God’s love expressing itself within human agents culminating in a divine union. Some Implications of Jansen It must be noted that the philosophy underlying Jansen’s theology had farreaching implications. In this Calvinized form of Catholicism, despite its alleged Augustinian sources, causality and free will, as a result of grace, are pushed to extremes. God as a causal agent intervening in human affairs

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undermines human freedom. Not only does God foresee events, but God’s intervention is direct, and this divine presence is causal in the sense that God causes one to do good or evil through the very nature of the divine assistance, imposed or lacking. Jansen does not seem to resolve the problem. Instead, he collapses into the narrow Augustinian reading: the human creature is predestined to salvation or damnation. Jansen and Chalmers may appear to resemble each other in their philosophical assertions concerning causality and the implications of grace. The similarities are superficially present, perhaps because both are caught up in similar religio-political circumstances. However, while Jansen gives to divine assistance a deterministic and causal character, this is not the case with Chalmers. The Gibievian influence in Chalmers’s thought, in terms of agencies acting together as one, and not as two, is significant. This permits the will to act as one with God in a union of agents rather than as a cause of God’s will. In this respect, Chalmers’s “pre-motion” has a crucial role to play because pre-motion suggests a movement toward the Divine that is initiated by the Divine. This movement has its source in love. So, pre-motion is a movement back to the source, acting as one with God. The juxtaposition of Chalmers and Jansen illustrates a radical contrast despite the superficial similarities: God appears as a separate agent who causes human actions in Jansen, while God’s pre-motion as an act of love brings the individual back to God in Chalmers. It is far more difficult to ascertain in Jansen’s thought a God of love who moves the world from his goodness. It may be best to compare Jansen and Chalmers employing an analogy. Jansen’s God can be described as a professional bowler: he sees the pins knowing how they will interact and, accordingly, throws the ball. What is certain is that with the force of the ball, the pins will be hit, and with one hit, the pins will fall. A good bowler could aim to hit and spare pins. The movement therefore is unidirectional and deterministic. God’s love in such a movement is purely based on the fact that he predetermines to spare some, if he so wishes. An Augustinian model of divine love resembles a life preserver that is thrown into the water: the individual responds by reaching out to the person by holding onto the preserver. This requires a motion forward and the cooperation of the individual before the person can be saved. In this sense, there is a movement forward. A similar movement is reflected in two people involved in a relationship: one individual provokes a desire and the other will find ways to be in the presence of the loved one. The lover seeks union and does not give up seeking until the lover and the beloved are one. But the lover does not give up precisely because of the freedom the beloved has to resist, to decline, or accept the advances made by the lover. A union of love presupposes freedom.

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7. Scotus Eriugena and Dionysius the Areopagite Having examined the controversy surrounding grace and freedom in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries with reference to Contarini, Bérulle, Gibieuf, Chalmers, and Jansen, and how grace fits into “God’s love,” I will now briefly consider some earlier developments concerning grace and free will in relation to love. To understand how God manifests himself in human agents, I will further examine Scotus Eriugena and Dionysius the Areopagite, and the underlying Neoplatonism in their works. The relationship between God’s grace and human freedom as I showed in Chapter Two is a controversy that dates to the late fourth and early fifth centuries in the confrontations between Augustine and Pelagius. While the Council of Carthage adapted Augustinian views on original sin, infant baptism, and grace, the Council of Orange condemned any view that would associate salvation of the individual with divine predestination: the view that one was chosen in advance by God to be condemned or to be saved was rejected. But the controversy did not disappear in spite of the affirmations of the Councils. Above, freedom has been shown to be a condition for love, and that this freedom is infinite. A. Scotus Eriugena In the ninth century, a debate over single and double predestination involving two distinct interpretations of Augustine brought Scotus Eriugena into the limelight. The debate began with Gottschalk of Orbais (805–868 AD), a Saxon monk who studied at the monastery of Fulda. This Benedictine monastery was established in the eighth century and considered a centre of theological and missionary training in the early Middle Ages. The source of the difficulty was Augustine’s De libero arbitrio (1956), in which his emphasis on the human dependence on God’s grace endorsed a view that one was predestined by God as a result of grace, and not free to act otherwise. Gottschalk’s view, based on his interpretation of Augustine, was that human beings are predestined to be damned or saved, to hell or heaven, and there is nothing that one can do about this. When Eriugena was asked to intervene in the controversy, he postulated that there was only one predestination, toward the good and toward salvation. He argued that God cannot predestine a person to evil because God cannot be said to know evil. The dialectical and rationalistic argumentation draws from the premise that God is being, the opposite of non-being; and since evil is non-being, God does not know, nor can he predestine people to evil. Therefore, being unable to know evil, God cannot predestine humankind to an evil end, viz., damnation. Clearly, the conception of a God with limited knowledge, or qualified omniscience, would have caused problems as well, sounding altogether heretical (Moran, 1989, p. 31).

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Eriugena’s position goes directly against the fifth of the Jansenist propositions by maintaining that salvation is available to all, and not just to a few of the selected. Moreover, even if the Fall has impaired human beings’ moral judgment, grace is available to correct this defect of the intellect (ibid., p. 32). This means that if the will chooses what is wrong, it is because since the Fall, human intelligence has been incapacitated, rendering the right moral judgment difficult to ascertain. Thus, one does not will what is wrong, but the intelligence is not always reliable to shed light on what is right. Eriugena is generally seen as a Christian Neoplatonist with both mystical and pantheistic elements in this thought. He identifies created and uncreated being, nature and God, as One. In the Periphyseon (Division of Nature), written circa 862–866 AD, (Eriugena, 1981), Eriugena repeatedly reaffirms that God and the creature must be one: It follows that we ought not to understand God and the creature as two things distinct from one another, but as one and the same. For both the creature, by subsisting, is in God; and God, by manifesting Himself…creates Himself in the Creature. (Ibid., 3.678c; cf. Moran, 1989, p. 86n11) Eriugena, who had been commissioned by Charles the Bald to translate the works of Dionysius the Areopagite, made a conscious effort to preserve the Christian philosophy of the Areopagite’s writings, rather than merely provide a literal translation. The project gave Eriugena access to the world of Greek culture and philosophy. As a result, he incorporated a more precise philosophical lexicon—terms such as os (mind), o  (word), o  (substance), and i (nature)—into the Latin text. By joining the two traditions, the Latin world of learning was harmonized with the Greek world of philosophy and wisdom (Morin, 1989, pp. 55–57). Eriugena’s conceptual scheme depends on his scheme of creation: For him, what God wills is that which he creates and what he wills is eternally within him; if something is eternal with him, it must also be co-essential with him, while nothing external to him is co-essential with him (Eriugena, 1981, 3.647b). The notion that God is a formless cause of all forms can be found in the Divine Names of Dionysius. God in all things also anticipates the Dominican Meister Eckhart who makes the same assertions under the influence of Rhineland Mysticism (ibid., 3.2.648c.). The problem with such an assertion is that, by identifying the natural world with God, there is no room for Divine Transcendence, while at the same time, based on the Areopagite’s negative theology, there is an absolute Divine Transcendence. What motivates this union between God and creature? In the Periphyseon, Eriugena addresses the problem of how things come to be and states, “the Divine Goodness saw and

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always has seen those things that were to be made” (ibid., 3.678b). Given the metaphysical implications of this assertion, Eriugena further claims: since all things are truly and properly understood to be within it—for nothing subsists outside it—it was concluded that it alone is truly and properly in all things, and that nothing truly and properly is what it itself is not. (Ibid., 3.678c) Eriugena links Divine Goodness to creativity: in this Creator-creature dichotomy, he does not distinguish between divine and human substances, which left him open to charges of pantheism. However, he does avoid the God-world polarity that suggests opposing forces. If the Creator-creature union contains distinct agents based on the goodness that flows from love, then a Gibievian interpretation of Deus in nobis is possible. Eriugena’s union between Creator and human creatures is not to be found at the level of substance as he suggests, but through the unity of the will. This is an ontological union: Eriugena strongly maintains that God creates out of love; human nature shares in God’s infinity and capacity to know and love God in the natural union between Creator-creature (ibid., 3.678b). B. Dionysius the Areopagite The works of Pseudo-Dionysius reflect a development of Neoplatonism specifically of the Roman school of Proclus which incorporated a Christian theology. Divine Transcendence is beyond human intelligibility, and Proclus, who constructs a hierarchical cosmology in which ordered reality flows from an unknowable Godhead, proceeds in a triadic process to a sensible material reality. The Areopagite draws from Revelation and expounds the belief that God is Unity and Trinity. Relevant to my study are the names of God as the Areopagite develops them in Book 4: Good, Light, Beauty and Love, as well as the relationship between eros and agape. A Syrian mystic of the sixth century, Dionysius Areopagiticus was the pseudonym employed in association with the first Greek convert of Paul the Apostle. Dionysius introduces his work by ensuring the legitimacy of his claims: Scripture is his reference point. Hence, when he affirms that God is in the human soul and body he is citing both the Jewish and Christian Scriptures. Dionysius also excludes a pantheistic reading by stating: In reality there is no exact likeness between caused and cause, for the caused carry within themselves only such images of their originating sources as are possible for them, whereas the causes themselves are located in a realm transcending the caused, according to the argument regarding their source.

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Dionysius maintains that by the very notion of the Good, it extends itself into all things. The Good as divine source also unifies holding all things together, and love appears as a “desire”: All things are returned to it as their own good. All things desire it: Everything with mind and reason seeks to know it, everything sentient yearns to perceive it, everything lacking perception has a living and instinctive longing for it, and everything lifeless and merely existent turns, in its own fashion, for a share of it. The relationship between the individual person and God is one in which the soul has its source in the Good. Dionysius also maintains that a distinction is kept between the Good that causes “a multitude of goods and the one formed between them but which do not “obliterate identity.” From this close relationship between two agents one can identify Gibieuf’s Deus in nobis sine nobis. While there is a fusion of agencies as both Dionysius and Gibieuf would have it, the agencies remain distinct. For Gibieuf, amplitude has its source in the Supreme Good, which is the Cause of the Good in the Neoplatonist system of Dionysius. It is this good which is the object of desire: the Good that is love. Dionysius further states that, “the Divine longing is Good seeking Good for the sake of the Good.” If the Divine is the source of the Good, then, the Divine is the Good seeking to return to the One who is the cause of the Good; it is the Divine within the person that generates the Gibievian phrase Deus in nobis sine nobis. The extension of the Good into the world suggests that the world pre-existed within God. The amplitude of God which is reflected in his goodness enables Contarini and Gibieuf to make the same Dionysian assertion: God is the source of all good, and human goodness pre-exists with the goodness of God taking on individual expression. It is the One that has a multiplicity of agents with the significant difference that the One is cause as Dionysius maintains, which differs from the agents whose goodness is not caused in the Dionysian sense. Dionysius employs both eros () and love () and claims that they are not really any different: both terms represent “yearning” (ibid., 4.12, 709B, C). So love, whether  or , represents this human yearning to be united with the beloved. Dionysius further maintains that “cause produces and generates what is being referred to, and, on the other hand, he is the thing itself.” In other words, God is both the “yearning” and the “love” while at other times he is “yearning for” and the “Beloved.” God is both subject and object, agent and patient. Dionysius associates this with circular motion of God in the Neoplatonic notions of proceeding, remaining and returning. Hierarchical order is a central feature of the Dionysian system, a realm of intelligences sharing in divine illumination, albeit unequally; this ordered unity is the object of the divine will. Each hierarchy is composed of three

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elements: order (), activity ( ) and knowledge (), a triadic system deriving from Neoplatonism of subordinated and related multiple triads. Activity or energy is related but subordinated, and the activity of each hierarchy is becoming deified through holy activity—or knowledge—the activity of purification, illumination, perfection, and conversion that assimilate one to God; and finally knowledge, which contains a theurgical sense of intellectual activities including contemplation, illumination, and prayer. Divinization Theurgical exercises were not the only ones associated with Divinization. The Dionysian baptism (ibid., p. 66) had two purposes. First, it constituted the birth of Divinization by removing the individual from the darkness of the world, replacing darkness with a luminous angelic world order. Second, it submitted persons to Jesus by freeing them of Satan. To come to know God, the intelligence must overcome all sensible things, and so, the liturgy must be understood in terms of the meanings of the images rather than allowing the senses to be drawn only by the images. This understanding of the sacraments allows the individual to participate in divine life instead of just understanding the significance of the ceremonies (ibid., p. 66). God will assist the individual through grace to contemplate the spiritual mysteries that are beyond human intelligence, and through negation, avoid the conceptualization of divine names. This process involves both negations and affirmations, including those of the self. Divinization follows as a pure immaterial vision, a knowledge beyond reasoning: this knowledge of “unknowingness” of God is love. The discussion of un-knowing love takes on Eckhartian language. Dionysian negative theology influenced Eckhart; the birth of divinization through baptism, as well as the emphasis on the Word, contribute to the Eckhartian reading (ibid.). For the Areopagite, the intelligible light is inseparable from divine love. If intelligence and love are one in the Dionysian framework, this is because “this love is ecstatic and removes the human condition of the intelligence in order to divinize it” (ibid., p. 67). Such contemplation does not really differ from the ecstasy of love, which can only be experienced through God’s grace. C. Divine Causality The triadic structure discussed above evolves from Neoplatonism and reflects the Plotinian triad of “abiding,” “progress,” and “regress” (ibid.). This triad, stemming originally from Proclus, is also translated as “remaining,” “procession,” and “reversion” (Gersh, 1978, pp. 217–227). The Christian Neoplatonic concept of “remaining” expresses two different meanings contingent on the context: (1) a cause and effect are united; and (2) an immobile

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or undiminished cause (ibid., p. 218). The second refers to God, but the first refers to the union of God and the individual. The contextual notion of “procession” corresponds to that of “remaining.” Procession is also found in two contexts. In some instances, it indicates the emanative motion away from the cause. In other instances, procession belongs to the cause itself representing motion either toward or through its effects (ibid., p. 223). This procession can express either an ascent or descent: For the pagan Neoplatonic writers, procession expressed descent; for the Christian Neoplatonists, the tendency was for procession to express ascent. The significance of all this is that Dionysius uses procession to mean providential and participated goodness proceeding from God. Procession expresses the effect of goodness from its prior cause, God. Eriugena also uses the sense of procession to mean contemplation preceding the ascent to the Transcendent in which individuals first transcend the world of sense objects and their own nature “in a state of pure Grace” (ibid.). Reversion differentiates between effect and cause. The reversion of the effect and the reversion of the cause appears in Christian writing not only with the same pagan sense, but also with an ontological and ethical meaning (ibid., 225). The ethical sense is found in the Areopagite, but it shares with Augustine the sense of causal reversion that was discussed in Chapter Two. The traditional notion found in the Areopagite is that the Good is that toward which all things revert, expressing the proper end of each thing. In this respect, Chalmers’s pre-motion illustrates this causal reversion, whereby God as the source of good draws the individual in a motion of love back to God. This is possible because God, who is already present within the person, inscribes his image through his amplitude. The multiple goodness of agents produce the love that seeks to return to God, and this union is achieved through the human will. In these two modes of causation, from cause to effect and effect back to cause, a reconciliation exists between Christian and the traditional Neoplatonic ontology: God is a transcendent cause. Remaining, procession, and reversion are part of God’s effects readapted to incorporate Christian doctrine (ibid., p. 228). Identifying God as an immanent cause brings the Christian Neoplatonists closer to the pagan model. Cause is remaining, proceeding, and reverting in relation to the effects. This view is compatible with Christian teaching, since in this case causality is identified with the First Principle (ibid., 229). This duality embedded in the First Cause also means that Christian Neoplatonists can reinterpret the emanative pagan concepts: By reducing emanation, a more distinct Christian theism becomes possible, in which God’s causation “becomes a matter of deliberate creativity” (ibid.). These movements expressing transcendence and immanence resurface in the Oratorian tradition, which receives its impulse from Augustine building upon Contarini’s amplitude. The union of agents, God and human creatures, express a union of

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wills united in love. This interpretation contrasts from the Jansenist views, whereby human choices and actions are predetermined and caused by God. D. Making Sense of Dionysius and the Infinite Contarini’s amplitude includes the notion of infinity and means goodness without limits in reference to the Supreme Good. In Neoplatonism, infinity is identified with divine emanation; the theology would have been influenced by Parmenides, wherein Plato refers to the One as infinite () and connects it to the “infinite multitude of beings” (144a–b; see also Lilla, 1980, p. 97). Contarini’s amplitude, as it is also developed by Gibieuf, represents this positive affirmation. The extent to which God’s goodness can manifest itself is picked up by Gibieuf as shown above. Salvatore Lilla maintains: It is one of the main features of the theology both of Dionysius and of Neoplatonism to consider all beings as proceeding from the “one” by means of a process of emanation: the “one” is the source of all beings in so far as they pre-exist already in some way . . . in the “one,” which contains all of them and brings them forth. (Ibid., p. 98) The significance of Lilla’s analysis of the Areopagite is that the author identifies the One as source of all beings already pre-existing in the One. Thus, the One contains “being” as well as bringing “being” forth. As shown above, the Neoplatonic principle of reversion accounts for “being” returning to the One. The point of this analysis is that the infinity of the One accounts for the multitude of beings: God as an agent can express himself in a multiplicity of agents due to his infinity. Similarly, his love can be expressed in a multitude of beings due to his amplitude. Salvatore Lilla’s study provides valuable information accounting for the different notions of infinity appearing in Dionysius. He shows how these different interpretations of infinity reflect the evolution of this principle in Platonic, Neoplatonic, and Patristic traditions. Gibieuf develops Contarini’s “amplitude,” associating it with the Infinite and the One (Ferrier, 1980, p. 160). For Gibieuf, liberty is associated with infinity. This liberty is based on attaching oneself to God, and by becoming one with God, the individual participates in God’s amplitude (ibid., p. 161). This Dionysian interpretation of the One becomes clear when amplitude is understood as having its origin in unity with the One from when these beings were in God. For Gibieuf, as with Contarini, liberty is to be found in divine amplitude, which means to find the Infinite and the One. Here Gibieuf makes explicit reference to the Areopagite (1630, p. 298). Bérulle attaches to the One a unifying force—a unifying power referring to Dionysian “divine love” as the binding nature that brings things that are distant and scattered into oneness: oneness and love are inseparable (1996, 4.1.1). Paradoxically, there is no freedom: to be happy, one must be one with

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God, but in this oneness there is freedom. Those who choose God participate in this divine amplitude (Ferrier, 1980, p. 162). 8. Divine Amplitude: The Agency of Love In this chapter, I began with Contarini, who maintains that amplitude is its infinity: amplitude is not bound by any limits. This also means that God’s goodness, which is expressed in divine amplitude, does not limit itself to God, but manifests itself in the goodness of persons—God expresses himself in a multiplicity of agents. Gibieuf’s allusion to Pseudo-Dionysius suggests that amplitude has its origin in the One. Gibieuf asserts from an Augustinian perspective that freedom exists when the individual is united with the will of God. The infinite love of God inclines the person’s will to the ultimate good and produces love between God and the individual when the two wills are united. Thus, amplitude can be said to be the unity of wills, divine and human. Chalmers’s concept of pre-motion builds on that of divine amplitude: a movement of love initiated by God, to which the individual responds. These movements, which resemble transcendence and immanence in Neoplatonism, are not causal in the sense of being deterministic, but rather incline the will of the person to God’s. Pre-motion, having God as the source, leads one back to God. However, the person is not absorbed into the absolute Transcendence of God. Neither does divine immanence generate pantheism, that is, the instantiations of divine beings, as I showed with Eriugena. While these are the possible outcomes of Neoplatonic readings of Eriugena and the Areopagite, this is not the case with Contarini or the Oratorians. Absolute Transcendence, which characterizes the Dionysian tradition, differs in Bérullian thought: for Bérulle, transcendence means to follow the will of the Creator, who possessed the creature before creation. Bérullian ontology is Neoplatonic, in which God possesses a thought of the individual before divine activity, and to follow God’s will is to follow the thought that the Creator possessed of the individual before creation. The fundamental nature of God is one of goodness—the desire for this good extends itself: the love of God is expressed in each person in the oneness of agents, divine and human. Between the Augustinianism of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and the Neoplatonism of Eriugena and Dionysius of the sixth and ninth centuries, Jansen appears with the controversies surrounding grace. Jansen’s God limits the gratuity of divine love to predetermined individuals, who are not free to resist his love. The Jansenist views contrast radically with a God of love whose grace is available to all through divine amplitude.

Four MALEBRANCHE AND THE LOVE OF GOD 1. Malebranche, Lamy, and Norris Having presented the philosophical and historical background to the sixteenth and seventeenth century French Oratorians, this chapter examines Nicolas Malebranche. I examine the controversial issue in philosophical and theological circles during this period concerning the love of God: the relationship between God’s love and humanity. Malebranche addressed the complexity of the controversy with his response in the Traité de l’amour de Dieu (Treatise on the Love of God) (1697/1963). My main concern is how the person responds to divine love, which involves two distinct ontological interpretations advanced by Malebranche, and the Benedictine, Bernard Lamy (cf. Lamy, 1697, pp. 123– 131). Also, I shall argue that the difference between Malebranche and the English Rationalist, John Norris, fundamentally concerns the relationship between the Augustinian notions of cupiditas and caritas (Norris, 1688). In Malebranchean terms, human love directed toward God is selfinterested. This assertion needs to be understood in the context of the Quietist controversy of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The controversy is represented in correspondence between Malebranche and Lamy; it is also found in the Malebranchean position of self-interested love. In examining Norris’s interpretation of Malebranche, I show how “vision in God” differs between the two Rationalists. After developing Malebranche’s notion of human and divine love, I will consider Norris’s writings on cupiditas and caritas. The correspondence between Malebranche and Lamy is central to the discussion on self-interested love as opposed to gratuitous love. In this regard, I will examine three relevant letters. Derivatives of the dispute on selfinterested and gratuitous love resurface in Norris’s correspondence with Mary Astell and Damaris Masham. I will show that, for Malebranche, order is what makes “God is love” intelligible. For the purposes of this discussion, the expression under consideration is “love of God” or, as it appeared in French during this period, “amour de Dieu.” In the previous chapter, movement is from God’s love for his human creatures, and now the focus shifts to the human response to the Creator. The problem during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries was understanding what the “love of God” meant, or more precisely, what leads human love toward the Divine. The Malebranche-Lamy correspondence suggests two possible explanations: love as self-interested or love as gratuitous, representing Malebranche’s and Lamy’s views, respectively, within the Quietist controversy.

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In the previous chapter, I briefly presented elements of the religio-political conflicts surrounding Jansenism. During this same century, another controversial issue was that of “Quietism,” a Christian philosophy that swept through France, Italy, and Spain during the seventeenth century, although it had much earlier origins. Quietiests insist on intellectual stillness and interior passivity as essential conditions of perfection. The movement did not disappear just because Pope Innocent XI condemned it. In France, the influential Madame Jeanne Bouvier de la Motte Guyon had personal reasons for remaining faithful to the Quietist movement. She left her husband, Jacques Guyon, abandoning the entire family including her children, preferring a life of extreme mortification. For her, the love she felt and expressed toward God in this way was unquestionably a passionate love (Malebranche, 1922, pp. 13–14). Madame Guyon was both controversial and influential. The charismatic woman had also captivated the future Archbishop of Cambray, François Fénelon (1651–1715). The orthodoxy of her views were questioned by another French bishop, Jacques-Benigne Bossuet (1627–1704). As a result of Guyon’s heterodox writings, Bossuet distanced himself from both Fénelon, his former disciple, and Madame Guyon, the eccentric woman, arguing that his references were more orthodox than either Guyon or Fénelon. By the end of the seventeenth century, a number of theologians, such as Lamy and Malebranche, avoided making any allusion to Madame Guyon. The notion of “pure love and indifference to salvation” (pur amour et de l’indifférence au salut) became progressively circulated with differing views in terms of its orthodoxy. Bossuet began to question the orthodoxy of Madame Guyon’s ideas and attempted to distance his former disciple, Fénelon, from the eccentric woman (ibid., p. 23). Bossuet thought Fénelon had been conquered, but wondered how the thought of Madame Guyon could have made the impact. When Francis Fénelon was eventually appointed Archbishop of Cambray, he refused to give ecclesial approbation to Bossuet’s work, Instruction sur les états d’oraison (Instruction on the States of Prayer), while he was preparing his own work, Explications des maximes des saints sur la vie intérieure (Explanation of the Maxims of the Saints on the Inner Life). By 1697, the work with which King Louis XIV took issue was Fénelon’s Explications; after he wrote to Pope Innocent XII, Fénelon was exiled from his own diocese (ibid., pp. 30–33). B. Lamy’s Response Lamy was supportive of Fénelon’s writings. He adopted Fénelon’s opinions, remaining faithful to the disciple of Madame Guyon, and suspected Malebranche of Quietism. The fundamental issue, concerning happiness, consid-

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ered whether one’s love for God is independent of the human desire for happiness, including that of one’s salvation: One does not love God more, not for merit, not for perfection, not for the happiness that should be found in loving him. He should be loved as much, even supposing the impossible, to ignore that one loves him, or that he would make eternally unhappy those who would have loved him. (On n’aime plus Dieu, ni pour le mérite, ni pour la perfection, ni pour le bonheur qu’on doit trouver en l’aimant. On l’aimerait autant, quand même par supposition impossible, il devrait ignorer qu’on l’aime, ou qu’il voudrait rendre éternellement malheureux ceux qui l’auraient aimé.) (Ibid., p. 36) Fénelon’s writings are a reflection of Madame Guyon’s thoughts. He holds that the greatest love is the most disinterested love, “I love you, even if I must suffer because of you, even if you damn me” (Je vous aime, même si je dois souffrir par vous, même si vous me damnez) (ibid., p. 37). One of the key issues is that when one’s preoccupation is salvation, then indifference is shown toward salvation. In the Introduction to Traité de l’amour de Dieu, Roustan considers whether “God is our end” (Dieu est notre fin) or “We are for God” (nous sommes pour Dieu) (ibid., p. 47). Roustan maintains that the Oratorians, in the tradition of Bérulle and Condren, shift between the two interpretations of God and human finality. The first suggests divine abandonment, a disinterested love, while the second expresses a philosophical interpretation of self-realization at the expense of self-abnegation, with pagan philosophical values replacing those of Christian thinkers. Roustan states regarding Malebranche, “his entire life breathed the Bérullian atmosphere” (a toute sa vie respiré l’atmosphère bérullienne) (ibid., p. 48). 2. “Vision in God” A proper understanding of Malebranche’s reaction to Lamy and his response to the Quietist movement requires an analysis of his notion, “we see all things in God” (nous voyons toutes choses en Dieu) (1962, 1:3.2.6; spelling is Vrin edition). This claim is intended to solve the problem of how one comes to know things; Malebranche’s metaphysics reflects ethical and epistemological problems. In his Occasionalist Theory, God is the only cause and present in the “occasions” of human experience (sight, sound, knowing). Malebranche asserts: One needs to know that God is directly united to our souls by his presence, such that one can say that he is the place of the spirit, just as space is in a certain sense the place of the body. These two things, already presupposed, it is certain that the spirit can see what is in God which represents created beings, because that is very spiritual, very intelligible, and

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AMOR DEI IN SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES very present—to the spirit. So, the spirit can see in God the works of God, supposedly God really wants that one discovers him, what is in him which he represents. (Ibid.) (Il faut de plus sçavoir que Dieu est tres-étroitement uni à nos ames par sa présence, de sorte qu’on peut dire qu’il est le lieu des esprits, de même que les espaces sont en un sens le lieu des corps. Ces deux choses étant supposées, il est certain que l’esprit peut voir ce qu’il y a dans Dieu qui represente les êtres créez, puisque cela est tres-spirituel, tresintelligible, et tres-present à l’esprit. Ainsi l’esprit peut voir en Dieu les ouvrages de Dieu, supposé que Dieu veüille bien lui découvrir ce qu’il y a dans lui qui les represente.)

One comes to sense external objects through the mind of God. Malebranche establishes the dependence of the human mind on the divine mind. Everything God created pre-existed as an idea in his mind. Consequently, as a result of the union between the human and divine mind, human ideas have their source in the pre-existent divine ideas (ibid.). This relationship between divine light and the human mind is analogous to that in Gnosticism, wherein the power of the divine on the human mind is most pronounced. But this is a common theme that predates Gnosticism. The light-intelligence relationship was already present in the writings of Plato, Aristotle, and Alexander of Aphrodisias, which all seem to share a common source in Persian Mazdeism (Filoramo, 1990). Malebranche’s views on coming to know objects is based on his wellknown claim: Everyone knows that we hardly see the objects outside of us by themselves. We do not see the sun, the stars, and an infinity of objects outside of us; and it is not possible that the soul leaves the body, by going, in a way of speaking, walking about in the heavens, to contemplate these objects. (Malebranche, 1962, 3.2.1) (Tout le monde tombe d’accord, que nous n’appercevons point les objets qui sont hors de nous par eux-mêmes. Nous voyons le Soleil, les Etoiles, et une infinité d’objets hors de nous; et il n’est pas vraisemblable que l’ame sorte du corps, et qu’elle aille, pour ainsi dire, se promener dans les cieux, pour y contempler tous ces objets.) The claim that one comes to see things in God is further developed in causal terms: one depends on God’s ideas for their thoughts. This dependency has causal implications, since God is the cause of all real changes in the person; to come to know something means a modification of the soul. Ideas are the means by which God causes the modification of the soul. Perceptual experiences, however, belong to the domain of the soul; they do not derive from

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ideas. Malebranche’s metaphysics has significant implications as Martial Gueroult puts it: The reinforced theocentrism that leads to Occasionalism could not be known to leave to the intellectual effort of our soul the least real efficiency, and as a result, the least activity proper to cognitive operation. It brings to extreme the dependence of the creature in relation to its Creator in reducing to zero the minimum of the proposed activity. (Gueroult, 1955, p. 129) (Le théocentrisme renforcé qui aboutit à l’occasionnalisme ne saurait laisser à l’effort intellectuel de notre âme la moindre réelle efficace, et par conséquent la moindre activité propre dans l’opération cognitive. Il porte à l’extrême la dépendance de la créature à l’égard de son Créateur en réduisant à zéro le minimum d’activité proposé.) It is more natural for the soul to be united to God in this Malebranchean framework than to be united with the body, because the desire to know what is true and the desire for the good inclines the soul toward God rather than toward the body (ibid., p. 150). This inclination toward union with God reflects the reason God created humankind: to be united with the Creator. Since perceptual experience belongs to the domain of the soul, one would expect to find love within the experiential category associated with perception. Any idea that one would have of love would have to derive from the experience of love, since love is not an object of the sort that one would have to “stroll the heavens” to see it. Although pleasure and love are not the same thing for Malebranche, he does admit that one loves things that are the result of pleasure, a concept he presents as problematic in La recherche de la vérité (The Search for Truth), since sensations can be an obstacle in loving God (1962, 3.1.4; see also Elucidation, ibid., 14). On the one hand, Malebranche sees the necessity to overcome the sensorial pleasure which limits love, and on the other hand, he sees the need for reason to discover God’s goodness, which becomes the motivating factor of loving God, so that one is not governed by pleasure, but rather, the intelligence and the will: Because men are rational, God wants to be loved by a love of choice, rather than a love of instinct or an unreflected love, as one loves sensory things, without knowing that they are good other than bringing the pleasure that one receives. (Ibid.) (Parce que les hommes étans raisonnables, Dieu veut en être aimé d’un amour de choix, plûtôt que du’un amour d’instinct et d’un amour indéliberé, semblable à celui par le que l’on aime les choses sensibles,

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Malebranche stresses the role of the will, which implies freedom to choose God, as opposed to a love that is not chosen, one that is governed only by pleasure. Love of God, therefore, belongs to the domain of the soul, since a modification of the soul is implied, but reason is also necessary, since it is through the will for Malebranche that one loves God. Malebranche’s “vision in God” and love of God shows both similarities and subtle differences with John Norris. At this stage, I would like to consider Norris where he follows, and departs from, Malebranche. 3. John Norris: Malebranche’s Disciple John Norris began reading Malebranche during 1688–1689. His theory of knowledge was published in two parts, An Essay toward the Theory of the Ideal or Intelligible World (1701, 1704). Norris’s theory of human knowledge was borrowed from Malebranche, but giving the impression that he borrowed from Malebranche more than he actually did. While his theory of knowledge was, for the most part, the result of his own reflection, it is about human knowledge for which Norris is indebted to Malebranche (Acworth, 1979, pp. 90, 112). Similar to Malebranche, Norris maintained that the external world of materiality was the occasion for one’s sensations. This claim immediately placed Norris in the polemics of “divine love” and the nature of pleasure. Objects could not be the direct cause of human sensation, a view that was wellestablished in Malebranche. Norris shared the fundamental premise with Malebranche that bodies do not cause impressions on the soul, but are rather the occasions for expressions of the will of God. The problem, therefore, is how one knows the external world if the sensations one experiences has God as their source. For Norris, it is only through sensations that one comes to know the material world. But the certainty of the material world leads Malebranche and Norris to seek two different solutions: Malebranche appeals to revelation, since reason could not establish the certainty of sensory reliability. Norris, however, believed that “no strict proof of the existence of a material world could be given” (ibid., pp. 121, 125). Though their Occasionalist views overlap, Norris reached different conclusions from Malebranche, but integrated Malebranche’s arguments into his own theory of truth. For Norris, a theory of knowledge is to be concerned about truth, and truth is in God. To understand truth is to understand truth in God. It follows that, to know things, is to know them in God (Norris, 1693, p. 111). The importance of the relationship between the mind of God and the mind of the individual, or more specifically, the union of the two, is that as

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Malebranche attempts to show in his correspondence with Lamy, a disinterested love toward God is not possible. Norris elaborated Malebranche’s “we see all things in God” by asserting that the ideas by which one understands are divine ideas, and the divine ideas are the ideas by which one understands (1978, pt. 2, chap. 2; 12). Both divine ideas and sense experience are the source of knowledge for Norris, but it is knowing through sensation, those occasional impressions caused in the person by God in the presence of an object, where Norris’s and Malebranche’s theory of truth converge. 4. God’s Knowledge In this section, I shall be following Malebranche’s Traité de l’amour de Dieu, as suggested by each section title. Love is considered in relation to order and happiness, and in terms of self-interest; virtue is also examined in the light of order. I finally give ontological interpretations of Malebranche’s treatise. Malebranche introduces his Traité de l’amour de Dieu by asserting that God knows himself perfectly. This perfect knowledge extends to what God knows about creatures (1963, p. 7). In Recherche de la vérité, Malebranche maintains that things that exist in the world, even the most material, preexisted in the mind of God (1962, 3.2.5). In this sense, divine substance constitutes the source of the idea or the eternal model of God’s creation. God loves his substance because he pleases himself or “he delights in himself” (il se complaît en lui-même) (ibid.). Three elements result from God’s love of his perfections wherein he pleases himself: (1) Human beings are created with this capacity to participate in divine order by seeking perfection. (2) The unchanging order is the eternal law, and the natural and necessary law of all intelligences. (3) The love of order is the love of God and of all things in relation to God (Malebranche, 1963a, pp. 7–8). Each of these elements expresses the significance of order in Malebranche’s introduction to the love of God. In the next section, I shall focus on the implications of order and the relationship between love and order. A. Love and Order The notion of order in Malebranche has parallels in Augustine, when one considers “order” in the light of De libero arbitrio (1.16): Two kinds of men, as well, have been clearly and sufficiently distinguished: those who pursue and love eternal things, and those who pursue and love temporal things. . . . the mind cannot be deposed from the citadel of mastery or from right order by anything except the will.

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The central idea expressed in Augustine is that there is an order, and one deviates from this order through the will. In pursuing the right order, one loves “eternal things.” Malebranche maintains, drawing from Augustine, that one is drawn to God through the order of the cosmos. God acts only for himself, which means that intelligences were created with the capacity to know and to love, and specifically to know and to love God; this means to know truth and order, and to judge according to truth and order (ibid.). For Malebranche, human beings are primarily ordering creatures, and ordering is central to the life of the individual. It is important that one has the right order. In “Elucidation Eight” of his La recherche de la vérité, Malebranche maintains, “God wills order in his works.” There is human participation in this order, “what we clearly conceive to be contrary to order, God does not will.” The fact that one can “conceive” disorder that is “contrary to order” is significant since disorder is not willed by God. Thus, God’s will is in order, and the human capacity to discern both order and disorder means that one can also discern the will of God. In Traité de l’amour de Dieu Malebranche holds: To love order, is to love things according to their relations with divine perfection: and it is to love God considered in himself more than all things, because he closes within himself, and in a manner that is infinitely perfect, the perfections of all things. (1963, p.8) (Aimer l’ordre, c’est aimer les choses selon le rapport qu’elles ont aux perfections divines: et c’est aimer Dieu considéré en lui-même plus que toutes choses, puisqu’il renferme en lui-même, et d’une manière infiniment parfaite, les perfections de toutes choses.) Central to this order is the idea that one cannot love what is not God or what is less perfect than God. The discernment of God’s will, knowing what is the right order, is the role individuals play in uniting themselves with God. Malebranche associates the love of order with the beauty that order represents: things that are beautiful are pleasing, but the pleasure that can be derived from things is not always good. A distinction is made between pleasure that is illuminated and reasonable, which leads to the true cause and source, and the confused exciting love of false goods, bodily goods, and powerless creatures (ibid., p. 9). This desire for beauty, for order, producing pleasure, suggests that humankind seeks happiness, the pleasure of an ultimate good. Inseparable from the Creator, human love is fundamentally a natural motion, which is referred to as the “will” (ibid., p. 11). As Augustine affirms, whether actions are good or evil, all seek the supreme good, “All the people who act wrongly want to be happy; they always want that” (Rotelle, 2000, Sermon on Psalm 32, v. 12). Similarly, Malebranche maintains:

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So, all love of God is interested in the sense that, the motive of this love is that God touches us as our good and that we are convinced that only he can fill the heart that he made for himself. (1963, p. 11) (Ainsi tout amour de Dieu est intéressé en ce sens, que le motif de cet amour, c’est que Dieu nous touche comme notre bien, et que nous sommes convaincus qu’il n’y a que lui qui puisse remplir le coeur qu’il a fait pour lui.) In these lines, Malebranche establishes the self-interested nature of human love, and not only love of God. It is within human nature to seek what is pleasing, whether this be good or evil, as Augustine maintains, but all seek the happiness that pleasure brings. This fundamental property of human nature, that it is motivated by happiness, characterizes both love and the will. It drives the person to find ultimate fulfillment in God. This means that love remains unfulfilled until its desires are perfected and ordered to God. Happiness and Love Even though Malebranche establishes this natural inclination toward the good, movement toward wickedness and evil raises a few problems: How does one deal with conflicting movements? By positing the cupiditas-caritas tension, the interpretation of Augustinian love, which I maintained in Chapter One, wickedness, then, becomes less problematic, since cupiditas would thwart the movement from a spiritual direction to something material. A natural movement toward the good, through this desire of beauty and order that brings pleasure, can also lead to what is wicked and evil. Malebranche states, “Our will, the love of beatitude, is pressed upon us by God, common to both the good and the evil, common even to the damned.” (Notre volonté, l’amour de la béatitude est une impression de Dieu commune aux bons, aux méchants, aux damnés même) (ibid.). Malebranche does not explicitly state this in terms of a cupiditas-caritas tension, when one perceives something that is evil as something good. The tension is precisely that the desire for pleasure, which is associated with the force of human appetites, can lead the individual into a conflict between the spirit and the body. This means that the inclination toward the good is not enough to choose the good, since the wicked and the damned have chosen wrongly even though they seek happiness. The solution to this problem does not change human nature as Malebranche presents it. But because the element of self-interest is dominant in human motion, then, it would not be difficult to understand why, in seeking happiness, the “wicked” and the “damned” have chosen wrongly. In Malebranche’s ontology, individuals cannot but seek what makes them happy, because this is how God created them. In this desire for happiness, the individual may exclude God’s order, as Malebranche states:

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While God impresses this desire for happiness upon the individual, Malebranche suggests that the experience of objects that bring delight to the individual progresses from the material to the spiritual. Malebranche makes the poignant claim: Do not ask me why I want to be happy, ask the one who made me, because it does not depend on me at all. (Ibid.) (Ne me demandez pas pour quoi je veux être heureux, demandez-le à celui qui m’a fait, car cela ne depend nullement de moi.) This question is crucial because of its ontological implications. For one to desire happiness is simply human nature. The only thing that can be added is that God created individuals to be happy. The choices that one makes will be based on what leads to happiness. Malebranche makes four points associated with love: (1) A shift occurs from love from the universal sense to the particular so that love becomes directed toward a given object. (2) The more sensory experience is pleasant the more the soul is filled with this object and forgets itself. (3) When sensory experiences lead the soul to the true cause, unlike confused pleasures of the senses leading to the object rather than to God, the soul loves what is presented. (4) The supreme good, the true good that ought to be loved with an enlightened love, is not the same as loving a sensory object (1963, pp. 13–14). A progression is expressed in these four degrees of love from the first where a particular object is loved, to the second where further sensory elements of the objects are present, the third with the cause of this sensory experience in which one becomes lost, and finally the fourth, distinguishing the sensory object from its cause, the ultimate good. If we take these degrees of love at a more personal level, the question may be raised, what about when the lover is deprived of the beloved, when the object is absent? Why is it that lovers prefer death when they are continuously deprived of the beloved? Death becomes a kind of annihilation of the lover’s being: non-being is preferred to being, as Malebranche states: From where comes . . . that a lover prefers death, the moment they are deprived of the ones they love? It’s that they look at death as the annihi-

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lation of their being, and they prefer non-being to to being deprived of well-being. (Ibid., p. 14) (D’où vient . . . qu’un amant se donne la mort, lors qu’ils sont toûjours privez de ce qu’ils aiment? C’est qu’ils regardent la mort comme l’annéantissement de leur être, et ils préferent le non-être à l’être privé du bien-être.) How is it that lovers forget themselves as they are preoccupied with their beloveds? It is that their happiness is in the pleasure of their objects loved? (ibid., p. 15). Malebranche juxtaposes being and non-being on the basis of the presence of the object loved: presence means being, while absence leads to non-being. Even though lovers forget themselves, their beloveds sustain being. The contrary is true in its absence: that which sustains being is also that which deprives being of life through its absence. Thus, for Malebranche, pleasure gives life meaning and the absence of pleasure renders life meaningless. At another level, the level of presence, self-annihilation is part of being lost in the beloved, and in this sense, one is transformed “into the object loved” (dans l’objet aimé): the heart is transformed into the heart of the beloved (ibid.). Self-interested Love Self-love is the result of the human “fallen” condition, that is, the state of God’s human creation after the Fall. In the pre-fallen state, human desires served to lead one to God and to be in harmony with God. Whereas the human desire to love after the Fall is directed toward the self and whatever pleasure an object perceived as good could bring to the self. The heart of the person is no longer centered on God, but has turned to created objects in a self-seeking love. And so, even the love of God is a self-interested love (Robinet, 1965, p. 388). Malebranche’s position on self-love is further expressed in his correspondence with Lamy (ibid., p. 388n132). To desire God is to love God as he loves himself. One acquires virtue so that human conduct conforms itself to divine law knowing that God is just: who work with all their effort to acquire virtues, to order all their conduct based on the divine law, knowing well that God is just and that it is the only means to increase their happiness. (Malebranche, 1963, p. 18) (qui travaillent de toutes leurs forces à l’acquisition des vertus, à regler toute leur conduite sur la loi divine, sachant bien que Dieu est juste, et que c’est l’unique moien d’augmenter leur bonheur) The only way that one can increase human happiness is by their pleasure in God, transforming themselves in the Divine: “they love the way God loves himself” (ils aiment Dieu comme Dieu s’aime) (ibid.).

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The Malebranchean assertion that to love God is to love him as he loves himself has significant implications because it means being united with the will of God. To love God as he loves himself is to be united with God’s will; this union is “pure love” (le pur amour). Malebranche’s view reflects its Bérullian source, which represents the tradition of Oratorian Augustinianism: Divine love and union with divine love involves the union of wills, human and divine. It is the human will that conforms to the divine will which leads to “their transformation . . . into the Divine” (leur transformation . . . dans la Divinité): this is union with God (ibid., p. 22), which is made explicit a few pages later: The greater the pleasure, the more the perception of the divine substance is vivid and agreeable, and also, the more the soul unites itself to God, the more it is, in a way of speaking, forced to love him. (Ibid.) Plus le plaisir est grand, plus la perception de la substance divine est vive et agréeable, plus aussi l’âme s’unit à Dieu, plus elle est, pour ainsi dire, forcée de l’aimer. Malebranche’s thesis claims that love of God is self-interested because human beings seek happiness and happiness is the result of the pleasure that God brings. The structure of Malebranchean ontology reveals that human desires are inseparable from God. This desire for happiness comes from God, and so Malebranche argues that because this desire has a divine source, ultimately, it is God who is sought. God’s love brings true pleasure, or at least one lives with the hope that one will possess the taste of God’s goodness one day, “through vivid and sweet perceptions that his substance will produce in our soul” (par des perceptions vives et douces que sa substance produira dans notre âme.) (ibid., p. 23). God’s divine substance produces something in the human soul, vivid perceptions that are sweet. It is these experiences of the soul produced by God that yearns for this divine union, which is to bring pleasure and happiness. God is not a thought, or some kind of speculative construction, as if he does not bear any relationship with human experience. The link between the human and the divine in Malebranchean ontology, as shown above, is so close that the sensorial experiences produced in the soul have a divine source and this source provokes the desire of divine love: to seek God as the final end of human happiness. I assert that an analogical relationship is drawn between divine love and human love: one cannot experience the joy of friendship if one does not have the experience, the pleasure that is derived from the friend. One cannot love without a reason, and all reasons to love bring some kind of pleasure to the senses, or involve the hope of bringing some kind of pleasure. The role of perception is central for Malebranche because perception means clarity of an object that is loved. This implies that a relationship exists

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between the object desired and the desiring subject; it is not enough to perceive an object clearly. The object is not only perceived, but the object also bears a relation of desire to the perceiving individual. Love brings some kind of modification to the perceiver that involves pleasure, which is the reason one loves (ibid., pp. 22–23). To understand the relationship between the human and the Divine, Malebranche distinguishes between “the love of formal beatitude” (amour de la béatitude formelle) and “the love of choice” (l’amour de choix), as well as a distinction between the motive and the cause of love (ibid., pp. 19–23). Love of the “formal beatitude” (béatitude formelle), Malebranche explains, is something physical, it is created and comes from God; this beatitude represents the person’s ultimate end (ibid., p. 19). “Love of choice” concerns freedom in one’s choices, and unlike “formal beatitude,” “love of choice” comes from the person. It is with grace—gratia—that human love can be ordered by loving the cause which enables one to love (ibid.). The difference between motive and cause is that in the former, one seeks happiness, while in the latter, the cause is God. B. Virtue as Part of Order If I take the Malebranchean view that relationships are motivated by what brings pleasure to the person, a problem surfaces. Human relationships with the Divine may, at some stage, transform from pleasure into displeasure and pain. Does this not go against human nature when one no longer finds the initial pleasure that triggered the relationship, either with God or with another person? Malebranche, however, is not advancing a hedonistic ethics based on ontology. Instead, he recognizes the need to acquire virtue as a means of attaining the perfection that is found in God. The purpose of pleasure is to lead one to its cause, namely, God. By becoming virtuous, one becomes God-like; one is perfected and God takes pleasure in his perfection. In this sense, one also becomes pleasing to God. Self-interested love, therefore, is not an excuse to ignore the virtues that are needed in acquiring God-like perfection. Virtue is part of the divine order that unites one with God and God’s will. But how does virtue manifest itself in human relationships? While pleasure may be the motivating factor in a relationship that leads to happiness and love of the beloved, virtue ensures that the person does not remain at a purely sensuous level of a relationship. Merely sensuous ties are not what Malebanche is attempting to defend. Sensuous elements leading to pleasure in the presence of the beloved also need to be ordered with virtue to ensure that a relationship is not reduced to something purely erotic based on a hedonistic ethos. Virtue is needed to overcome whatever dryness, displeasure, or even pain that might be experienced in a relationship. Two loves are not united just because of ongoing pleasure, but show a union that can move beyond the sensorial: transcendence is only possible through virtue:

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That one must work with all one’s strength to acquire virtues, to one’s proper perfection through the same desire that one has for one’s future happiness: knowing that God being just, is a necessity that one is ordered on the other. (Ibid., p. 28) (Qu’il faut travailler de toutes ses forces à l’acquisition des vertus, à sa propre perfection par le désir même qu’on a pour son bonheur futur: sachant bien que Dieu étant juste, c’est une nécessité que l’un soit réglé sur l’autre) Acquiring virtue reflects the desire for perfection because God is perfect: To love God is not enough; this desire for happiness involves living the virtuous life that pleases a God who is just. C. Ontological Interpretations Malebranche structures his ontology in terms of the powerful desire of pleasure leading up to divine love. Human desires are inseparable from the happiness that pleasure brings in the presence of the object loved, the sensorial qualities experienced in the soul, which includes those experiences of divine love that God produces in the soul. Conversely, the absence of the beloved causes extreme pain. Malebranche suggests that the intensity of this separation leads to death. Malebranche’s interpretation of the lover-beloved relationship also expresses a transformation: the loss of the lover in the beloved. The discourse is fundamentally positive: desire-pleasure-happiness, desirepleasure-happiness, in a cyclic pattern that seems to repeat itself endlessly. While pleasure repeats the cycle due to separation, the loss that is experienced during separation can be of two types: either loss in the beloved or loss of the beloved, which are two distinct experiences. The one of interest here is loss in the beloved. Malebranche characterizes God as “sovereignly good” (souverainement bon) and “immovably happy” (immuablement heureux) (ibid., p. 23). He presents a positive analysis of what I identify as the lover and the beloved. His ontological structure assumes an unchanging nature of human desire, and this unchanging nature is also true for God, who is fundamentally good and blessed. The problem, I argue, is precisely concerning this nature: one cannot claim that the object of human desire is unchanging or that it resembles a constancy that one finds in God. One could derive great pleasure, and therefore, love someone, because of the happiness that it brings. But one could also become tired of the relationship, frustrated with negative experiences that diminish both the pleasure and the desire, ultimately the love. Experiences that bring pain more than pleasure oppose human nature. One finds pleasure in the good. Therefore, the individual seeks the presence of the object, a good that constitutes finality. This is also true for one’s experience of God: pleasure in the soul

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can also transform into dryness and even nothingness when the pleasure of God’s presence is lost. One is not lost in God but God may be lost altogether. I argue that presence and absence of the Divine are two very different experiences. The lover has not changed, but the desire for the beloved has. However, Malebranche does not present the possibility of change in the person. Instead, he offers an ontology whereby both the human being and divine show constancy. For the human being, this is loving that which brings pleasure, and through reason, discovering the cause, which is God. The Divine is the cause of human pleasure, that which is loved, the cause of love itself. The structure of desire as part of human nature will be further examined in the light of the correspondence between Malebranche and Bernard Lamy. 5. Three Letters to Bernard Lamy In this section, I shall develop not only the ontological, but also the epistemological and ethical dimensions of three of Malebranche’s letters (1963, vol. 14) in his correspondence with Lamy. The three letters were a response to Lamy’s work, De la connaissance de soi-même (On Self-Knowledge), which addresses Malebranchean ontology as expounded in L’amour de Dieu. Why do all three of these categories, ontological, epistemological, and ethical appear in these letters? I claim that from the ontological foundation, Malebranche develops the epistemological and ethical dimensions. While dealing with the Quietist controversy, these letters are also indicative of an underlying ontology to which Malebranche and Lamy give different interpretations. A. First Letter: The Ontological Quietism is addressed in Malebranche’s first letter, and therefore, I shall examine his doctrine of the “love of God” within the context of this controversy. Malebranche makes it clear that he rejects the Quietist notion of love of God, which is fundamentally “disinterested.” Distancing himself from Quietist interpretations of love, he unyieldingly maintains that human ontological structure is consistent with self-interested love. While the objective of his first letter is not to dodge the polemic of the Quietist controversy, he is rejecting Lamy’s interpretation of an ontology based on gratuitous love. Malebranche distinguishes two loves, one of “self-love” (complaisance) and one of “benevolence.” In the first, the person finds pleasure in himself just as God does. This sort of self-love is problematic because a person does not possess the perfections of God who does find pleasure in himself. Love of complaisance is “free and deregulated” (libre et déréglé), a “free and loose” love; and since one cannot be the cause of one’s own love, Malebranche maintains that this is not the kind of love with which one ought to love oneself (1963, p. 41). I shall be using the term “complaisance” to express this

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sense of self-love. If human nature is one that seeks happiness, and loving an object means that the object brings happiness to the person, as one would expect in the relationship between lover and beloved, then, seeking happiness suggests loving oneself, or more specifically, the second type of love, “benevolent love.” To love oneself means to desire one’s own good, to fear evil and seek one’s happiness. This is the love that God continuously puts in the individual to seek him. This is a love that seeks perfection and conformity of the will to order (Robinet, 1965, p. 427). Love for oneself appears to have no limit—it is infinite. The infinite nature of human love, which cannot be satisfied by oneself, or any other person, is the means by which one is led to God. It is only God who can fulfill this infinite desire that inhabits the person. This infinite abyss only God can satisfy with his infinite love (Malebranche, 1963, pp. 41–42, 52). Love and Pleasure In Malebranche’s ontology, a central distinction surfaces between love and pleasure. While the two are linked, as Malebranche consistently shows, they are not the same, although pleasure brings about the love of an object. The problem is that if pleasure fails to discover its true cause, God, then the pleasure has little to do with love. Only when God is discovered as source of love can pleasure be associated with love; this epitomizes the difference between the Malebranchean understanding of complaisance and benevolence. Malebranche’s notion of pleasure emphasizes the spiritual. In this sense, it can be associated with love: the beauty of order, the discovery of truth, the divine perfections. For Malebranche: One can only love that which pleases, because pleasure taken in general was the motive which burned the soul and brought it naturally to love its cause. (Ibid., p. 45) (on ne peut aimer que ce qui plaît, que le plaisir pris en général était le motif qui ébranlait l’âme et la portait naturellement à en aimer la cause). These two assertions are the fundamental principle of Malebranche’s ontology: First, it is natural to love what is pleasing; and second, this pleasure leads to the cause of this pleasure. In other words, there is something more than just the sensorial aspect of love; something profoundly spiritual seeks the source of this pleasure. Malebranche had already established his position in La recherche de la vérité: Therefore, our souls in all ways depend on God. The same way that it is he who makes them feel pain, pleasure, and all other sensations, through the natural union that he has placed between them and our bodies, which is nothing other than his decree and his general will. So, it is he who through this natural union has also placed between the human will and

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the representation of ideas that contain the immensity of the divine being, lets them know everything that they know, and this natural union is no other than his general will. Such that there is no other than he who can enlighten us by representing everything to us; so, there is no other than he who can make us happy, allowing us to taste all sorts of pleasures. (1962, 3.2.6) (Ainsi nos âmes dépendent de Dieu en toutes façons. Car de même que c’est lui qui leur fait sentir la douleur, le plaisir, et toutes les autres sensations, par l’union naturelle qu’il a mise entr’elles et nos corps, qui n’est autre que son decret et sa volonté générale: Ainsi c’est lui qui par l’union naturelle qu’il a mise aussi entre la volonté de l’homme, et la représentation des idées que renferme l’immensité de l’être Divin, leur fait connoître tout ce qu’elles connoissent, et cette union naturelle n’est aussi que sa volonté générale. De sorte qu’il n’y a que lui qui nous puisse éclairer, en nous représentant toutes choses; de même qu’il n’y a que lui qui nous puisse rendre heureux, en nous faisant goûter toutes sortes de plaisirs.) Malebranche has already shown the significance in the dependent relationship between the soul and God in his La recherche de la vérité, where he emphasizes the union of the human and the Divine. Through this union, he shows how one comes to know the cause of pleasure and the source of love. The crucial point in his claim is that the person’s sensorial experiences have their source in God, although this is different from “ideas.” Sensations involve the experience of the mind-body union, while an idea is possible through God enlightening the mind, “he who can enlighten us” (lui qui nous puisse éclairer) (1962, 3.6.2). I have shown that for Norris, ideas are independent realities existing in the mind of God showing more resemblance to Plato than to Malebranche. Love involves the experience of pleasure, the delight one has in the sensory experience of the beloved. From this, Malebranche argues that the source of sensorial experience is God, although the pleasure is experienced through the human body. He builds up to this point in his first letter, maintaining that God is the cause of pleasure, the source of love, and that the individual created with the capacity to reason, in conformity with the divine will, “It is only in this that the close union of hearts consists” (C’est uniquement en cela que consiste l’union étroite des coeurs) (1963, p. 50). The human relationship with the Divine is analogously treated in terms of friendship, and it is the lover who conforms himself to the will of the beloved; only then can one speak of something greater: the union of hearts. Thus, the mind-body-God union presupposes this union of hearts. This union is not just between mind and body, but, mind, body, and God. It suggests that God created human beings with a disposition to experience pleasure, of which God is the source, meaning that love of God cannot be disinterested. Moreover, God shares in the human experience of pleasure—and pain—because of

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the union that exists between the human and the Divine. This intimate union between God and his human creation means that self-interested love, desire for the good, to experience pleasure, joy, and delight, has its source in God, and God further shares these experiences through his union with the created person. Love and the Person To love a person is to love their qualities, or at least to love something that bears a relation to their qualities, and the greater the love is for the good and spiritual qualities of the person, the purer and more gratuitous the love. If this is not the case, then the love is self-interested and the person is not truly loved (1963, p. 50). This sounds like a contradiction if Malebranche’s ontology maintains that human love is self-interested. The love of the good qualities produces a union of wills: lovers conform their will to the will of their beloveds, leading to a union of two hearts (ibid.). This is more than selfinterested love: the aspect of loving the other for the personal qualities that are expressed plays a central part in Malebranche’s ontology. Malebranche does not develop an explicit ethical discourse in the first letter; his main concern is human nature, and the attraction to the “other.” “The union with another heart” exercises the “will” to make the oneness of hearts possible, but it is the nature of the attraction that Malebranche develops, which shows that his ethics is closely bound to his ontology. Why is one person attracted to another? Malebranchean human desire is expressed in terms of how one person is attracted to the qualities of another: there is something that draws the lover to the beloved, but the lover does not stop simply at these qualities. The lover expresses an awe, or admiration, of these qualities, and the beloved also takes pleasure in being admired by the lover. Something mutual exists, even though the lover and the beloved demonstrate active and passive roles, respectively. Person as Glory and Shame One would not love someone for the qualities of which a person feels ashamed, but for qualities to which the person is drawn and loves for himself (ibid., p. 51). The claims here have ethical implications, because they suggest that one is drawn to the good, and so, is drawn into a relationship because of the good qualities which an individual manifests, as opposed to evil qualities that cause shame. I find yet another interpretation of Malebranche’s ontology, which, if accepted, could lead to ethical problems: one may be drawn to qualities that are not objectively good or qualities that may cause one individual shame and another attraction. This capacity to move beyond shame may itself suggest that the lover sees something far more profound than the shameful qualities of a person, something that Malebranche in this instance has ignored. Malebranche maintains that the qualities to which a person is attracted, especially as one progresses beyond the external qualities, leads to a cause,

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and ultimately to God. While Malebranche’s ontology may work for the human desire of the ultimate good, those noble qualities of which God is the source, qualities that one wishes to praise, it does not seem to work analogically at the level of human love. One may be attracted to qualities that may not seem objectively good, or where two individuals may differ in recognizing admirable or shameful qualities. Rival families may not see anything good in passionate lovers, shaming them if they cross forbidden barriers, while the two “deviants” themselves have transcended beyond “names.” A noblewoman’s attraction to a stable boy may not be seen as something good, not even by the stable boy, who sees his own condition as humiliating. In other words, a distinction needs to be made in terms of what leads one to God, how one is attracted to the qualities of the Divine, and being attracted to another person whose qualities may be diminished due to faults. Over time, these faults may manifest themselves, or an attraction may exist to what may seem shameful to another person. Attraction to God and attraction to human beings reflects the human desire for the good, for what is pleasing, and ultimately for happiness. The ethical considerations relative to these issues however, how the good is determined, which motivates the response, and how the will is exercised, are beyond the scope of this volume. God as Other In terms of the relationship with the Divine, Malebranche’s argumentation appears stronger and more compelling than human relationships motivated by desire. The result is that the person whom God created: wants to find his happiness where God himself finds his own. He wants, he loves God for himself in all senses, in all ways possible. But the pleasure is always the reason…a natural and necessary reason for all love, and that God put [pleasure] in man who wants to be happy, only in order to bring him to love God as his end, as his sovereign good. (Ibid., pp. 51–52) (veut trouver son bonheur où Dieu même trouve le sien. Il veut, il aime Dieu pour lui en tout sens de toutes les manières possibles. Mais le plaisir en est toujours le motif…un motif naturel et nécessaire à tout amour, et que Dieu n’a mis en l’homme qui veut être heureux, qu’afin de le porter à l’aimer comme sa fin, comme son souverain bien.) The connection between the happiness that human beings desire and what motivates the desire for God is inseparable. The point Malebranche makes is that while happiness may be self-interested, happiness moves beyond the self to God, which is why God created human beings with the desire to be happy, to love what makes them happy, and to love God. Self-interested love was designed by God as a means to lead the individual to God; it is not just an attachment to the sensorial pleasure that one can derive from bodily experi-

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ence. For Malebranche, love transcends the sensorial. Nevertheless, pleasure is experienced in the soul, which suggests that one is not entirely cut off from the sensory in the experience of the perfections of the Divine. At the beginning of the first letter, Malebranche examined the relationship between complaisance and benevolence. But now the infinite desire for self-benevolence serves to produce an infinite desire of pleasure in God: the human being discovers the finite nature of its corporeal condition, leading to a love that transcends human limits. From the self-benevolence, wherein one seeks the good of the self, a movement takes place in which one can find infinite pleasure in the other, namely, God. This experience of the infinite that human beings desire for themselves is fundamental in leading to the Divine (ibid., p. 52). Love and Annihilation Can self-love and love of happiness permit one’s own annihilation? In a first sense of annihilation, Lamy affirms that one should be prepared to forfeit eternal happiness: renouncing one’s well-being means renouncing one’s being. Lamy unquestionably distances himself from Malebranche’s view that even the most pure love of God is self-interested (ibid., p. 53). The two positions would seem to be diametrically opposed: even pure love cannot be disinterested, which means that some pleasure is implied. At the other end, one’s love should permit the annihilation of the individual, since love of God is not self-interested. In a second sense of annihilation, Malebranche’s self-interested love does permit the annihilation of the individual because one would prefer to be nothing rather than to displease God and be eternally unhappy. So, the “annihilation” (anéantissement) is preferred to displeasing God. This differs from Lamy’s view because, for Malebranche, it is not in disinterested love that such annihilation is possible. These two ways of understanding annihilation are juxtaposed to the other two ways I showed above: annihilation may mean loss of the beloved and it may mean loss in the beloved. B. Second Letter: The Epistemological In the second letter, Malebranche defends himself against accusations that his views had changed from a previously held position of “disinterested” love to “self-interested” love. These accusations are made by Lamy, who is, in turn, defending himself against accusations that he held Quietist positions (ibid., p. 88). The letter introduces Malebranchean epistemology, which emerges from his metaphysics. The first letter emphasized the nature of human love with a rebuttal against Lamy’s gratuitous love. As I have shown, for Malebranche, God’s role in human love is present at creation and the Divine continues to imprint this image of love. It gives human beings a nature that is good and the desire

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to seek the good that makes one happy. The object of love is happiness. In the second letter, the causal relation in Malebranche’s metaphysics is carried over into his epistemology. If God puts in the individual the desire to love, this is so that the individual can come to know its Creator, the ultimate good, the source and cause of all that is good. As I have shown, Malebranche’s metaphysics does not separate sensory experience from the Divine. For him, God causes within the person this sensation of pleasure; it is the means by which the person can come to know God: The love of God that the delight of pleasure causes in you [Eraste] is certainly interested…Whoever sees only sensible pleasure does not refer directly to the true cause, and only represents to the soul the object which is the occasional or natural cause…these are not the sensible objects that are the true cause of our sensations; it is only God, because only he can act in the soul as true cause. (Ibid., p. 72) (L’amour de Dieu que la jouissance du plaisir cause en vous [Éraste] est bien intéressé…Qui ne voit que le plaisir sensible ne se rapporte point directement à la vraie cause, et ne représente à l’âme que l’objet qui en est la cause occasionnelle ou naturelle…ce ne sont point les objets sensibles qui sont la cause véritable de nos sensations; c’est Dieu seul, car lui seul peut agir dans l’âme comme cause véritable.) The goodness of human nature comes out in Malebranche’s ontology and for this reason Malebranche does not take the view that self-interested pleasure is wrong, but that pleasure leads to a cause. One is not left at the level of sensation or pleasure although this is experienced through the soul, but rather one deduces a source of this pleasure. Malebranche, however, does not believe that one ought to love God because of the pleasure one experiences in preserving human life. Rather, one discovers that God deserves everything that is worthy of human love. Malebranche also emphasizes the importance of loving God with an intelligence that is enlightened and not as the result of confusing pleasures: one does not love God because of the pleasure one can experience, but because these sensations have their causal source in God and reveal something of his divine perfections (ibid.). Malebranche underscores the role of reason in loving God, and not because God is the source of pleasure through human senses. It is reason that leads one to discover God as source, and therefore, the enlightened person is the one who loves God intelligently: “But God wants to be loved by reason, because one sees clearly that he is the only sovereign good of the soul” (Mais Dieu veut être aimé par raison, parce qu’on voit clairement que lui seul est le souverain bien de l’âme) (ibid.). In responding to Lamy, Malebranche argues that one cannot love God for what he is, the gratuitous love claimed by the Quietists, because one does not have the capacity to see infinitely perfect being. One experiences the

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power of God through the senses. An enlightened person acquires knowledge of God, but one cannot love God on the basis of who he is (ibid., p. 73). This enlightened intelligence, which captures truth, draws from Augustine, “rejoicing in the truth [everyone wants]” (gaudium de veritate [omnes volunt]) (Confessions, 10.23). Malebranche’s claim is that one is made to contemplate God, and so, happiness cannot be attained in loving creatures that lack the perfection of God, the principle and model of perfection (ibid., p.73–74). For Malebranche, this is also the reason why one can love God. The central point here is that one still loves God “by the good love one brings to oneself” (par le bon amour qu’on se porte à soi-même) in the midst of pain and suffering (ibid). A problem that needs to be addressed is the role of pain and suffering in relation to God. The Quietist argument holds that one loves God even if the experience of pain and suffering is comparable to those of the damned because one’s love for God is not determined by pleasure that one receives. The distinction needs to be made, therefore, between pleasure that is confused, and pleasure that is enlightened leading one to God. This suggests that pain and suffering are not contrary to the joys that lead one to know God because when sensory experience is enlightened, one is not left at the level of sensory pleasure, but instead, one progresses to divine perfections. Human reason that identifies God’s love with order is not left with a confused sense of pain and suffering any more than one has a confused meaning of joy and pleasure (ibid., pp. 75–76). One comes to know the perfection of God through sensory experience: Malebranche’s ontology and epistemology come together. Something is good for an individual only if it is capable of making one happier and closer to perfection. Only something that is above an individual is capable of acting within the individual. According to Lamy, Malebranche believes that people love things for themselves, for their own souls, rather than for the love of objects themselves. This position would suggest that God is relative to the person, since God is loved not because God is God, as the Quietists would argue and as Lamy maintains, but because of what God brings to the person in terms of the happiness found in pleasure. Malebranche argued that to love God for oneself would be to subordinate the perfect to the imperfect. This argument, of course, Malebranche does not accept, but he maintained that it is suggested by Lamy, since the latter’s fundamental thesis is that an object is loved for what it is: wine because it is wine and not because of what it brings to the person. But if this were the case, it would justify unacceptable pleasures, since one would be justified in loving things in themselves, a position Malebranche unquestionably rejects (ibid., p. 84).

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C. Third Letter: The Ethical The central theme of the third letter is the “reason” that one loves God: Malebranche develops the notion of reason in relation to the will, as opposed to reason in relation to ontological necessity as he had done in the previous two letters. His third letter has a more ethical character than the first two. Malebranche believes that the reason one loves God is clear: the desire for happiness moves the will (1963, p. 100). He makes a distinction between ontological necessity—the natural desire to be happy developed in his Treatise and in his first and second letters—and the ethical question concerning reason, the will that is exercised. The ontological and the ethical perspectives are intertwined: there is human nature, then, the response to this nature. Malebranche’s ontology holds that it is in human nature to love. But what precisely is the role of the will in his ethics? The desire placed in the individual by God is not so that one remains in the pleasure of oneself or in the beloved. He makes this clear in the second letter on the basis of the epistemological differences between his and Lamy’s thought. One comes to know that an object brings pleasure through the senses, but one is not left at the level of the object. Instead, one is raised to God. In the third letter, this desire means: that I go out of myself, as hardly being myself the cause of my perfection and my happiness, and that freely and by my own choice I search in him only the accomplishment of desires that he forms in me. (Ibid.) (que je sorte de chez moi, comme n’étant point à moi-même la cause de ma perfection et de mon bonheur, et que librement et par mon choix je cherche en lui seul l’accomplissement des désirs qu’il forme en moi.) Love as ecstatic is also taken up in section 6 (of this chapter), showing how Norris interprets the movement of love. While the desire for happiness leads individuals to God, at the same time, one freely seeks God, who produces these desires and happiness in the individual. The moral nature of actions is that one freely chooses their end; the possession of the object desired is freely attained. The morality is in the choice of the object that brings happiness to the individual, not the fact that the object brings happiness, but the reasonable or unreasonableness of the object chosen (ibid., p. 101). Malebranche maintains that self-interested love is based on two principles that reject the possibility of disinterested love of God: the desire of the will and the desire to be happy (ibid., p. 102). The Malebranche-Lamy debate centers on the relationship between the soul and the will. Malebranche claims that the soul would have to transcend the will if the disinterested love argument is to be defended, or the soul would have to be indifferent to the will. Another possibility would be that the will is beyond the desire to be happy (ibid., pp. 101–102). His ethics is argued with force on the basis of the ontology of his first letter. The episte-

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mology of his second letter progressively leads to his Occasionalist Theory. Finally, Malebranche addresses moral problems, and one is within the realm of ethical discourse which has moved into a theological framework as in the third letter above. Ethical Implications An interpretation that identifies the claim of loving God built on self-interest, in which God becomes the means through which the individual attains happiness, sounds like a reversal of the Augustinian proposition that the individual pleasures are a means to an end, which is God. This means that God is placed in a position relative to the individual, an argument that Malebranche could not accept but that Lamy seemed to suggest (ibid., p. 107). The order Malebranche defends is that love becomes relative to the beloved since a love that transforms is ecstatic, moving outwards. He asks, “What does this do, then, the love that excites in us this insatiable and invincible desire for happiness?” (Que donc fait l’amour qu’excite en nous ce désir insatiable, et invincible du bonheur?) (ibid., p. 108). This question is central because it reflects the ongoing human longing, the “insatiable” quality of human desire. The answer leads to God, who responds to this infinite human desire. Malebranche differentiates his position from the potential Pelagian position of the Quietists on the basis of grace. Once again, the Pelagian debate resurfaces: Malebranche’s rational approach echoes Pelagian views as opposed to divine love that draws from a person’s faith. In the Pelagian controversy, not surprisingly, Malebranche argues that his position is Augustinian—on the basis of grace. He slips faith into the discourse, since he finds himself addressing the same problem that Augustine had confronted. Pelagian thinkers argued that one did not need grace to experience God’s love. As I maintained earlier, the Pelagian “reaching out” to God was based on a human effort driven by reason. Malebranche does not reject the accusations of promoting a disinterested love, so long as disinterested love is identified with a person moved by God’s grace: Grace is a holy pleasure. One cannot without this holy pleasure love God of a disinterested love; this help is necessary. (Ibid.) (La Grâce est un saint plaisir. On ne peut sans ce saint plaisir aimer Dieu d’un amour désintéressé, ce secours est nécessaire.) However, Malebranche associates the Quietist position of disinterested love with the Pelagian heresy on the basis that one can, “without grace, without prevenient delectation, without a holy pleasure, to love God in a way that is most perfect.” (sans grâce, sans délectation prévenante, sans un saint plaisir, aimer Dieu de la manière la plus parfait) (ibid., p. 112). In this sense, Malebranche is not against disinterested love when this love is motivated by grace that produces a love that is pure. But he differentiates this from the disinter-

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ested love that is the result of personal human effort and not prompted by recourse to the divine. Malebranche develops his ethical foundation of what is natural or necessary on the basis of movement: Something that is pleasing points to a source; this is clear in both Malebranche’s metaphysics and epistemology as shown in the first two letters. Since love involves some kind of movement, the motion is directed toward this source and not just at the object that is pleasing. The significance of causality in Malebranche’s ontology and epistemology is that they lead to God: This movement involves the will and so it is free, even though the will operates within the necessary condition of human nature responding to what is pleasing, leading to divine love (ibid., p. 114). With the emphasis on human nature, Malebranche recognizes humankind’s natural capacity to be led to God through human desires. After all, God communicates his “image” and “likeness” to the human creature. This “natural grace” presents some problems that resemble the Pelagian controversy addressed in Chapter Two. D. Problems with Grace Grace resurfaces in Malebranche in what appears to be an ambiguous Pelagian interpretation. When one considers the implications of Malebranche’s ontology in terms of the natural capacity of God’s human creatures, one does not need supernatural grace. M-F. Pellegrin maintains that: The separation between nature and grace diminishes, from the ontological point of view, as in the terminological point of view. The natural effects become graces because the graces result from natural effects . . . but that nature takes charge the distribution of grace leads to a real naturalization of grace. (Pellegrin, 2006, p. 87) (La séparation entre nature et grâce s’estompe, du point de vue ontologique comme du point de vue terminologique. Des effets naturels deviennent des grâces, car des grâces résultent d’effets naturels . . . mais que la nature prenne en charge la répartition de la grâce aboutit à une véritable naturalisation de la grâce.) With naturalized grace, supernatural grace would appear to be superfluous, which was the Pelagian problem that confronted Augustine. God uses the natural person, that is, the union of body and soul, to reach God. Natural grace, one’s capacity to reflect, discern what is true, and to do what is good, reveals that this is how the person was created by God. The Pelagian problem would make Jesus’ mission superfluous: If one already has this natural grace, what is the necessity of a “savior”? The problem Pellegrin identifies concerning Malebranche echoes the problem Augustine raised concerning Pelagius (ibid., p. 91).

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The use of natural grace to reach supernatural ends, namely, God, diminishes the need for divine intervention. God has bestowed upon the person the natural means, the desire to be attentive, since one seeks what is good in order to be happy. It is through “natural prayer” (la prière naturelle) that one receives divine light (ibid., p. 95). The solution to the Pelagian problem is to distinguish between grace received at creation, and grace available to humanity after the Fall: in the latter case grace is received through the merits of Jesus. The grace that is received after the Fall permits Malebranche to free himself from charges of Pelagianism (for further details, see ibid., pp. 87–89). 6. Vision in God and Divine Love The extent to which Malebranche’s ontology and ethics are interwoven has been discussed above. To understand the natural inclination of humankind toward the good, his natural desire to be happy, one needs to recognize the role of the Divine in Malebranche’s metaphysics, which has some resemblance to Augustine or to the Pelagians as presented by Augustine. The union of the Divine and the human has immediate implications not only for human desire, but the manner in which these desires are conceptualized in this union with God. In all three letters, Malebranche suggests that human nature, knowledge, and desire, cannot be separated from their divine source. Three Malebranchean elements come together in the human response to Divine Love. (1) The recurring Augustinian presence of divine illumination: Human beings are not just made in the image of God, but as a result of sensory pleasure, persons’ intelligence leads to the Divine, which is what makes them love God. (2) This love means there is a union between the Creator and the creature, and, I would argue, this union is what makes the person God-like (Malebranche, 1963, pp. 18, 23). Drawing from the Oratorian tradition, especially Gibieuf, the union between God and the individual, “God in us” (in Deo nobis) is underscored. Given these three elements, Malebranche does not seem to be making a radical assertion when he claims that God is the source of both human sensations and ideas. But the Malebranchean union between the two is articulated in terms of God’s union with the person that makes God a real source of experience and knowledge. In terms of divine love, disinterested love is no longer possible because of God’s participation in human experience: part of divine order is that individuals cannot not love God. In Chapter Three, I also showed in the work of Gasparo Contarini the relationship between divine and human agents: God’s amplitude manifests itself in the human agent, which means that human love turns toward God as an act of self-interest. This is the pleasure that divine love brings to the person, the same pleasure that God experiences nonsensorially. This amplitude, expressed more fully within the Malebranchean ontological framework, shows the union between the divine and human

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agents. At this stage, I would like to return to Norris and consider how his thought evolves in relation to Malebranche. A. Norris: Theory and Regulation of Love Influenced by Malebranche, Norris expressed his thoughts on love in The Theory and Regulation of Love (1688). This work has ethical elements that emerge out of Norris’s metaphysics. The work in metaphysics also resonates with Malebranche’s Occasionalism. The significance of the Occasionalist Theory is God’s causal role in sensation which, by extension to pleasure, would signify something good. I have already discussed the ethical dimension of the Malebranchean metaphysics above. Norris was confronted with similar problems both ontological and ethical: What is the relationship between human and divine love? What makes love good or bad? My main concern is how one comes to recognize that God is love, and how one responds to this love. This response takes on an ethical character, although it is based on ontological presuppositions as I have already shown. Norris’s definition of love resembles that of Malebranche, referring to a natural movement of the soul toward the good (ibid., p. 17). In Chapter Three, I examined this movement toward the good as expressed by Augustine; movement being both cosmic as in a stone falling, as well as spiritual as in the person who is naturally inclined toward God. Norris preserves the distinction of love already found in Augustine, of cupiditas and caritas: All the different kinds of Love such as Divine and Worldly, Spiritual and Carnal, Charity and Friendship, Love of Concupiscence and Love of Benevolence, Intellectual and Sensitive, Natural, Animal and Rational Love. (Ibid., pp. 13–14) He presents love in a duality that parallels the two Augustinian types of love. This duality suggests an opposition, seen in the context of Norris’s writing beginning with “divine” and “worldly,” and ending with “natural, animal, and rational love.” Norris’s point of departure is found in Genesis, “let us make Man in our Image, after our own likeness” (1:27; Norris’s capitalization). In this, “image” and “likeness,” he identifies human love as one of the two types, or as he calls, “Processions”: “In the Humane nature there are as it were two Processions, and that of the same kind too as in the Divine, Understanding and Love” (1688, p. 6). He draws from the Biblical dimension of love and raises the suggestive question, which is more glorious “to be an amorous” or “to be a Rational being,” thereby introducing Norris’s discourse on divine love” (ibid., p. 7). Drawing from a wide variety of sources from Christian revelation, including John’s gospel, to Platonic sources, Norris inquires into the

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nature of love, concluding that the fundamental principle of love is “a motion of the soul toward the good” (ibid., p. 10). Malebranche presents love as a natural desire that leads one toward the good, and less as a motion, although motion is implied. Augustine’s movement is found in the idea of ascending and descending principles of weight, and in this sense movement is cosmic. Motion can also be understood as pertaining to the cosmic realm. In the Malebranchean sense, this would emphasize love as belonging to eternal “order.” Norris’s view on love has as its source in the Malebranchean perspective of human nature. In it, one can find the “motion” element that is present in Malebranche. He establishes an analogy between matter that receives instances of “motion,” and the soul receiving instances of “inclinations” (ibid., p. 17– 18). The analogy applied to matter is used to understand how the mind works. While matter receives different figures and has the capacity to being moved, the mind has first the faculty of understanding which can receive different perceptions, or ideas, and the will that receives the inclinations (ibid., p. 18). Motion as a fundamental property of matter is comparable to the inclinations of the mind; both are attributed to the divine author. This sentiment echoes Malebranche’s ontology in his Traité de l’amour de Dieu. Norris defends and adapts the Malebranchean ontology in Theory and Regulation of Love, giving further structure to love. He builds an analogy between motion and inclination on the principle of movement in a straight line: if there is no obstruction, an inclination that one receives from God is also “straight” or “right” in the sense that one’s end is the possession of what is true and good. In this case, external causes would not lead the individual to what is evil (ibid.; Malebranche, 1962, 1.1.2). Norris considers this inclination metaphorically as a gravitational force whereby, “we desire nothing but what we like or relish as convenient and agreeable to us” (p. 20). The metaphors Norris employs reflect this force, comparing God to a “Supreme Magnet” and referring to this inclination toward the good as “Moral Gravity” (ibid.). This force drawing one to the good is analogous to a stone falling downwards, the example given by Augustine regarding cosmic love, the direction of what is natural (ibid., p. 21). By referring to the properties of motion in relation to matter, but also as an analogical comparison to the natural inclination toward the good, Norris establishes a relationship between love and motion. Love is the first motion that generates all other motions including those experiences one has of passion, hope, fear, hate, anger, and envy. What is interesting here is Norris’s assertion that before one comes to understand, before reason is possible, one begins to love: it is the first motion, followed by reason. He arrives at this conclusion because he sees the motion caused by human appetites as a natural force that precedes reflection (ibid., pp. 24–25).

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Regular and Irregular Love “Regular” and “irregular” love represents love that is ordered and disordered, respectively, according to the laws of God. Norris makes reference to both “fornication” and “adultery,” using these as examples of irregular love. He shows that love is inseparable from the powerful force of human instincts leading away from the universal good and thrusting itself upon a particular good that possesses only elements of the universal good. This is the cupiditascaritas tension, which I maintained one finds in Augustine. While this is less prevalent in Malebranche, this conflictual love manifests itself more clearly in Norris. Natural human desire moves in both directions, from the natural appetites to the universal good. The natural appetites pull one down to the instincts that are present. In this descent, instincts forcefully manifest themselves while the person seeks to progress to a more spiritual state, ascending to the ultimate good, which is God. Movement in both directions, being pulled downwards while seeking to spiritually advance upwards reflects the conflictual desires moving in both directions. Norris maintains that cupiditas and caritas are in opposition when the good that is sought is an irregular good. At the same time, he acknowledges that the disordered good is still based on human nature, which seeks the universal good. Norris’s ontology falls within the Malebranchean framework wherein self-love advances toward the love of God. While Norris recognizes the power of human appetites that are inseparable from this movement toward the Divine, he emphasizes that this movement can be thwarted: the appetite which we have to do good in General is so strong and Craving that it hurries us on to all sorts and degrees of Particular good, and makes us hasten where we can trace the least Print or Foot-step of the universal good. (Ibid., p. 64) While Malebranche recognizes the “confused” appetites as causing a deviation from the true good which is God, he is less emphatic on the power of cupiditas. He focuses on the naturalness of human desire seeking the good. Norris, however, considers the tendency to the particular good that leads to an irregular love as being the result of the human desire for the sensuous good. This, he says, is due to the “Original Pravity and Degeneracy of our Nature” (ibid., p. 66). Irregular love and a “degenerate” nature appear to go together in Norris’s ethics. His ethical system is built on the notion of original sin, which is suggested in this passage. It serves to account for human evil, a view that has its source in Augustine (ibid.). Meanwhile, Malebranche claims that the true good may be thwarted, but he places more emphasis on the human desire for happiness than the power of evil desires. Norris maintains that disordered nature explains human evil after the Fall. Only in this sense, can one speak of a nature that is original pravity.

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Human appetites are “now highly invigorated and awaken’d in us”: the force that leads to the good has a tendency to shift toward the sensual which “presses down the Soul” (ibid.). This gravitational force is best illustrated with the stone whose natural movement is downwards; this is also true for humankind, after the Fall: the weight pulls toward the sensory world of creatures rather than the pre-fallen state where the created person is in a natural harmony with the Divine. Norris emphasizes the sensuous good, but the problem of associating the good with sensory experience and as part of the fallen state is that Norris applies a pejorative tendency to the senses rather than recognizing that the senses themselves are the means by which the person reaches God. The fullness of the person, which is Malebranche’s perspective, means that the senses are inclined toward the good, and the good is what leads one to God. In this respect, Norris overemphasizes an interpretation of the Augustinian dialectic that creates a tension between good and evil, between caritas and cupiditas, respectively, but with the propensity toward what is corrupt. In this respect, Norris’s reading of Augustine is un-Augustinian and more Platonic because for Norris, the body lacks the powerful force that can lead one to God. At the same time, in the Augustinian-Malebranchean tradition, he does see an act of evil as an act against “order,” and this is a significant parallel between Malebranche and Norris (ibid., p. 67). Love as Ecstatic The natural motion toward the good means that love is “ecstatic.” In Augustine, ecstatic was understood in cosmic terms, movements rising and descending, the weights of bodies, heavy or light, whether this was cupiditas or caritas. In Malebranche, the movement is a natural inclination in pursuit of happiness. For Norris, love means that choices are being made to attain this good (ibid., p. 23). Norris’s claim suggests that if one naturally seeks the good, one is insufficient to be a good to oneself, but there is a movement “out”—outside oneself to complete what is lacking. In this sense, love is also ecstatic for Norris. This motion is powerful because it involves the completion or betterment of the individual seeking the good “till at length his Desire be swallow’d up in the Fruition of the universal good, and Motion be exchanged for Rest and Acquiescence” (ibid.). This “swallow’d up” echoes Malebranche in section 4C above where the lover is “lost” in the beloved through a form of annihilation. This uniting principle based on God’s love is where the lover is “lost” in the lover; this notion resembles Gibieuf as I presented in Chapter Three. In this view, the powerful insufficiency of oneself creates an agitation where one finds completion in the universal good. Norris’s views resemble Augustine’s, who maintains that “our heart cannot find quiet till it may find repose in thee” (Confessions, 1.1). This restlessness, to which Norris also refers, means that by being drawn to the universal good, one’s desires are “swallow’d up” by this same good. Nor-

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ris’s notion of “swallow’d up” does lend to a reading of being absorbed by or into the Divine. However, this cannot be what is meant since he states in the same sentence that “Motion be exchanged for Rest and Acquiescence.” If one is to experience rest, this means that any kind of absorption or being “swallow’d up” does not lead to a fusion of divine and human agents, but rather, a union between the two while preserving a distinction between the individual and God. Questions arise regarding the nature of love suggestive of Plato’s Symposium (197b, 204d), which Norris cites: First there is some kind of attraction, and this attraction presupposes that the object desired has properties of beauty. Norris refers to sensuous love as that, “aspect of sensible Beauty precipitated down to the desire of Corporal Contact” (Norris, 1688, p. 45). The senses are present, and their power generates a desire for some kind of physical union as expressed in the word “contact.” All this may take place before any rational judgment has occurred concerning the object of love. This has the cupiditas sense of ecstatic love moving outwards. The ethical implications reflect the choices that are involved, how one will act, or not act. However, Norris, as does Malebranche, emphasizes the human desire for the good that precedes this movement. Love of God Norris shifts from metaphysical assertions, that God is the source of all good and that human love is directed toward the ultimate good, to an ethical claim, that “we are obliged to love God, so ought we to love him beyond all other things whatsoever” (1688, p. 83). In his ethical framework, the obligation does not deprive the individual of the freedom needed to exercise this love, even if one acts out of duty. Love and duty are not in contradiction, although at a superficial level, it may appear to be the case. Even if one loves as a duty, one can still act freely because one is making the choice to respond to a duty. Though duty may be included in Norris’s interpretation of love, Malebranche does not speak in terms of duty. Instead, he speaks in terms of inclinations and the perfection of love. Norris’s argument holds within the Augustinian framework in terms of order: If that which is most good draws the person the most, if the most beautiful is that which is most attractive, if these things are those that bring most happiness, then one is compelled, and in this sense, obliged, to love God, “but we may and must now prefer him in our love” (ibid.). This argument follows that of order. If one recognizes cosmic order as a reflection of the Divine and a creative expression of the Divine, order is a fundamental property of the cosmos. This is true both in the Malebranchean conception of God presented above and in what has been suggested in Chapter Two on Augustine, as well as in the passage I drew from De libero arbitrio, “The notion of eternal law

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that has been impressed upon our minds; it is that law by which it is just that everything be ordered in the highest degree” (Augustine, 1956, 1.6). Since pleasure leads to happiness, and ordered pleasure to God, Norris sees delightful sensory experience in Malebranchean terms “provided for by God” and so it is good in itself (1688, p. 94). In this sense, the whole relationship between cupiditas and caritas is one of order if one is to make sense of pleasure having its source in God. Examining Theory and Regulation of Love, one is left with the impression that Norris does not know where he stands with regard to “pleasure.” Sensory experience is inseparable from pleasure and Norris has good reason to believe that it can be evil, since human wickedness has its source in a powerful force motivated by the appetites of the person’s fallen nature. Nevertheless, as shown in the passage above, he also sees pleasure as something intrinsically good because it was provided by God to lead one to happiness finding its totality in God. Indeed, he has good reason to hold both positions, since human nature is one that is naturally inclined toward God, but it also has a tendency to sin. Which of the aspects of human nature dominate? In this respect, Norris resembles the Augustinian-Malebranchean tradition: Pleasure is something good, since it was placed in the person to experience happiness and to come to know God. What may seem to be something of a dilemma in Norris’s thought reflects the correspondence and the disputes which preoccupied his letters during this same period, which I shall treat in section B below. Self-Love Self-love for Norris does not reflect the Quietist movement or its derivatives, as though it were something pejorative needing to be overcome. Norris resembles the Malebranchean tradition of interpreting self-love as something natural and in positive terms: it is human to seek one’s good and this good that one seeks is extended to relationships in general. The self-love sought by the individual is not to be understood as something self-centered, which was the difficulty Lamy and the Quietists expressed with self-interested love. For Norris, as with Malebranche, selfinterested love both moves and perfects the person. Self-love leads to selfperfection because it seeks the personal good. “For all desire is in order to further Perfection, and Improvement, and did we not want something within, we should not endeavour toward anything without” (ibid., p. 54). This assertion is similar to Malebranche’s third letter, although love as ecstatic is also central to the Norrisian thesis. Norris makes a strong claim: external desires produce internal change. For Norris, this change means self-perfection. This needs to be interpreted within a framework of Norris’s dialectic: One is also capable of making wicked choices when one submits to one’s own brutish passions. He is not

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advocating just any good or just any external desire. Norris functions within a moral framework of right and wrong, good and evil. Choosing the good is not only responding to self-love but pursuing the path of self-perfection. Love: Cupiditas and Caritas Love as cupiditas is built on something sensual. The distinction Norris makes parallels the tension in Augustine presented in Chapter One. I have also shown that Malebranche preserves this distinction, but for him, cupiditas serves a purpose: it leads one to God, which makes caritas possible. Through cupiditas one moves to God; but Norris regards sensuous love as problematic because: this is a Passion that has made more slaves than the greatest Conquerours, more stir and disturbance in the world than either Ambition, Pride or Covetousness, and has caused more Sin and Folly than the united forces of all the Powers to Darkness. (Ibid., p. 46) Norris’s claim places the sensuous love or Plato’s erotic love in a negative light. While the body can be misused, at the same time, it is created as something good. If human desires are placed in the person by God, they must be there for a good reason. Norris’s rather dark view of sensuous love, producing “slaves,” is surprising given that this same love can also be used to love God. By contrast, Malebranche criticizes love when “confused,” which happens not so much because one is slave to one’s passions, but because one does not know God as the true cause. In this sense, unlike Malebranche, Norris does not capture the fullness of the ontological implications that human love expresses. The positive relationship between love and human nature, that is, Malebranche’s positive ontology, resurfaces in Norris’s ontology as something negative. Within the context of sensuous love, Norris does not develop the basis of perfecting this love into a relationship ultimately with God. Instead, he remains at a human level that is fundamentally corrupt. He appears to preserve the Augustinian good-evil dichotomy of the body, which is fundamentally Platonic, but unlike Malebranche or Augustine, he fails to underscore how the Divine is present in the person in the experience of love, as sensuous as these experiences may be. Instead, the English rationalist defines cupiditas on the very basis of its erotic nature, which appears to be in opposition to the spirit, as though reason needs to put a reign on the passions running wildly out of control. Cupiditas, therefore, implies a form of “self-love,” one that, as we have seen, is associated with complaisance. Benevolence, unlike complaisance, means that a person finds love in an external source, the same source that perfects the individual.

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Benevolentia and Caritas One cannot apply the principle of perfection in benevolentia to God since God can neither be perfected nor does God love things outside himself. God loving outside himself seems to be the cause of ongoing difficulty. To love outside himself God is loving imperfect creatures, and to simply love himself would mean that God would be disinterested in his creatures. Norris maintains “accordingly God, the self-sufficiency of whose Nature excludes all want of Indigency, is by no means capable of Love of Concupiscence” (ibid.). God’s love is not the concupiscent or desirous love comparable to that experienced by human beings. The benevolent love God does share with human beings is the desire of the good for the other. The difference between human self-love and divine self-love is that God’s self-sufficiency means that he does not profit from human love to make it self-interested: God’s love is benevolent (ibid., p. 58). I have shown that, in his response to Lamy, Malebranche distinguished between benevolence and complaisance. Norris also asserts that the love one has for God differs from the love one has for a neighbor. Both may be considered charity, but charity that is associated with the meaning of benevolence cannot be applied to God because God has no need of human love. So, while one may show charity toward another person, one cannot express this kind of charity toward God, “what can we wish to God that he has not already?” (ibid., pp. 76–77). The arguments that Norris develops suggest one cannot show charity to God if charity is to be understood in the sense of benevolence. God simply does not depend on either human goodness or human love to be happy. Norris defends this view on the basis that God, being who he is, means that he does not need to look outside himself for anything; otherwise he would not be God. One is left with one motivating factor: a person loves God because the person seeks happiness. This position is clearly Malebranchean. For Norris, however, this also means that the desire for happiness cannot be extinguished. Instead, only when the object is obtained and enjoyed does this ongoing quest come to an end (ibid., p. 81). I maintained in Chapter Two that love requires the rational component of the “will.” Reason comes to discover that the being containing all the happiness which could make a person happy would naturally be the being to which human love is directed. Rational love belonging to the spiritual domain of the person, I have identified with caritas in Chapter One. In Norris’s works, love moves in two directions, that of cupiditas and that of caritas. The notion of benevolence resembles the Augustinian concept of caritas, or a virtuous love. The caritas-cupiditas dichotomy, the Platonic tension that I have also given in my interpretation of Augustine, is clearly present in Norris. Drawing from the texts that I have examined, this dialectic is less apparent in the Malebranchean ontology. The Oratorian school, as with

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Malebranche, emphasizes God as the beginning and end of happiness, and therefore, the divine disposition that human love has, implies the inclination toward a union with God. Such a union is neglected in the Norrisian framework of divine love. For Norris, benevolence means disinterested love and in this respect, he differs from Malebranche (Acworth, 1979, p. 160). The self-benevolence one finds in Malebranche constitutes an infinite desire for happiness that leads to God. God’s complaisance, rather than the self-benevolence as one finds in humankind, is what Malebranche underscores. Complaisance reflects God’s finding pleasure in himself rather than in self-benevolence because God cannot seek his own good because he is already perfect. Divine benevolence is “pure perfection.” God created the world for his own glory, by giving himself to his creatures. This is the goodness of God that is communicated in the Neoplatonic tradition that influenced Norris’s thought in this area more than that of Malebranche. One cannot love God with benevolence but only with the love of desire (1688, pp. 78–79, 81; Acworth, 1979, p. 161). In the next sections, I shall consider some of the problems that surface in Norris’s correspondence with Mary Astell and Damaris Masham. This correspondence concerning the relationship between love and God further elaborates Norris’s thought on the cupiditas-caritas tension. This conflictual relationship concerning love as spiritual and as corporeal is represented in the correspondence with Mary Astell and Damaris Masham, respectively. B. Norris’s Correspondence In the preface to his Letters Concerning Love of God, Norris maintains that a qualitative relationship exists between human love and one’s progress toward God because “God is Love itself” (Norris and Astell, 1695). God as the source of love also means that this “Sweetness of Divine Communions” between the individual and God is possible in this world, and it begins here. This relationship between the present and the future is determined by love, “the best preparation for Love must be Love itself” and Norris continues, “love only elevates us up thither, and is able to unite us to God” (ibid.). There are three significant points here that resemble Malebranche’s thought: God is love; one is led to love of God by this very same love; and divine love unites. What comes out in Norris is clearly love as a motion. It is precisely this motion, also found in Malebranche, that is unitive: human nature as one being built with the desire and capacity to love, unites one with God. It is in Norris’s correspondence where one detects a departure from Malebranche. Mary Astell and Damaris Masham Mary Astell had a significant exchange of letters with Norris. Both Astell and Norris shared the view, albeit for different reasons, that only God deserved

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human love, while creatures do not (ibid., p. 4 [microfilm]; see also Wilson, 2004, p. 281). Damaris Masham entered into the debate showing disagreement with the Norris-Astell views on the object of human love (Wilson, 2004, p. 281). The two women represent positions along the lines of Norris and Locke, the former’s rationalism and the latter’s empiricism. A Plotinian transcendent world, the visionary metaphysics of Norris appears in the case of Astell, and for Masham it was the sensory world of lived human experience and the pleasure of society that resonate with Locke’s empiricism. In his correspondence, Norris considers two interpretations of pleasure, one as good and the other as evil: (1) If pleasure and the sensory experiences associated with pleasure are an integral part of happiness, then, why should pleasure be treated as belonging to the domain of wickedness? (2) Pleasure is clearly a factor in acts of evil; how can one disregard the evil and elevate this pleasure to something good? The thoughts presented in the opening pages of Masham’s Discourse Concerning the Love of God serve to diminish not only the contemplative life, but meaningless practices, “consisting of nothing but idle, superstitious, and pompous shows, have betaken themselves to that which they call inward Way, or Life of Contemplation” (1696, p. 3). Masham’s remarks contrast radically with Astell’s, who seems to question the world of idle pleasure and sensory experiences that are void of God’s love. For Astell, the experience of pleasure is not enough to attain the transcendent God, as both Norris and Malebranche would also claim. Masham’s view is made clear in her introductory pages. She rejects the view that the love one has for God is perfected in the contemplative life, and she refuses to relegate social life to something inferior to the contemplative life, believing that the person was made for society (ibid., p. 4). Masham re-introduces the Occasionalist Theory that Norris employs to account for God as the source of sensation, and therefore, the reason why one ought to love him: “the Creatures having no Efficiency at all to operate upon us; they being only occasional Causes of those Sentiments which God produces in us” (ibid., p. 9). This means that the desire of love directed toward a creature rather than toward God is sinful. She distinguishes different ways in which one may love in response to Norris’s assertion that one ought not to love a creature with desire since it is only God that can make one happy and God is the source of human pleasure. Masham sees love as “one act of the Mind” and this act is followed by desire and benevolence. This is a radical contrast from the Occasionalist position argued by Malebranche and Norris. In Masham’s view, God is no longer cause of human sensations but the mind is; Masham makes a noteworthy shift from God as source to the subject as source. Problem with Sensations The difficulty that Astell raises concerns the ethical proposition: that God should be the only object of human love. She does not mean in the sense that

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it is human nature to love God, but, as Malebranche argues, that it is in human nature to love what is good because the good brings happiness through enjoyment of the object which leads one to love God, source of all love. For Astell, sensations are problematic. If one is drawn to pleasure, one has an aversion to pain. This means that God, as the source of both, would lead to both attraction to and aversion of God (ibid., p. 4). One can see the logic of Astell’s conclusion based on Norris’s Malebranchean metaphysics: at the ontological level, what a person seeks is happiness, and what brings happiness is to be loved. The relationship between God, love, and pleasure are central to Norris’s argument as to why God is the only object of human love, although, it is not clear whether this is built in nature, or the choice a person makes. Although the argument is Malebranchean, one detects the Augustinian source since “use” plays an important part in this experience of love. The Augustinian position is crucial in which “use” means “enjoyment”: it means there is a relationship between the two loves— something is happening between the two. The main problem with Norris’s interpretation of divine love is that it can become relativistic, as he admits himself. It can be interpreted to mean that love of God is not something absolute, but relative to the individual as much as this love is absolute in God (Norris and Astell, 1695, p. 10). When love is relativized to the individual, it leads to ethical problems. The individual becomes the measure of God’s love. However, Norris may have emphasized this goodness of God at a personal level as a way of combating Quietist tendencies suggested by his correspondence with Mary Astell (Norris’s second letter; see also Wilson, 2004, pp. 281, 296n7). The other extreme, of course, is the Quietist position where all love is objectified and made absolute so that individual human experience becomes discarded. Astell examines the implications of God as the cause of pain just as he is the cause of pleasure. Norris does not raise the problem Astell does, showing his proximity to Malebranche and how he differs from the Quietists. For Norris, while God is the cause of pleasure in a very Augustinian sense, wherein the beloved is enjoyed and God is the ultimate thing to be enjoyed, God is said to be the cause of pain only accidentally in that the human creature has sinned. The consequences of sin are pain and suffering. In other words, as God’s human creatures one can experience pleasure, but only as a result of sin does one experience pain (Norris and Astell, 1695, p. 18). Malebranche, in his response to the Quietists, maintains precisely that God created the person to be happy, and not to be miserable, which is why Quietist indifference toward pleasure and pain makes no sense within a Malebranchean ontological framework. Pain goes against human nature. Norris goes further and compares God as the cause of pain, to the Calvinist views: Indeed if God had designed us for misery, and inflicted it upon us as Creatures, if it had been his primary and direct Intention, his Natural and

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Norris’s argument is that creating a person to be unhappy or worse, to be damned, could not be the work of a good and loving God. His reaction reflects the problematic views of causality transmitted by the Calvinists, and their Catholic counterpart, the Jansenists. A significant difference between Norris’s ontology and that of Malebrance is that for Malebranche, pleasure is a means of being led to God. Norris, however, remains at the level of subjective pleasure, a sensory experience as something to be enjoyed, but without making the transition to the enjoyment of God. Catherine Wilson shows that Astell’s position is characterized by Platonic idealism (2004, p. 284). This idealism results in a detachment from the world so that martyrdom becomes the highest form of rational pleasure. Astell sounds as if she is falling into Quietism, since she is denying, or at least criticizing the benefit of sensory experience in one’s movement toward God. At the same time, her rationalizing the spiritual as true pleasure for the soul resembles Malebranche’s view of spiritual pleasure as I showed above. Despite this similarity, however it would appear that, as a disciple of Norris, Astell was moving away from the strict Malebranchean interpretation of the love of God, in favor of a Norrisian one that was more critical of human nature. In Astell’s Norrisian framework, one overcomes pleasure, suggesting that the love of God transcends human sensory experience. Thus, her thought acquires a more Plotinian interpretation of pleasure as “otherness.” This position is reinforced by her negative views of both desire and pleasure (ibid.). Norris’s correspondence with Astell reveals his views on human desire. He maintains that desires are boundless, and when such desires are attached to another creature, one remains dissatisfied. Human thirst for love can never be satisfied by another creature, which is why only God should be the object of human love. Creatures are the cause of powerful sensations in human experience, the extremes of pleasure and pain. But if only God can be the true object of one’s love, how can one ignore the very sensations that were placed into the person by God? (ibid., p. 285). Astell sees the problem of pain and pleasure as the result of dialectic between the material world of corporality and the spiritual world of immateriality. As in Norris’s reading of Augustine, one overcomes the corporeal world of sensory pleasure through a Platonic ascent, in what appears to be a departure from Malebranche’s ontology. I have shown that Malebranche emphasizes the

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goodness of human nature because God created individuals this way. The joy experienced in pleasure is the way one is led to God. Potential tension remains: One may turn away from God because one seeks the pleasure of creatures and one remains at the stage of corporality. For Malebranche, perfection is possible and necessary as a means of progressing toward divine love. In Norris, this appears as a dialectic, a tension for which Astell seeks a solution. Masham’s argument would seem closer to Malebranche, since her views on love are associated with the “delight” and “pleasure” one experiences in another person. A Malebranchean view would lead her to recognize that this love finds its ultimate fulfillment in God. Yet, she seems less concerned about the Creator than about creatures (ibid., p. 286). Both Astell and Masham harmonize in some respects with Malebranche, but they both show a significant departure from each other’s views in relation to Norris. If Malebranche represents what the two women have in common, Norris reflects where the two women differ. Where Masham departs from both Malebranche and Norris is in her emphasis on the love of creatures in purely subjective terms: one is happy according to the value of the desired object that is obtained. She rightfully does not believe that desire should be abandoned, since this is natural, but she fails to give happiness any significance more than a personal desire. Her criticism of piety and religious discipline shows that her understanding of love rejects the transcendent dimension of the AugustinianOratorian traditions. Masham emphasizes the concrete relations of family, friends, and society that foster happiness, desire, and more happiness. C. Beyond Malebranchean Rationalism In this chapter I have focused on Malebranche’s understanding of divine love, but I have presented his views in reaction to Lamy and in comparison to Norris. I have argued that the cupiditas-caritas tension is not central to Malebranche; the natural desire for happiness and self-interested love is what motivates this desire. Rather than having an opposition that shapes these two types of love, Malebranche is more interested in love being ordered and perfected, which reflects his Augustinian tradition. Norris shows the relationship of these two loves as more conflictual, which is also true for Astell: both seem attached to a Platonic ascent to reach the transcendent which is only possible by rejecting the world of materiality. The parallels between Malebranche and Norris in terms of vision in God and divine love were given in sections 2 and 6: the development of these two sections shows how Norris’s thought on love emerges out of Malebranche’s metaphysics. I developed the section on God’s knowledge in relation to love, order, and happiness immediately before Malebranche’s correspondence with Lamy, precisely concerning the issue of self-interested and gratuitous love. I argued that Malebranche’s three letters developed ontological, epistemological, and ethical perspectives of self-interested love.

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Finally, I presented Norris’s correspondence in reference to “Sweetness and Divine Communions.” In this respect, Norris approaches God from the Platonic tradition, as does Malebranche. The goodness of human nature, responding to the fecundity of God’s love, reflects Malebranchean principles. In the next chapter, I argue that Ralph Cudworth preserves the notion of divine sweetness by attributing to God a similar qualification, a God who “sweetly governs.”

Five SWEETNESS OF GOD 1. Ralph Cudworth and the Divine The objective of this chapter is to consider not only Ralph Cudworth’s proposal on the love of God, but more specifically his views on divine love in the light of the Augustinian-Oratorian tradition that I have examined in the earlier chapters. My argument in this chapter is that human love makes sense only within the context of divine love. Human love necessarily presupposes divine love. This chapter examines Cudworth with reference to Augustine, Gasparo Contarini, and the Oratorians. By underscoring the underlying Augustinian tradition that emphasizes the union between the human and the Divine, I argue that human love is a manifestation of the Divine. I shall first consider the context of Cudworth’s writing, followed by the focus of this chapter, the “fecundity of divine love.” Cudworth’s notion of divine love involves divine agency that manifests itself in the individual; this returns to the discussion on the freewill, but within the Cudworthian context relating the Divine and the human. I treat Cudworth’s “God of love” who “sweetly governs,” and the activity of the different lovers, divine and human. I further examine Cudworth in the light of the Augustinian tradition that I explored in my work emphasizing the three loves, cupiditas, caritas and gratia, and finally, order. The movement in this chapter parallels that of Chapter Three: The perspective of divine love begins with God’s love that is directed toward his rational creatures, followed by their response. God’s love is given attributes such as “sweet” and “fecund” in the Cudworthian text that I examine, but one can also recognize the Neoplatonic element of descent, and what has been consistent within the Augustinian framework: the relationship between love and order. Cudworth’s God, who dispenses “uninvidiously,” shows the gratuity of divine love and the continuity of the Augustinian tradition. A. Fecundity of Divine Love Cudworth’s work, True Intellectual System of the Universe (1820), confutes atheism and demonstrates its impossibility. The argument he offers involves the “light of eternal reason . . . and in the demonstration of incorporeal substance, or free spiritual activity as the life of the ‘Intellectual System’” (ibid., pp. 31–32). A three-fold objective runs through the True Intellectual System of the Universe: (1) Cudworth intends to refute atheism and the material necessity of all things. (2) He demonstrates that persons possess an innate ca-

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pacity to determine morality and justice. (3) He shows that rational creatures are free from necessity (ibid., p. 66; see also Passmore, 1951, pp. 1–18; and Aspelin, 1943). I will begin this exposition by examining an extract from the True Intellectual System of the Universe, which concerns Cudworth’s definition of divine love: Eternal, self-originated, intellectual Love, or essential and substantial goodness, that having an infinite overflowing fullness and fecundity, dispenses itself uninvidiously according to the best wisdom, sweetly governs all, without any force or violence and reconciles the whole world into harmony. (1820, p. 268) One of the fundamental properties of divine love is that it cannot be exhausted. By placing “intellectual love” and “sweetly governs” together, one would have not only a principle that is rational, but also one that recognizes God’s “sweetness.” Cudworth describes that God is “eternal, self-originated.” He claims that neither was God created in time, nor was his creation caused by any other being. He further asserts God to be “essential,” “substantial goodness,” and speaks of his “intellectual love.” Cudworth continues with his belief that, because of God’s love, or goodness, he is involved in the affairs of the world, in the lives of his human creatures, which is what he expresses by the phrase, God “sweetly governs all.” This suggests that divine government is motivated not only by reason, but also by goodness. Divine love necessarily expresses itself (Armour, 2003, p. 1). Thus, God’s love is both creative and communicative, which is why Cudworth can speak of the infinite overflowing fullness and fecundity. His description of God clearly identifies a principle whose very essence, “love,” possesses the fundamental property of a dynamic movement. His definition of divine love means that “divine love is expressed in and through us” (ibid.). This unlimited love, a goodness that overflows, permits Cudworth to say that God’s goodness is dispensed with wisdom, which extends to divine government and divine order. Divine government, which is “without force or violence” leads to a world that is in harmony with God’s authority. There is something Malebranchean in Cudworth’s assertion about an ordered world being the way God created and governs the cosmos. Both creation and order are the manifestation of God’s love, a love that is understood in terms of goodness. In Cudworth, the union of agents is less apparent than that which one finds in the Oratorian tradition. God’s love cannot be self-contained. Rather, it pours into his creation. Something that is infinite and good communicates itself without limit, which means it also communicates its own nature, which is “goodness.” Cudworth’s treatment of divine love begins with God. Reso-

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nating with Guillaume Gibieuf’s claim, Deus in nobis, Cudworth can also say, “God is within us.” (ibid., p. 7). B. Love and Divine Agency In Cudworth, one finds that there is an outward motion expressed in the iconic concept of “descent” from the Divine to the created. One can speak of human love, the response the individual has to God. Cudworth maintains this is not “love of beauty” (   ), drawing from Plato’s Symposium, because love of beauty can ennoble the mind, but it can also degenerate into slavish passions (1820, p. 268). The love of which Cudworth speaks is one that fundamentally presupposes the presence of the Divine. He maintains that love is only possible where there is God. The Transcendent, which manifests itself in the created person, seeks a response from the human capacity to love. At this stage can one begin to speak of the human response to the Divine. Human love is possible because it builds itself on divine love. The person loves God because God loves the person. However, “love” takes on different meanings depending on how the word is used. Human love and divine love in themselves do not mean the same thing given the nature of a God who loves compared to the nature of a person who loves. When the person is inhabited by the Divine, the person necessarily posesses properties of the Divine. In the Cudworthian framework, this means the manifestation of divine love. The section on Contarini in Chapter Three presented the amplitude of God that extends itself to God’s rational beings; the Cudworthian divine principle in man also means that God manifests himself, while both man and God remain distinct agents. Cudworth, Gibieuf, and Contarini permit a reanalysis of Augustine’s tumultuous journey focusing on the overflowing love of God as one finds in Cudworth, rather than an emphasis on the deficiency of human love as one finds in Augustine. 2. Free Will The moral problem raised by Augustine is: What accounts for human evil if God’s love continues to be communicated to the person from creation? His solution is largely resolved through free will, although controversies surrounding free will continued, especially around Jansen’s work. In the seventeenth century, the discussion on free will necessarily emerged from the discourse on the love of God. One interpretation of Malebranchean ontology demonstrates that the person receives God’s love from creation, with a natural desire for the good and to be happy; the manifestation of this love naturally follows. So

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another question arises: Why does human love not always express the divine love that inhabits the person? In Cudworth, God communicates his love as part of his overflowing substantial and essential goodness. One can love God through this same goodness, but one can also turn away from God by ignoring this goodness. The Jansenist solution simply excludes freedom, leaving the person with a deterministic love whereby one shows love through goodness because it has been determined by God. The significance of this is how truly free a person is to whom God communicates a nature that is good and which leads to love. Recall that, found in Augustine, as well as in Nicolas Malebranche and John Norris, cupiditas reflects the lower appetites or animals instincts, while caritas represents the higher appetites and spiritual desires. Cudworth presents the moral issues concerning love on the basis of the cupiditas-caritas tension, treating cupiditas as “pulchritude,” the sensuous form of love (ibid.). He acknowledges that both noble desire and slavish passions are present in the person and that both remain possible expressions of love: For love of pulchritude . . . may perhaps wing and inspire the mind to noble and generous attempts, and beget a scornful disdain in it of mean, dirty, and sordid things; yet is capable of being abused also, and then it will strike downward into brutishness and sensuality. (1820, 2.3.18) His argument is that while there is something good to be found in the love of pulchritude, the danger lies that in this same love, the passions may lead to wickedness as a result of distorting this love so it turns into brutishness. Cudworth assumes that a person is either going to be ruled by lower instincts or higher desires. He further elucidated the dichotomy in A Treatise Concerning Eternal and Immutable Morality (1731). The person is where divine love also manifests itself representing the higher spiritual desires. This love most resembles the Divine in its spiritual purity. But with it is mixed human nature in its imperfect state. And so, a love emerges that is driven by animal appetites. Leslie Armour states, “we have the divine spark of love and charity, but we are animals too. When we get things in the right order we are free” (2003, p. 8). The Malebranchean expression of “things in the right order” remains central to freedom because only when there is order can one say that one’s love is not determined by animal appetites. Cudworth implicitly refers to divine order when he refers to divine love as something that “sweetly governs all.” For him, order is part of God’s wisdom and his government; “this whole universe is dispensed and ordered” (1820, p. 245). When one distorts this order, one turns away from divine love (Lowrey, 1884, p. 198).

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Cudworth remains close to Augustine in his assertion that one is freest when the higher nature dominates, when one is not governed by one’s animal instincts. Freedom unites the human spirit with the Divine. In this union, one finds the manifestation of love. It is in this union wherein one is truly free. Human Expression of Divine Love Cudworth’s views on the relationship of freedom to love, especially that love is not invidious sounds like a striking difference from Malebranche, who interprets human love as being fundamentally self-interested. Is love non-invidious? Self-interested? Can it be both? This is where a fundamental distinction needs to be made between the human and the Divine act of love by considering the types of love to which Cudworth is referring. Love as a divine or human activity is not always clear: precisely who is doing the loving? The very nature of human love, as I have argued in my study, cannot be understood without reference to God. In Chapter Four, I maintained that God creates and communicates his love freely, a position Cudworth also maintains. God’s creation is an act of love, and his love is also one of complaisance, in which God contemplates his own goodness. Cudworth, expresses this view of God’s gratuitous love, saying that it “dispenses itself uninvidiously…without any force or violence” (1820, pp. 31–32). The richness of God’s love, without imposing itself and respecting the individual, expresses the gratuity of God’s love. While God’s love is non-invidious, human love is naturally selfinterested. Yet, if the Divine expresses itself in human love, if God’s love manifests itself in the human agent, should this not be the non-invidious love of which Cudworth speaks? Regarding non-invidious love Armour writes, “it is in one sense the denial of what is commonly taken for self-interest, for Cudworthian love always gives priority to the others who are the sources of one’s identity” (2003, p. 11). The essence of the divine principle is the love that expresses itself in the human agent. However, the human agent constitutes a material, which imposes limits on spiritual so that the non-invidious love loses its divine perfection, while at the same time, the person strives to appropriate this perfection. Divine love remains but it is transformed into self-interested love seeking the love of divine perfection. Armour continues: Our animal natures are strong. I suppose we are like a man in a high wind on the Brighton sea wall. If we make a mistake we may be blown into a puddle or finally lose our balance and fall into the railing or even over the edge. It is the wind of animal nature that explains sin. (Ibid., p. 11) This explains the driving forces behind animal appetites in contrast to the human spiritual desires where one is capable of making choices.

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This cupiditas-caritas tension manifests itself in the fundamental human choice to love, but this choice is not always determined by enlightened reason. Animal appetites can drive the person to make choices that are deficient in love. In this sense, while love is self-interested because of human nature, it is this very same human nature recognized by Malebranche that permits one to be perfected. The perfection of love means a love that is fecund and non-invidious. Human love becomes more like its source: God-like. God communicates his goodness to his human creation. The human desire for what is good, to love that which brings pleasure, reflects the divine nature that God bestows upon human beings. God shares his divine nature with human creatures; in addition to goodness, this nature includes freedom (Armour, 2001, p. 113). 3. Cudworth’s God of Love In True Intellectual System of the Universe, Cudworth draws two conclusions based on Greek philosophy (drawing heavily on writings of Hesiod, Plato, and Aristotle). First, love is “an active principle and cause of motion in the universe.” Second, love is the supreme God (1820, 2.3.18). Cudworth is dissatisfied with the existence of a material world, what he considers to be the source of an atheistic philosophy and which dismally fails to give an account for motion in the cosmos. “Chaos” requires an underlying principle that produces motion. I have shown that an emphasis on movement, or a motion toward, appears in Plato, Augustine, Malebranche, and Norris. In each case, motion is seen as the result of a desire, a force that brings motion to its end, namely love. Cudworth remains within this Platonic tradition in identifying the principle of motion with the force of love. Rejecting love as a daimon, that middle nature between mortal and immortal of which Plato speaks in the Symposium, he advances a position whereby love is not only a god, but above the gods of Greek cosmology (ibid.; see also Symposium, 203e). Love Transformed Divine love and human love are inseparable. Human love manifests itself as a motion that has its source in divine love. This leads Cudworth to maintain, “love is the supreme Deity and original of all things” (ibid.). He does acknowledge the distinction between the two, but human love is the love of an imperfect being. By its very definition, it can be neither source nor cause, but must be acted upon by something. If love is agentive, in the sense of a source that has a causal power, then, one can speak of love as “supreme Deity.” It is also significant that the movement downward, which is iconic, suggests corporeal forces that weigh and pull the body. For Cudworth, that which is natural in the person differs from that of the supreme Deity, the love which Augustine interprets as Divine. Cudworth shows that God is eternal and is the source who dispenses love generously, unto his Creation. The sense that

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Cudworth gives is a descending relationship: God descends upon the human creature who receives divine love. Reaching out to God—the ascent—is only possible once God has made himself present in the individual. In the dichotomy that distinguishes the material domain in which the person lives from the spiritual world of the Transcendent, a tension consistent with Augustinian tradition that Cudworth preserves, one finds not only two types of love, but two different types of lovers, divine and human. Cudworth’s point is that love is God, and by recognizing God as the “Supreme” deity, he is also identifying love as something absolutely Divine. Significantly, Cudworth immediately continues the discourse by saying that love is the “origin of all things.” This claim places love at the level of something productive or creative. He qualifies the claim by indicating that love is the source of things when love is understood as being eternal and selforiginated. The claim that love is the “origin of all things” gives love the very properties of being God for only God is both eternal and self-originated; love has a divine nature because love is God. My research has represented love, both divine and human, as expressing love that is associated with movement, things being set in motion. Even though Cudworth includes motion as an aspect of love, he defines love as “intellectual,” and as “essential and substantial goodness.” This raises a further problem, because once love is qualified as fundamental goodness, the discussion shifts from the ontological character of “being,” to an ethical one of “goodness.” For purposes of the present work, I have limited myself to ontological problems rather than ethical ones, even though there are ethical implications in the ontology, such as, what constitutes “goodness” given the transition in God, a being that “loves” to a being that is “good.” “Love” and “good” are not the same: To love is fundamentally a motion toward a desired object, while to be good does not imply any motion, merely a quality of something or someone who is perceived as good. 4. Human Response to Divine Love While God’s love does not mean a motion toward in the way human love has been understood thus far, one is left to consider how divine love translates into the human response. God’s love is communicated to his human creation, and within the person this creates a motion—a movement outward seeking that which brings happiness—that which is desired and to be loved. It is in the human agent where motion manifests itself as a movement toward the “original source,” as Cudworth refers to God, or the divine “magnet” that draws, using the Norrisian metaphor. I have shown how “pre-motion” appears heavily in the writings of Chalmers, in which he attempted to establish a basis for this movement whereby one chooses the good and moves toward God. This first movement found in God’s human creatures is transmitted by God himself: seeking happiness and the good, the individual is drawn by God.

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Cudworth retains the Oratorian tradition that places emphasis on the power of divine presence communicated to the individual by God. With Malebranche and Norris, Cudworth rejects the deterministic assertions of Jansenism, wherein God’s love manifests itself in a kind of grace that predetermines goodness and wickedness. He holds that God’s love begins at creation and is reflected in the human capacity to love, to move toward the beloved. This is not only a capacity transmitted to the person by God, but part of the divine nature in which one participates. The Augustinian elements of the Oratorian tradition attach significance to the divine power that is communicated to the individual by God. This is reflected in how one comes to know and how one comes to love. The Oratorian tradition emphasizes the role of divine participation, Deus in nobis. Beginning with Contarini, divine participation occurs because God’s amplitude manifests itself in the person not as the Divine, but the union of the Divine and the person. The love for what is good brings one to happiness, and in this sense, one returns to the Malebranchean thesis: one’s love for God is motivated by self-interest. 5. Cudworth and Augustine Having considered Cudworth’s thesis on divine love in the light of Contarini, the Augustinian-Oratorian tradition and Neoplatonism, I turn to his interpretation of divine love and how my analysis shows his departure from the Augustinian tradition, which sees love as fundamentally dialectic. The Confessions is Augustine’s journey, the person tormented by sin, by limits, by error, but, who sought truth and love. God manifested himself in this ongoing search. Augustine advances spiritually and he finally experiences a conversion. This leaves the impression that the love of God begins with the individual who seeks God and God’s love. The movement in the Augustinianism of Oratorians reflects a shift from the love of God that begins with human experience, to the love of God manifesting itself in the world. How one is to understand divine love differs on the basis of whether the point of departure for love is the human experience or the divine presence. At the level of human experience, one is bound to acknowledge the powerful role of the senses, the passions, love as erotic, the experience of cupiditas. The emphasis of the Divine focuses on the creative power of love, one that is communicative, ecstatic, the love of caritas. A significant element in Malebranche, found in Traité de l’amour de Dieu, is his bringing the two loves together: the person seeks love because this is how God created humankind, communicating his perfections. Juxtaposing Cudworth’s God who “sweetly governs all, without any force or violence,” to Malebranche’s God who “knows himself perfectly,” we can compare the differences in how the two philosophers establish that God is love. For Malebranche, God is foremost a God who has divine knowledge of

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himself and his creation; God’s love for his creatures is God’s contemplation of himself, his complaisance: the love of his unchanging perfections. Cudworth’s exclusivist interpretation of Augustine is that God’s love is not invidious and the creative love pours forth without exclusion. This does not eliminate the cupiditas-caritas tension, but this tension is the human expression of divine love. Cudworth represents a response to Christian thinkers, who associated divine love with an exclusive interpretation of the gratuity of God’s love. It is in Cudworth that love manifests itself communicating its divine goodness to the world. Divine love is a creative more than a selfcontemplating exercise. This presence of the Divine in the world means that the world is ordered toward divine perfection, a Malebranchean principle that is already present in Augustine, and which Cudworth employs to lead to harmony in the world. This cosmic order is an expression of divine perfection. An ordered world reflects the love of God. Order is a manifestation of the Divine as much as love is.

CONCLUSION My research began by questioning the meaning of the assertion “God is love.” I set out to determine the extent to which rational discourse can establish a philosophical foundation for the assertion and what the implications are of “God is love.” I demonstrate that from an Augustinian perspective of amor Dei, there are three kinds of love present, cupiditas, caritas, and gratia. To establish this, I turned to Augustine’s Confessions as the basis of my study. I argued the following based on the Confessions: (1) God’s love extends to all of humanity; (2) human love is inseparable from divine love; and (3) amor Dei begins with human experience and the ordering of that experience. One of the problems that I acknowledged from the start is the philosophy-theology interface, especially with a topic concerning divine love. Can parameters be established for philosophical discourse so that one is not accused of treading in theological waters? I gave a working definition for philosophical research that would distinguish my claims from theological ones. First, the point of departure in philosophy is human experience, relying on reason and the principles of rational discourse. Second, theology appeals to revealed tradition, relying on sacred texts, which presupposes some degree of faith. In Augustine, reason and faith overlap, which is evident in the Confessions. But as I show from Augustine’s biography, this work narrates a personal experience and an ongoing search for truth. Love is what leads to Augustine’s personal experience of the Divine. So, the faith experience surfaces and resurfaces in his writing. The notion of order recurs throughout, and is an underlying unifying element in my study to determine what is meant by “God is love.” Amor dei was given meaning, and ordered, in the experiences of Gasparo Contarini who developed the notion of amplitudo. In the context of the sixteenth- and seventeenth-century controversies surrounding “divine love,” I drew from Nicolas Malebranche’s Traité de l’amour de Dieu and John Norris’s Theory and Regulation of Love to show the constancy of human love as a motion toward divine goodness. Human experience reflects ongoing change that requires “order.” The changeless love of God to which human love is directed constitutes the principle element which makes order possible. Through his personal journey, Augustine reveals a concrete tension between desire for love and the misery he experienced in the absence of the love he sought. His experience represents the tangible reality of love. But his story is also one of conversion, an intelligence that seeks God. And so, his experiences of love are never removed from his experience of God. Various writers interpreted Augustine’s experiences differently. I examine the two types of love discussed by Hannah Arendt, cupiditas and caritas, followed by four types of love suggested by Oliver O’Donovan, cosmic, positive, rational, and benevolent. I reanalyze these types of love, arguing that three types of love are present in Augustine. In addition to the cupiditas and caritas, there is also gratia.

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I identify cosmic love as being significant for the purposes of my argument, holding that it is love in humankind’s natural state. The other love that is central is positive love, since it is a love wherein one begins to put an order in relationships. This is love that moves beyond the natural and involves human reason. It is in positive love, in the eudaemonist tradition, that a sense of order is found. The cupiditas-caritas tension that Arendt develops, I also argued, is present in Augustine and in the entire Augustinian tradition from Contarini to Ralph Cudworth. I emphasized the role of gratia with all the controversy that grace implies. The gratuitous love of God is available to all of humanity without compromising human freedom. O’Donovan’s four types of love suggest that God’s gratuitous love is already at work. This is acknowledged by Augustine after his conversion—the instrumental role of divine assistance, gratia. Arendt focuses on the conflictual dimension of cupiditas-caritas, while Augustine emphasizes God’s love in the Confessions, which makes sense to him after his conversion and after his writing. In Chapter Two, I also showed the significance of the charged Pelagian context in which Augustine was defending the role of grace. Examining the place of Manicheanism in his life, I demonstrated the foundation for the cupiditas-caritas dichotomy present in the Confessions, and Augustine’s perception of love. Manicheanism, however, represents not only a dialectic of the opposing forces of the material and the spiritual realms, but also one involving evil, which was for him, a powerful force. Evil was what prevented Augustine from transforming his slavish lust of cupiditas to the endearing affection of caritas. I also maintained that for Augustine, love of God could not explain why one turned away from God and to a disordered love of creatures. Augustine resolves this problem by emphasizing the role of the will. This solution overcomes the Manichean principle of evil treated as an independent external force exerting power over the individual. Although the existence of evil is understood in terms of human freedom, I showed that Augustine was still confronted with the problem of gratia. His claim that the will is responsible for a person’s actions seems to be no different from that of the Pelagians, if the human will was considered sufficient to perform good acts, and to love God. Augustine’s explanation, found in the Confessions, appealed to divine assistance. He asserted that the will is assisted by God, which is an expression of God’s gratuitous love. I develop the importance of gratia not only for Augustine in responding to the Pelagian controversy (Chapter Two, section 5), but in the subsequent chapters (Chapters Three and Four), where I have shown that the recipients of God’s gratuitous love became a source of controversy in terms of human freedom. Significant developments in the idea of divine love appeared in the early seventeenth century. I began my discussion with the sixteenth-century Italian figure, Contarini. In Contarini’s philosophical system divine amplitude is a

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central notion that shows how God is present in human agents when one is open to God’s love. Amplitudo is contrasted to angusto; the brutish appetites reflect the narrow desires of angusto, while the openness to liberating goodness of the Divine is regarded as amplitudo. Again, the dichotomy between the spiritual and the material, the spirit and the flesh, are present; it is in divine amplitude that God unites himself with the human agent. I argued that divine amplitude leads to being one with the will of God, the union of agents through the will. Chapters One and Two on Augustine treat the human experience of reaching out to God, the search for truth, and the desire for love. In Chapter Three, as already suggested with Contarini, God descends and expresses himself. This is shown with divine amplitude, and in the case of Pierre de Bérulle, God’s descent takes on a specifically Christian dimension with God descending physically upon the world. The significance of this descent, which is the manifestation of divine love, is that divine and the human are united. The distance between God and humankind is overcome once God sends his Son into the world. I claimed that with God descending upon the world, mixing with humanity, in Bérullian terms, when God’s love mixes with human beings, they are deified. With grace divine love is intensified. Continuing in the Oratorian tradition of Bérulle, Guillaume Gibieuf develops the notion of Deus in nobis, sine nobis. God can act in the person without the person. Gibieuf argues that this is possible because there is a fusion of agencies; a union with God is the expression of love, the oneness of agents. He solves the problem of the two extremes, the Pelagian, where grace is only offered at creation, and the Jansenist, where grace is limited to those chosen in advance. Both Pelagius and Jansen acknowledged the existence of human goodness, but with differing explanations. I claimed that it was in Gibieuf where the manifestation of divine love was expressed through a fusion of agents. Placing Jansen after Contarini, the Oratorians, the grace-controversy shows how Jansen’s interpretation of Augustine and divine love deviates from the view that God’s gratuitous love descends upon the person and what is needed is an openness to this love. I demonstrated through extensive references to the Augustinus, as well as the five condemned propositions, that the Jansenist reading of Augustine presents an exclusivist God whose love determines in advance who will respond to God, with love. This is an interpretation of Augustine that sacrifices the human will: God’s love is imposed. By placing Scotus Eriugena and Pseudo-Dionysius at the end of the chapter, I presented the Neoplatonic interpretations of Augustine, which can also be found in Contarini and the Oratorians. In this respect, Jansen stands out because he removes himself from the Neoplatonic tradition. Eriugena and the Areopagite show the relationship between the One and participation in the One ultimately through divine amplitude and the union of wills. The gratuity of divine love makes this oneness of agents, divine and human, possible.

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The Augustinian-Oratorian tradition led to Malebranche, who played a central role in my study because he directly addressed the issue of l’amour de Dieu in his dispute with Lamy. These two represented conflicting views, love of God as being self-interested, and love of God as being gratuitous, respectively. In Chapter Three, the motion was that of descent. But in Chapter Four, amor Dei was one of ascent, that is, the person reaching up to God. The conflicting views between Malebranche and Lamy appeared during the Quietist controversy. I showed that Malebranche’s position in his three letters addressed to Lamy approach love from three angles, ontological, epistemological, and ethical. I also maintained that Norris, Malebranche’s English disciple, developed love in terms of the tension between cupiditas and caritas. Both Malebranche and Norris emphasized human happiness as the fulfillment of desire. As a result, love was understood principally as a motion. While one senses an ascent in Malebranche, which largely builds on human nature, I show that in Norris, love appears in dialectic terms. For Norris, the tension between cupiditas and caritas meant that in the Malebranchean tradition, love must be ordered. Norris’s correspondence with Damaris Masham and Mary Astell provided two different perspectives on divine love. In the case of Masham, God was interpreted in very concrete practical terms. She advocated a socially engaged life as opposed to a life of religious asceticism. Masham represented love that was enfleshed in the reality of human relations. Astell’s thought resembled the Neoplatonic tradition of divine love as an ascent, a detachment from the material world so that the person could respond to amor Dei. The correspondence among the three revealed two significantly different ways in which divine love could be interpreted, or reinterpreted. For Masham, it was in her human relations in the world below where she found happiness and encountered God’s love, while Astell experienced God’s love by focusing on the spiritual realm above, in an ascent toward the Divine. In Chapter Five, I showed how Cudworth describes the descent of the Divine. Cudworth’s God is manifested in human love because his God uninvidiously dispenses love that is fecund and gratuitous. I demonstrated that God’s love has no limit, descending upon all of humanity. However, I also showed that Cudworth’s reference to “sweetly governs” suggests order because divine government is inseparable from divine order. Unlike Norris, where cupiditas-caritas are presented as conflicting ideas, Cudworth maintains that divine love is not limited to the senses or to created things; transcendence is suggested when one responds to God’s love with love. The three types of love—cupiditas, caritas, and gratia—are present in Cudworth, but in progressive stages, where one moves from the human experience of love to the Divine. Cudworth’s emphasis on order and union with the will of God highlights the Neoplatonic elements and the Augustinianism of Contarini and the Oratorians found in his work: God communicates his goodness to his rational creatures, and because God “sweetly governs without force,” God’s human

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creatures are free to respond with love. Cudworth’s God is far from any Jansenist God who imposes and limits his love. By drawing on an Augustinian tradition, I have demonstrated that the proposition “God is love” needs to relate to human experience. Amor Dei can generate two meanings, one’s love directed toward God, or God’s love directed toward the individual. Love with its source in God communicates gratia, while the human expression of love is manifested in cupiditas. Ascending toward the Divine, assisted with gratia, human love is reordered into caritas. I have shown that this is precisely what divine love means: ascending and descending movements, from the person to God, from God to the person. Augustine’s description of the wretchedness of the human condition, the striving for truth, and the passion for love in the Confessions reveals the very personal nature of this search for amor Dei, the person seeking God. Undeniably, this search, intellectual, emotional, and spiritual is part of the human condition. Only when experience leads to God can one ask whether the journey took place alone. Augustine’s Confessions explicates that it is gratia that makes the journey to God possible. The descent from God to the person was expressed in the Augustinian tradition of Contarini, the Oratorians, in the Neoplatonism of Eriugena, and the Areopagite, as well as in Cudworth. The movement from God to the rational creature showed that the meaning of God was not the experiential one of Augustine, where meaning is derived from experience. Instead, the movement toward creation where the person is inhabited by the Divine leads to a union of agents. I maintained that, for Malebranche, one sought God out of self-interest, but this is what led to amor Dei, as a result of seeking happiness. Malebranche affirmed God created humanity to be happy, so self-interested love was a good thing. The radical departure from the Malebranchean view, as I showed, was the Jansenist reading of Augustine, which expressed a rupture in meaning, resulting in the polemical reaction to the Augustinus: God’s love that was exclusivist and imposing did not harmonize with the more Neoplatonic readings of Augustine. It is in placing order to one’s experience, as Augustine had done in the Confessions, that one discovers the meaning of divine love. Only then, does it make sense to say “God is love.” Four areas still require further study: (1) Why are some individuals open to God’s love while others are not, if everyone receives the same “push” at Creation? (2) The difficulty concerning God’s gratuitous love in terms of theological discourse remains: How does one differentiate the love that God communicates at creation and the ongoing presence of God’s love that one receives after the Fall? (3) How are “boundaries” determined for philosophers, if there are any, before engaging in theological discussion, when recourse to Christian concepts and Biblical texts suggest a departure from philosophy? (4) How does philosophy and human experience articulate amor Dei after the sixteenth- and seventeenth-century controversies?

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Chalmers, William. (1630) Selectae disputationes philosophicae [Selected philosophical disputations]. Paris: Chapelain. ———. (1969) Opera omnia quae Latina conscripta reperiri potuerunt [All works that may be found in Latin]. Frankfurt: Minerva. (Facsimile reprint of Paris, 1638 edition.) Clark, Ruth. (1932) Strangers and Sojourners at Port Royal. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Contarini, Gasparo. (1571) De libero arbitrio et praedestinatione [On free will and predestination], pp. 597–622. In Gasparis Contareni cardinalis opera. Paris Cudworth, Ralph. (1731) A Treatise Concerning Eternal and Immutable Morality. James and John Knapton: London. ———. (1820) The True Intellectual System of the Universe. 4 vols. First printed in London by J.F Dove, St. John’s Square, for Richard Priestley. Denzinger, Henry. (1957) The Sources of Catholic Dogma. Translated by Roy J. Deferrari from the 13th edition of Henry Denzinger’s Enchiridion symbolorum. St. Louis: B. Herder. De Plinval, Georges. (1943) Pélage: ses écrits, sa vie et sa réforme [Pelagius: His writings, his life and his reform]. Genève: Payot. Dunn, James, D. G. (1998) The Theology of Paul the Apostle. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans. Eriugena, Iohannes Scottus. (1981) Periphyseon 3. Translated by I. P. Shelden-Williams. Dublin: Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies. Evans, G. R. (1982) Augustine on Evil. New York: Cambridge University Press. Evans, Robert F. (1968) Pelagius: Inquiries and Reappraisals. New York: Seabury Press. Ferguson, John. (1956) Pelagius: a Historical and Theological Study. Cambridge, England: W. Heffer. Ferrier, F. (1968) William Chalmers (1596–1678). Paris: Presses Universitaires de France. ———. (1980) Un oratorien ami de Descartes: Guillaume Gibieuf [An Oratorian friend of Descartes: Guillaume Gibieuf]. Paris: Vrin, 1980. Filoramo, Giovanni. (1990) A History of Gnosticism. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Gersh, Stephen. (1978) From Iamblichus to Eriugena: An Invesigation of the Prehistory of the Pseudo-Dionysian Tradition. Leiden: E.J. Brill. Gibieuf, Guillaume. (1630) De libertate Dei et creaturae [On the liberty of God and creature]. Paris: Joseph Cottereau. Gouhier, Henri. (1926) La vocation de Malebranche [The vocation of Malebranche]. Paris: Vrin. Gregory, John. (1991) The Neoplatonists. London: Routledge. Gueroult, Martial. (1955) Vol. 1 of Malebranche: La vision en Dieu [Malebranche: The vision of God]. Paris: Aubier. Hutton, Sarah, ed. (1996) A Treatise Concerning Eternal and Immutable Morality; with a Treatise of Freewill. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. Jansen, Cornelius. (1640) Augustinus. Louvain: Iaocobi Zegeri. Kotzé, Annemaré. (2004) Augustine’s Confessions: Communicative Purpose and Audience. Leiden: Brill. Lamy, Bernard. (1697/1963) Vol. 3 of De la connaissance de soi-même [Knowledge of the self]. Pralard: Paris.

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Plato. (1989) Symposium. Bollingen Series 71 in The Collected Dialogues of Plato. Edited by Edith Hamilton and Huntington Cairns. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. Plotinus. (1991) Enneads. Abridged with an Introduction and Notes by John Dillon. Translated by Stephen MacKenna. London: Penguin. Pseudo-Dionysius, the Areopagite. (1987) Pseudo-Dionysius: The Complete Works. Translated by Colm Luibheid. Foreword, notes, and translation collaboration by Paul Rorem. Preface by René Roques. Introductions by Jaroslav Pelikan, Jean Leclercq, and Karlfried Froehlich. New York: Paulist Press. Rapin, René. (1867) Histoire du Jansénisme. Paris: Gaume Frères et J. Duprey. Rees, B. R. (1988) Pelagius: A Reluctant Heretic. Suffolk: Boydell Press. ———.(1991) The Letters of Pelagius and His Followers. Woolbridge: Boydell Press. Robinet, André. (1965) Système et existence dans l’oeuvre de Malebranche [System and existence in the work of Malebranche]. Vrin: Paris. Rotelle, John E., ed. (2000) The Works of Saint Augustine, Exposition of the Psalm, 1–32. Introduction by Michael Fiedrowicz, Translated and Notes by Maria Boulding. Hyde Park: New City Press. Ruch, Michel. (1958) L’Hortensius de Cicéron. Paris: Les Belles Lettres. Sedgwick, Alexander. (1977) Jansenism in Seventeenth-Century France: Voices from the Wilderness. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia. Switalski, Bruno.(1946) Plotinus and the Ethics of St. Augustine. New York: Polish Institute of Arts and Sciences in America. Taranto, Salvatore. (2003) Agostino e la filosofia dell’amore [Augustine and the philosophy of love]. Brescia: Morcelliana. TeSelle, Eugene. (2002) Augustine the Theologian. Eugene: Wipf and Stock. (First published New York: Herder and Herder, 1970.) Vasoli, Cesare. (1998) “The Crisis of Late Humanism and Expectations of Reform in Italy at the End of the Fifteenth and Beginning of the Sixteenth Centuries.” In History of Theology. Edited by Giulio D’Onofrio. Translated by Mathew J. O’Connell. Collegeville: Liturgical Press. Viallon, Marie F. (2005) Italie 1541: Ou l’unité perdue de l’église [Italy 1541: Or, the lost unity of the church]. Paris: CNRS. Wilson, Catherine. (2004) Love of God and Love of Creatures: The Masham-Astell Debate. History of Philosophy Quarterly 21: 281–298. Woods, Richard. (1986) Eckhart’s Way. Wilmington: Michael Glazier.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR David C. Bellusci, O.P. completed his doctorate in Philosophy at the Dominican University College in Ottawa, where he is currently Assistant Professor of Philosophy and Latin. His primary area of academic research is the humanism emerging from the Italian Renaissance and the transition period into early modern philosophy, with special interest in “the love of God.” His research has been presented in venues such as Toronto and Venice. He has published articles in Philosophy, Culture, & Traditions, Maritain Studies, and Science et Esprit. Bellusci is a member of the Canadian Society for Italian Studies, Canadian Society for Renaissance Studies, and the Sixteenth Century Society and Conference. He also writes poetry and is a member of the Association of Italian-Canadian Writers. He was received into the Dominican Order in 2004.

INDEX act(ion), good vs. sinful, 78 affection, 12–15, 17, 18, 20 agape, 11 agency, 72, 76 Alaric the Goth, 50 Albizzi, Francesco, 85 Alexander, Pope, 102, 87 Alexander of Aphrodisias amare (to love), 14 Ambrose of Milan, 36, 41, 47, 56, 62 amor Dei, 1–6, 8, 10, 52, 55, 149, 152, 153 amplitude, divine, 6–8, 59, 60, 62, 64, 65, 68, 69, 71, 72, 74, 76, 78, 80, 84, 89, 96–98, 150–152 Contarini’s, 70 freedom and, 73 Angélique, Mother, 82 angels, 31, 35 anger, 126 annihilation, 108, 109, 118 appetitus (craving), 15, 16, 37, 38 Aquinas, Thomas, 62, 63, 78, 81 Summa theologica, 63, 78 Arendt, Hannah, 4, 11, 15–17, 20, 25, 57 Der Liebesbegriff bei Augustin, 3 Love and Saint Augustine, 3 Aristophanes, 18, 23 Aristotle, 63 De Anima, 63 Physics, 63 Armour, Leslie, 142, 143 Arnaud, Antoine, 82, 83 Astell, Mary, 2, 9, 99, 133–137, 152 atheism, 139 attraction, 116, 117, 129, 135 Augustine of Hippo, 4, 7, 9, 11–16, 18, 21, 23, 24, 26, 28–48, 50–57 affection/lust distinction, 17 Carthaginian hedonist, 20 Confessions, 1, 3, 5, 6, 10–12, 14–20, 22–25, 27, 28, 31–36, 39, 41, 44, 46, 50, 55, 56, 149, 150, 153 conversion, 27, 59, 60, 146, 150 evil and search for truth, 22, 31 On the Gift of Perseverance, 47 Jansenist interpretation of, 86

De libero arbitrio, 5, 17, 27, 41, 43, 44, 50, 56, 62, 77, 91, 105 Manichean influence, 25, 27, 28, 34, 150 Platonic reading of, 128 Plotinian phase, 36 transition to philosophical thought, 19 A Treatise on the Predestination of the Saints, 47 Augustinianism, 59 autonomy, 14 baptism, infant, 49 beauty, 32, 40, 42, 106, 107, 114, 129 behavior, instinct driven, 64 being, 74 Being, 72, 73 Belgian Oratory at Malines, 82 benevolentia (benevolence), 34, 57, 132 Bérulle, Pierre de, 2, 59, 65, 67–70, 72, 75, 76, 81–83, 89, 91, 97, 98, 151 Discours de l’État et des Grandeurs de Jésus, 66 mystical theology of, 66 Bible, Neoplatonic language in, 39 Calenus, Henry, 82 Calvinism, 7, 75, 81, 84, 87 Camaldolese monks, 60, 61 Capreolus, Jean, 78 caritas (spiritual love/charity), 1–3, 6, 9– 11, 16, 17, 25, 26, 34, 40, 53, 57, 99, 107, 125, 127, 128, 131–133, 142, 144, 146, 147, 149 Carmelite reform, Spanish, 66 Cassian, John, 48 Catholicism, 62, 83, 84, 88, 89 conversion of Scotland, 7, 75, 81 causality, deterministic/divine, 75, 79, 89 Chalmers, William, 2, 6, 7, 75 Selectae Disputationes Philosophicae, 76 chaos, 144 charity, 132. See also caritas

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choice, 103, 111, 121, 129 Christianity, 4, 13, 15, 18, 27–29, 34–36, 38, 41, 46, 48, 50, 56, 59, 75–81, 84, 89–91, 96, 98 inability to account for evil, 30 love within C. doctrine, 68 orthodox, 84 paradox of C. discourse, 67 Cicero, 19, 20, 24 Clement VIII, Pope, 7, 70 commandments, 88 complaisance, 113, 114, 118, 131–133, 143, 147 conscience, 5 conspiracy of the masses, 82 Contarini, Gasparo, 2, 6–10, 59–65, 68– 72, 76, 80, 84, 85, 91, 96–98, 139, 141, 146, 149, 150–153 epistemology and ethics, 63 contemplative life, 134 continuity, spatial vs. contiguous, 79 Corinthians, letter to, 61 corporeality, 34, 40, 136 Council at Carthage, 47 Council of Dordrecht, 81 Counter Reformation, 59, 62, 82 creation, 63–65, 72, 74, 92, 98 Cudworth, Ralph, 2, 3, 10, 139–141, 143–147, 150, 152, 153 A Treatise Concerning Eternal and Immutable Morality, 142 True Intellectual System of the Universe, 9, 139, 140, 144 cupiditas (worldly love), 1–3, 6, 9–11, 16, 17, 25, 26, 34, 57, 99, 107, 125, 127–129, 131–133, 142, 144, 146, 147, 149, 150, 152, 153 cupiditas-caritas tension, 107 darkness, 95 death: annihilation of the lover’s being, 108 fear of, 15 d.-life dichotomy, 32 de la Mère de Dieu, Fr. Denys, 66 de Lubac, Henri, 87 Demetrias, 50, 51 Demetrias, Letter to, 50, 55 De Plinval, Georges, 46

desire, 12–20, 28, 29, 31, 37–40, 42, 122 Deus in nobis sine nobis (God in us without us), 7, 71, 75, 93, 124 Dionysian system, 8 Dionysius the Areopagite (Pseudo Dionysius), 2, 8, 59, 72, 91–93, 95– 98, 152 Divine Names, 92 di San Giorgio, Canoni, 60 Divin(e)(ation), 59, 77, 95 creative expression of, 129 human relationship with, 111, 115 union of human and, 124, 143 Druidism, 46 Dunn, James D. G., 63 Eckhart, Meister, 92, 95 L’École Française, 65 In eminenti (Clement XII), 86, 87 envy, 126 Epistles: of Paul, 29, 37, 55, 56, 68 of John, 30 Erasmus, 60 Eriugena, Scotus, 2, 8, 59, 91–93, 96, 98, 152, 153 Periphyseon (Division of Nature), 92 eros, 20, 23 eroticism, 13 eternal law, 42 eudaemonism, 22, 23 e. interpretation of cosmic love, 20 Roman, 20, 25, 26 e. terminology, 20 evil, 106, 107, 114, 116, 126–128, 130, 131, 134, 141 Christian perspective of, 4 love of God vs., 15 Manichean view of, 31 material interpretation of, 34 Neoplatonic teachings on, 37 ontological power of, 14 Evodius, 42, 43 existence, 74 experience, 101, 115, 124, 135, 136, 146 Fall, the, 109, 124, 128, 127 faith, 49, 59, 61, 63, 83, 86 vs. works, 62 fear, 114, 126

Index Fénelon, François, 101 Explications, 100 Ferguson, John, 45, 55 Ferrier, Francis, 70–72, 74–79, 88, 97, 98 finality, 64, 71, 73, 74, 76, 77, 80, 101, 112 First Cause, duality in, 96 force metaphors, 126, 144, 145 forgiveness of sin, 53, 55 freedom, 4, 5, 7, 8, 27, 35, 37–39, 43–45, 49, 51, 53, 54, 56, 57, 59, 64, 65, 69–77, 79, 80, 84, 86, 89–91, 97, 98, 143 five degrees of, 74 integrity of personal, 78 love and, 75 Pelagian emphasis on, 51 relationship between divine intervention and human, 45 result of unity with God’s will, 72 total in God and progressive in humanity, 70 free will, 4, 6, 7, 10, 27, 37, 39, 41–43, 45, 49–51, 53, 54, 57, 59, 62, 64, 65, 70, 71, 76–79, 81, 87, 89, 91 Augustine’s view of, 5 open to intelligence vs. God, 73 French Oratory, 65, 81–83, 99 De la Fréquente Communion (Arnaud), 83 friend(ship), 23–25, 27, 32, 33, 50, 56 Gibieuf, Guillaume, 2, 6, 8, 59, 69, 70– 73, 75–77, 80, 82, 84, 85, 89, 91, 97, 98, 141 Augustinian dimension in G.’s notion of freedom, 74 De libertate Dei et creaturae, 7, 70, 71, 74, 77, 82 Gnosticism, 27, 29, 30, 37, 102 God: Creator, 3, 15, 16, 21, 22, 30, 102, 103, 140 Cudworthian, 10 as cause, 77–80, 89, 92, 96 divine nature, 144 governs without force, 153 G.’s knowledge, 105 love and, 1, 2, 5, 95, 99, 125, 133

163

relationship with humanity, 48, 80, 96, 99, 124 G.’s self-love, 105 self-satisfied, 67 “God is our end” (Dieu est notre fin), 101 “God in us, without us,” 7, 71, 75, 93, 124 gods, 31 good(ness), 145 divine, 64 g.-evil dichotomy, 11, 30, 44 infinite, 61 love of, 15 material interpretation of, 34 sensuous, 127, 128 ultimate, 106, 108, 117, 119, 127, 129 Universal, 64 Gospel of John, 40, 67 grace, 5–9, 11, 25, 27, 45, 46, 48–57, 59, 61, 66, 68–71, 73–75, 79, 80, 86, 87, 90–92, 95, 98, 111, 122–124 Catholic interpretation of, 81 controversy, 151 divine efficacy of, 77 Jansen’s propositions concerning, 89 natural vs. supernatural, 123 necessary to turn from sin, 62 offered at creation, 151 Roman Dominicans on, 85 selectivity in distribution of, 88 theology of, 85 gratia (divine love), 11, 25 Gueroult, Martial, 103 Guyon, Madame Jeanne Bouvier de la Motte, 101 controversy over orthodoxy, 100 happiness, 15, 42, 43, 100, 101, 105– 112, 114, 117–122, 127–130, 132–135, 137 hate, 126 Hellenic thought, 63 hope, 110, 126 Hortensius, 19, 20, 22, 28, 30 L’Hortensius de Cicéron (Ruch), 19 humanity, 33, 44 h. nature, 9, 15–18, 25, 62, 64, 68, 69, 71, 78, 84, 86, 93, 107, 108, 111– 114, 116, 121–124, 126, 127, 130, 131, 133, 135–138, 150 ontological structure of, 59, 113

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illumination, divine, 124 Incarnation, 68, 69 indifference, 62, 79 Infinite, 97 Innocent XI, Pope, 100 Innocent XII, Pope, 100 inspiration, divine, 87 Instruction sur les états d’oraison (Instruction on the States of Prayer) (Bossuet), 100 intellectual illumination, 64 intelligence, 61, 67, 71, 73, 92 divinization of human, 95 driven to truth, 64 Jansen, Cornelius, 2, 6, 8, 59, 80–91, 98 Augustinus, 82–89, 151, 153 reactions to propositions in, 85 Jansenism, 83, 146 J. controversy, 8 French, 85 religio-political conflicts surrounding, 100 Jerome, 46, 50 Jesus Christ, 29, 48–55, 59, 66, 67, 69, 81, 84, 87–89, 95 priesthood of, 65 as redeemer, 30 salvific passion of, 61 joy, 110, 116, 120, 137 knowledge, 63, 71, 79, 89, 91, 95, 104, 105, 120, 124 God’s, 66 how we come to know, 101, 102, 104 love vs., 67 of right and wrong, 15 subjectivity of, 67 Lamy, Bernard, 8, 9, 99, 100, 101, 105, 109, 113, 118–122, 130, 132 De la Connaissance de Soi-même, 113 liberty, 64, 70, 72, 74, 76, 77, 80, 84, 88 infinity and, 97 light: l.-dark dichotomy, 30 image roots in Bible and Greek philosophy, 63 intelligence/mind-l. relationship, 63, 102 Lilla, Salvatore, 97

Louis XIV, King, 100 love: Augustinian and Pelagian interpretations of divine, 5, 11, 17 benevolent, 11, 24, 25 causality of, 89 Christian interpretation of, 11 cosmic, 17–20, 23, 25 craving and motion, 15 Cudworthian, 143 degrees of, 108 as destabilizing phenomenon, 17 deterministic, 142 divine, 99, 104, 110, 112, 122–125, 133, 135, 137, 139–142, 144, 145–147 ecstatic, 121, 128 erotic, 146 faith and, 62 forms/types of, 4, 11, 22 “love of God” (amour de Dieu), 99, 104, 113, 121, 129, 134; see also amor Dei lovers’ preoccupation with, 109 God’s, 16, 59, 62, 143 hierarchy of, 21 human presupposes divine, 139 human response to divine, 99 motivation of, 15 movement and, 17, 123, 145 naturally active force, 80 Neoplatonic treatment of divine, 10 objects of, 15, 21 ordered, 3, 21 perfection of, 144 in philosophical/theological discourse, 11 vs. pleasure, 114 rational, 3, 4 regular vs. irregular, 127 self-, 15, 16, 22, 23, 109, 113, 114, 118, 127, 130–132 self-interested, 99, 107, 109, 113, 116, 118, 121, 130, 137 semantic content of, 20 sensorial experience of beloved, 115 sensuous, 142 as supreme Deity, 144 weight metaphor of, 34, 84 will’s role in, 104

Index lust(fulness), 13, 15, 17, 18, 31, 35–38, 42 voluntary nature of, 42 Luther, Martin, 62, 84, 85 Malebranche, Nicolas, 2, 10, 99, 100– 138, 142–144, 146, 149, 152, 153 correspondence with Lamy, 9, 99, 113, 118, 121 La Recherche de la Vérité, 114 Traité de l’amour de Dieu (Treatise on the Love of God), 8, 99, 105, 126, 149 Mani, the Apostle, 29 Manicheanism, 4, 14, 25–31, 34–36, 39, 41, 49, 150 Christian and Neoplatonic criticism of, 37 Marrou, Henri, 65 Mary (mother of Jesus), 66 Masham, Damaris, 2, 9, 99, 133, 134, 137, 152 materiality, 30, 40, 104, 137, 139, 143 material-immaterial tension, 33 Mazdeism, Persian, 102 metaphysics, role of Divine in Malebranche’s, 124 mind: relationship between God’s m. and humanity, 104 union of human and divine, 102 Molinists, 79 Monophysite heresies, 66 morality, 30, 71 mortification, 100 Mosaic Law, 63 motion, 96, 141, 144, 145 Cudworthian treatment of, 10 in God’s vs. human love, 145 God as source of, 78 of love to object, 67 matter, fundamental property of, 126 order, implied in concept of, 9 Platonic m. of descent/ascent, 34, 67 pre-m., 79, 80, 90, 96, 98 movement, 123, 144 corporeal, 67 divine, 68 mysticism:

165 Eckhartian, 72 Rhineland, 65, 66, 92

narrowness (angusto), 64, 65, 71 nature, 62 Neoplatonism, 2, 9, 10, 27, 37, 39, 41, 56, 57, 59, 60, 72, 91, 95, 97, 98, 152, 153 beauty in, 32 Christian, 72, 96 immateriality in, 39 influence in Augustine, 27 Nestorian heresies, 66 Nominalists, 75 Norris, John, 2, 8–10, 99, 104, 105, 115, 121, 125–138, 142, 144, 146, 149, 152, 153 N.-Astell correspondence, 133, 136 Letters Concerning Love of God, 133 Theory and Regulation of Love, 125, 126, 130, 149 nothingness, 65, 74 Nygren, Anders, 11 Occasionalist Theory, 101, 125, 134 Cum occasione (Innocent X), 86 O’Donovan, Oliver, 4, 11, 16, 17, 19, 21, 22, 24, 25, 57, 149, 150 The Problem of Self-Love in St. Augustine, 3 omnipotence, 79 omniscience, 79, 91 One, 61–63, 67, 70, 72, 76, 92, 97, 98, 149, 151, 152 oneness, 11, 72, 80, 97, 98 of agents, 151 ontology: Augustinian, 76 human, 77 Malebranche’s, 116, 124 openness to God, 73 Oratorianism, 2, 76, 96, 110, 139, 146, 151–153 order, 9, 24, 99, 105–107, 109, 111, 114, 117, 120, 122, 124, 126, 128–130 characteristic of humanity, 106 cosmic, 129 divine/God’s, 5, 107, 147 lack of freedom without, 42 Origen, 54

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pain, 111, 112, 115, 120, 135, 136 God as cause of, 135 Paraclete, 29, 30 passion, 30, 33, 126, 146 past/present dichotomy, 12, 16 Paul of Tarsus, 29, 37, 48, 52, 53, 55, 56, 60–63, 69 Epistle to the Romans, 6 Pelagius, 1, 27, 44, 46–57 Commentary on Romans, 55 controversy, 5, 45, 122, 123 On Nature, 46 rejection of divine love, 6 Pelagianism, 5, 27, 28, 45, 47, 48, 50, 61, 62, 69, 70, 87, 88, 124 P. heresy, 46 Pellegrin, Frédérique, 123 perception, 103, 110 role of p. in love, 110 sweet, 110 perfection, 100, 101, 105, 106, 111, 112, 114, 120, 121, 129, 130, 132, 133, 137 divine, 143, 147 person(hood), 9, 116 created in God’s image, 23 eudaemonist interpretation of, 22 sense of incompletion in, 18 philosophy vs. theology, 1 Plato, 18, 19, 23, 29, 32, 40, 102, 115, 129, 131 Symposium, 18, 23, 32, 40, 129 Platonism, Cambridge, 9 pleasure, 14, 16, 18–20, 22, 23 causes of, 111, 135 of divine love, 124 as fusion of affection and lust, 15 love vs., 103, 114 purpose of, 111 sensorial, 103, 117, 121 subjective p. vs. enjoyment of God, 136 Plotinian triad, 95 Plotinus, 36, 39 Enneads, 37, 38, 40, 41 Porphyry, 36, 37, 39 prayer, 21 Processions, 125 Proclus, 72, 95 purity, 20

predestination, 2, 79, 81, 86, 88–90 single vs. double, 91 predetermination, 79 pulchritude, 10 purgari (purgation), 31 Quietist movement, 100, 101, 113, 130, 135 Q. controversy, 99, 113 rationalism, 41 r. creatures, 6, 8, 9 Malebranchean, 137 reason, 61, 62, 63, 82, 85, 89, 103, 104, 110, 111, 113, 115, 117, 119– 122, 126, 130, 131, 134, 139, 140, 144 Jesuit view of, 70 redemption, 49 Reform in England, 76 relationships: motivated by pleasure, 111 with Divine vs. motivated by desire, 117 religio-political controversies, 6 revelation, 61, 62, 63, 66, 67 vs. reason, 104 reversion, 80, 95–97 Richelieu, Cardinal, 83–85 Rufinus of Syria, 54 sacrifices, 60, 62 Saint-Cyran, Abbé de, 82–84 salvation, 60–62, 86, 87, 89–92, 101 pure love and indifference to, 100 Scotists, 75 self-interest, 105, 107, 122, 124, 143, 146 Semipelagians, 86 sensations, 102–104, 115, 119, 124, 134– 136, 146 servitude, 64–66, 70, 76, 78 Carmelite vow of, 83 shame, 116 simultaneity, 79 sin(fulness), 14, 15, 20, 43, 53, 57, 60–62, 65, 69, 73, 74, 76–78, 84, 88, 135 Adamic (original), 57, 69 forgiveness of, 53, 55 free choice and, 5 original, 48, 53, 54, 57

Index slavery, 44 soul, 43, 67, 84, 87, 102–104, 108, 110, 112, 114, 115, 118–120, 123, 125, 126, 136 Absolute S., 40 s.-body opposition, 29 created at conception, 54 divine love in, 112 property of cleaving, 34 spirituality: mystical, 65 Oratorian and Carmelite, 70 Stoicism, 46 suffering, 120, 135 Sweetness of Divine Communions, 133 Switalski, Bronislaus Wladislaus, 41 Taranto, Salvatore, 11, 14, 20 telos, 24 Teresa of Avila, 66 theology, 1 grace-filled, 77 mystical, 66 Thomism, neo-Scholastic, 85 Traducianism, 27, 49, 52–54, 65, 69 Transcendence, Divine, 4, 25, 32, 92, 93, 98

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truth, 18, 20, 28, 30–32, 40, 41, 57, 63, 64, 81 Malebrance’s theory of t. coverage, 105 Victorinus, Marius, 4, 36 virtue, 105, 109, 111, 112 “Vision in God,” 9 Vitelleschi, Mutio, 75 voluntarist doctrine, 44 voluptatis (pleasure), 16 “We are for God” (nous sommes pour Dieu), 101 “we see all things in God,” 8 wickedness, 107, 130, 134 will. See also free will amplitude of, 64 drawn to God, 17 ethical implications of wrong choice by, 35 limits on human, 84 ordered, 42 Wilson, Catherine, 134–136 wisdom, 20 works, good, 76 Zosimus, Pope, 47

VIBS The Value Inquiry Book Series is co-sponsored by: Adler School of Professional Psychology American Indian Philosophy Association American Maritain Association American Society for Value Inquiry Association for Process Philosophy of Education Canadian Society for Philosophical Practice Center for Bioethics, University of Turku Center for Professional and Applied Ethics, University of North Carolina at Charlotte Central European Pragmatist Forum Centre for Applied Ethics, Hong Kong Baptist University Centre for Cultural Research, Aarhus University Centre for Professional Ethics, University of Central Lancashire Centre for the Study of Philosophy and Religion, University College of Cape Breton Centro de Estudos em Filosofia Americana, Brazil College of Education and Allied Professions, Bowling Green State University College of Liberal Arts, Rochester Institute of Technology Concerned Philosophers for Peace Conference of Philosophical Societies Department of Moral and Social Philosophy, University of Helsinki Gannon University Gilson Society Haitian Studies Association Ikeda University Institute of Philosophy of the High Council of Scientific Research, Spain International Academy of Philosophy of the Principality of Liechtenstein International Association of Bioethics International Center for the Arts, Humanities, and Value Inquiry International Society for Universal Dialogue Natural Law Society Philosophical Society of Finland Philosophy Born of Struggle Association Philosophy Seminar, University of Mainz Pragmatism Archive at The Oklahoma State University R.S. Hartman Institute for Formal and Applied Axiology Research Institute, Lakeridge Health Corporation Russian Philosophical Society Society for Existential Analysis Society for Iberian and Latin-American Thought Society for the Philosophic Study of Genocide and the Holocaust Unit for Research in Cognitive Neuroscience, Autonomous University of Barcelona Whitehead Research Project Yves R. Simon Institute

Titles Published Volumes 1 - 229 see www.rodopi.nl 230. Thorsten Botz-Bornstein, Editor, The Philosophy of Viagra: Bioethical Responses to the Viagrification of the Modern World. A volume in Philosophy of Sex and Love 231. Carolyn Swanson, Reburial of Nonexistents: Reconsidering the Meinong-Russell Debate. A volume in Central European Value Studies 232. Adrianne Leigh McEvoy, Editor, Sex, Love, and Friendship: Studies of the Society for the Philosophy of Sex and Love: 1993–2003. A volume in Histories and Addresses of Philosophical Societies 233. Amihud Gilead, The Privacy of the Psychical. A volume in Philosophy and Psychology 234. Paul Kriese and Randall E. Osborne, Editors, Social Justice, Poverty and Race: Normative and Empirical Points of View. A volume in Studies in Jurisprudence 235. Hakam H. Al-Shawi, Reconstructing Subjects: A Philosophical Critique of Psychotherapy. A volume in Philosophy and Psychology 236. Maurice Hauriou, Tradition in Social Science. Translation from French with an Introduction by Christopher Berry Gray. A volume in Studies in Jurisprudence 237. Camila Loew, The Memory of Pain: Women’s Testimonies of the Holocaust.. A volume in Holocaust and Genocide Studies 238. Stefano Franchi and Francesco Bianchini, Editors, The Search for a Theory of Cognition: Early Mechanisms and New Ideas. A volume in Cognitive Science 239. Michael H. Mitias, Friendship: A Central Moral Value. A volume in Ethical Theory and Practice 240. John Ryder and Radim Šíp, Editors, Identity and Social Transformation, Central European Pragmatist Forum, Volume Five. A volume in Central European Value Studies

241. William Sweet and Hendrik Hart, Responses to the Enlightenment: An Exchange on Foundations, Faith, and Community. A volume in Philosophy and Religion 242. Leonidas Donskis and J.D. Mininger, Editors, Politics Otherwise: Shakespeare as Social and Political Critique. A volume in Philosophy, Literature, and Politics 243. Hugh P. McDonald, Speculative Evaluations: Essays on a Pluralistic Universe. A volume in Studies in Pragmatism and Values. 244. Dorota Koczanowicz and Wojciech Małecki, Editors, Shusterman’s Pragmatism: Between Literature and Somaesthetics. A volume in Central European Value Studies 245. Harry Lesser, Editor, Justice for Older People, A volume in Values in Bioethics 246. John G. McGraw, Personality Disorders and States of Aloneness (Intimacy and Aloneness: A Multi-Volume Study in Philosophical Psychology, Volume Two), A volume in Philosophy and Psychology 247. André Mineau, SS Thinking and the Holocaust. A volume in Holocaust and Genocide Studies 248. Yuval Lurie, Wittgenstein on the Human Spirit. A volume in Philosophy, Literature, and Politics 249. Andrew Fitz-Gibbon, Love as a Guide to Morals. A volume in Ethical Theory and Practice 250. Ronny Miron, Karl Jaspers: From Selfhood to Being. A volume in Studies in Existentialism 251. Necip Fikri Alican, Rethinking Plato: A Cartesian Quest for the Real Plato. A volume in Philosophy, Literature, and Politics 252. Leonidas Donskis, Editor, Yet Another Europe after 1984: Rethinking Milan Kundera and the Idea of Central Europe. A volume in Philosophy, Literature, and Politics

253. Michael Candelaria, The Revolt of Unreason: Miguel de Unamuno and Antonio Caso on the Crisis of Modernity. A volume in Philosophy in Spain 254. Paul Richard Blum, Giordano Bruno: An Introduction. A volume in Values in Italian Philosophy 255. Raja Halwani, Carol V. A. Quinn, and Andy Wible, Editors, Queer Philosophy: Presentations of the Society for Lesbian and Gay Philosophy, 1998-2008. A volume in Histories and Addresses of Philosophical Societies 256. Raymond Angelo Belliotti, Shakespeare and Philosophy: Lust, Love, and Law. A volume in Philosophy, Literature, and Politics 257. Jim Kanaris, Editor, Polyphonic Thinking and the Divine. A volume in Philosophy and Religion 258. Michael Krausz, Oneness and the Displacement of Self: Dialogues on Self-Realization. A volume in Interpretation and Translation 259. Raymond Angelo Belliotti, Jesus or Nietzsche: How Should We Live Our Lives? A volume in Ethical Theory and Practice 260. Giorgio A. Pinton, The Conspiracy of the Prince of Macchia & G. B. Vico. A volume in Philosophy, Literature, and Politics 261. Mechthild E. Nagel and Anthony J. Nocella II, Editors, The End of Prisons: Reflections from the Decarceration Movement. A volume in Social Philosophy 262. Dorota Koczanowicz, Leszek Koczanowicz, and David Schauffler, Editors, Discussing Modernity: A Dialogue with Martin Jay. A volume in Central European Value Studies 263. Pekka Mäkelä and Cynthia Townley, Editors, Trust: Analytic and Applied Perspectives. A volume in Nordic Value Studies 264. Krzysztof Piotr Skowroński, Beyond Aesthetics and Politics: Philosophical and Axiological Studies on the Avant-Garde, Pragmatism, and Postmodernism. A volume in Central European Value Studies 265. David C. Bellusci, Amor Dei in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries. A volume in Philosophy and Religion