Ordo Amoris
Last week the new Vice President of the United States J. D. Vance managed to place a distinctly theological concept on center stage of our nation’s immigration debate. In an interview, he appealed to what he at first called “an old school” idea, but then added that it is a very Christian idea. It went by the Latin expression ordo amoris, or “order of love,” or for the purposes of a classification: ordered loves. The order is one of concentric circles.
In his Summa theologiae, Thomas Aquinas answered the question, “Whether we ought to do good to those rather who are more closely united to us?” along these lines. The reasoning in the affirmative is this:
“Now the order of nature is such that every natural agent pours forth its activity first and most of all on the things which are nearest to it … Therefore we ought to be most beneficent towards those who are most closely connected with us.”1
Needless to say, progressives in the church lost their lunch. Objections ranged from personal attacks on Vance, to closely related red herrings, such as that we do not need politicians lecturing us on theology, to the “Roman Catholic” pedigree of the concept, to the alleged opportunistic cherry-picking of verses, to sharper allegations of selfishness and racism, to the usual citing of passages that have long been recast into a social justice motif.
As to the dig at Vance’s lack of credentials in such arenas, I am reminded of a statement by C. S. Lewis when he was criticized on the ground that he was not a trained theologian. His reply was something to the effect that if the theologians had been doing their job, he would have remained content in his children’s stories. But here we are, as the kids say.
My own approach to defending this idea is fourfold—1. that it belongs to the nature of creation; 2. that it belongs to the nature of the church; 3. that alleged proof texts against the ordo amoris actually argue for it rather than against it; and 4. that those who reject this order bear witness that their souls and lives are disordered in precisely this virtue of love, and that their reversed priorities are in fact a cover for that. In other words, we will move from old creation to new creation to deconstructing alleged prooftexts to a psychological-sociological deconstruction of disordered loves.
Creation and the Ordo Amoris
Rightly ordered love is fundamental to the image of God. The most obvious relationships of the soul to God and to neighbors bears constant witness. The soul can love in no other way but from oneself to objects of love most familiar—God, one’s self, one’s immediate family, one’s immediate friends, and then outward to extended circles of acquaintance.
Aquinas even makes this “nature” analogous to the energies in other created natures:
“Grace and virtue imitate the order of nature, which is established by Divine wisdom. Now the order of nature is such that every natural agent pours forth its activity first and most of all on the things which are nearest to it: thus fire heats most what is next to it. In like manner God pours forth the gifts of His goodness first and most plentifully on the substances which are nearest to Him.”2
Leaving comparisons of one nature to another aside, do we really think that God would make love so central to life and the law, only to leave its order up for grabs? Should we suppose that the God who designed the orders of creation with such wisdom and beauty should leave that which is most spiritually magnificent to be conceived as random or without hierarchy—that is, without connection between ends and means?
But what sort of order should prove most fitting to love? Human beings were made very local creatures with a stewardship to care for real people, and usually only a few at a time. Note that here subjective longings and objective ends are made to fit. Parents wants what is best for their children—and they feel this to a degree that they do not for the children of others, much less for children of whom they have no knowledge at all—and it just so happens that those same children are best served by those very parents in ways that are unique to that relationship. This point must be remembered, because part of the disconnect in this debate is that there is a radically different viewpoint held by the other side. Sooner or later, it will come out that in fact this unique familial bond should simply not be. What we need to see now is that, in God’s design, the link between the natural affection between parents and children and the real good of the children from those parents are two ends that form a unity.
Interest and proximity are the two relevant factors here. Both exist within a finite field of resources and its actors are restricted by time and space in utilizing such resources. Each person knows it and feels it, and so is driven to their own perceived best ends within that ever shrinking finitude. Each person can do nothing other than to acquire, cultivate, and expend all resources for what they deem best for the only people they care to help. This is an immutable law of reality.
If somebody objects to the law by saying, “But I care to help x more people or x other kinds of people than you who tout this law to the contrary.” That is all very nice at first glance, but what you will find out about the real world is that you will remain an ordinary human who can only care for a handful of those concentric circles of people, and that the moment one diffuses the amount or diverts the kind of care previously given to inner circle, off to include a more outer circle before the requisite maturity of those in the inner circle, that the original resources will be depleted. In the name of “love,” those in the fuller franchise will have been treated more like units. When it comes to the end of love, the means matter.
Economists call it scarcity. I have been calling it finitude. You can just call it reality. But you cannot wish it away with warm feelings.
To put it another way, God did not command love in the abstract, but in the concrete.
Augustine made this very point about proximity: “Since one cannot do good to all, we ought to consider those chiefly who by reason of place, time or any other circumstance, by a kind of chance are more closely united to us.”3
Real human love can only exist between persons with whom there is awareness, and all the more so as that closeness that we call familial, from which we derive familiarity. Recognizing this is not wishing ill of others with whom one is not so familiar. It is only to recognize our own limitations. To lack love for someone is not at all to lack the abilities to include them in that inner circle, or to erase all such circles. No doubt, some forms of contempt may excuse themselves precisely by our own upholding of those circles. But the sin must lie elsewhere other than God’s design.
The Church and the Ordo Amoris
Not only is the ordo amoris built into the nature of the old world, but the New Testament is filled with instructions for the new world making its advance through the church. We must remember that grace does not destroy nature, but perfects it. Let us examine two levels of this in the new covenant era. We will see that the old world is not eradicated, but rather infused with a spiritual love to get nature right. We will also see the church model this to the world.
First, let us examine a few texts in which love of family testifies to Christian love being genuine.
“But if anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for members of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever” (1 Tim. 5:8).
“But you say, ‘If a man tells his father or his mother, ‘Whatever you would have gained from me is Corban’ (that is, given to God)—then you no longer permit him to do anything for his father or mother, thus making void the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And many such things you do” (Mk. 7:11-13).
The words of Jesus to the Pharisees are particularly instructive because they at least show that there are so-called “spiritual” excuses to not care for one’s family. Such can be a cover for contempt rather than an honest mistake.
Second, let us take note of instructions to the church that concentrate resources inward as a matter of stewardship.
“So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith” (Gal. 6:10).
“By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. But if anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him?” (1 Jn. 3:16-17)
“Honor widows who are truly widows. But if a widow has children or grandchildren, let them first learn to show godliness to their own household and to make some return to their parents, for this is pleasing in the sight of God … Let a widow be enrolled if she is not less than sixty years of age, having been the wife of one husband, and having a reputation for good works: if she has brought up children, has shown hospitality, has washed the feet of the saints, has cared for the afflicted, and has devoted herself to every good work” (1 Tim. 5:3-4, 9-10).
Why this focus on who is really a widow and at what age? If we read it in context, Paul focuses on a few sins that may emerge, but there is also the very earthy, practical matter of saving the church money. In other words, where the family can step in, the church has a stake in discovering that and encouraging it.
There is balance reflected in such verses. Love everyone, yes, but in a certain order. Or else it is not love. What is going on here is really a matter of common sense. If the deacons just stuff the whole church offering into one bag and dump it off the side of a building, or (perhaps, more seriously) divide it evenly from house to house in one’s community (Many churches do both with their mission’s budgets, but let us leave that aside!), then, whatever feelings may accompany the act, the means are not suitable to the ends.
In the New Testament church, we see those same old creation pillars of interest and proximity. Nature is perfected by grace. It is not neglected, much less eradicated. The interest (that is, the particularized human act of love) is a real thing with a nature; and the proximity (that is, the nearness of the object and subject of that love) is also a real thing with a nature. To not care about these realities that make up real-world love is nothing other than to hate real love. 1 Corinthians 13 is a famous passage and one well worth reflecting on, if for no other reason because of its teaching that there is a true and a false love. Not everything that goes by the name on the market is the real product.
Alleged Prooftexts to the Contrary are Simply Not
As surely as our social justice friends tortured all those passages in the Law and the Prophets on the sojourner and “doing justice” to the oppressed, always careful to silence any discussion about the identity of those sojourners and oppressed, so they have descended like vultures on Mr. Vance with a few passages from the Gospels. Did not our Lord call us to hate mother and father and follow Him?
Yes, He did. However, you may want to read those passages again, in all four Gospels. What is the context of those words of Christ? Must I remind you that government is not God, you are not Jesus, and the illegal immigrants are none of the members of the Trinity? In short, in that call, individual souls are called to love God above all, even above their own lives. It simply begs the whole question to put forth the demand to follow Christ above all other loves—as if that erases any order of loves within that “all.” Indeed, all it does is to place the individual’s love for God in Christ as the centermost circle. It only proves the point that there is such an order. At the very least our love for God must supercede our love for any human being. Now that we have that clear, we can get back to the discussion.
But what about those passages that privilege our identity in Christ, and therefore our familial ties to the church, above our identity in Adam, and therefore our biological families? Did not Jesus say,
“‘Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?’ And stretching out his hand toward his disciples, he said, ‘Here are my mother and my brothers! For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother’” (Mat. 12:49-50).
Indeed He did. Now I wonder what Jesus made of that earthly mother and brothers in the end. No, I don’t, actually, because we are told what became of them. He made them into Christians. Eventually, even the brothers who did not believe came to believe (Jn. 7:5; Jas. 1:1, Jude 1). Even from the cross upon which our Lord redeemed from all tribes a new humanity—even here Jesus showed a special care for His mother with those words,
“When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to his mother, ‘Woman, behold, your son!’ Then he said to the disciple, ‘Behold, your mother!’ And from that hour the disciple took her to his own home’” (Jn. 19:26-27).
Granted that Jesus has that ability to give life that we do not. That is actually not my point. The point is that the critic of ordered love is taking out of context this episode where Jesus contrasted His heavenly family with His earthly one. In those cases and to the degrees that one’s earthly kin stands against the heavenly King and would tear us away from Him, well, then, we must flee as fast as Bunyan’s pilgrim did to the Celestial City. Yet it was precisely Christian’s words and example back to Christiana that made Book II follow Book I and her footsteps follow his. Likewise, Mary and the brothers would have restrained Jesus on that day. That is why they were looking for Him. We must be better readers than to pit scenes against whole plots in a play.
Even the hypothetical “whoever” dimension in the Parable of the Good Samaritan (Lk. 10:25-37) implies a real flesh and blood encounter and not an abdication to the managerial class. It also depicts an individual destitute and not a constant influx of young male hordes fully equipped with smart phones. A readiness to love and serve someone whom God unexpectedly places along our path is not at all to be confused with stuffing the world’s population onto that path. Where there is all people and no path, there is also now no good left in the Samaritan’s purse. And that brings us perfectly to our last point.
Disordered Love out of Disordered Souls
Those who take the opposite view often have contempt for their actual neighbors and feign love for an abstraction. That is one of the least talked about consequences of modern ideology. It has wrought as much psychological carnage as any drug or form of abuse. With the most bitter tones, the political idealist lectures his fellows on their lack of love, a lack always curiously measured by their resistance to ceding as much human responsibility as possible to a centralized state. But those who talk of loving mankind often behave most terribly to the kind of man they know. The notion of “humanity” is most nebulous of all. I must confess I have never met the man. If I should ever come across this “Hugh Manity,” he will have to forgive me for being an awful Samaritan to him. I can only plead ignorance as I could not find him anywhere in my circles.
In fact, my circles are not arbitrary. I have been called there by God. Moreover, the argument from proximity is not mere pragmatism. That other pillar I called “interest,” which is also called natural affections, is nothing to be ashamed of. Indeed, the above biblical texts would have us be ashamed if we do not love those that we have been most divinely tasked with loving. It is as Paul said about prospective elders in 1 Timothy 3. Where do we get off declaring our ‘love” for those grander circles of the world’s population if our love has grown cold where it is easiest to maintain a flame?
J. Gresham Machen once said,
“In time of war, our attention is called so exclusively to the sins of other people that we are sometimes inclined to forget our own sins. Attention to the sins of other people is, indeed, sometimes necessary. It is quite right to be indignant against any oppression of the weak which is being carried on by the strong. But such a habit of mind, if made permanent, if carried over into the days of peace, has its dangers. It joins forces with the collectivism of the modern state to obscure the individual, personal character of guilt.”4
Where individual guilt has been obscured, I would venture to say that individual responsibility first came into eclipse. Love is the whole law—but if love is projected into a collective abdication, so too must the rest of the law. Human nature could be farmed out to the bureaucracies as seamlessly as our towels can be picked up and beds made by the hotel staff. What is true for collective vices is also true for collective virtues. What passes for love in the modern world, increasingly connected as it is, is very often a projection of our failures to love at home.
It is easier to wax eloquently about humanity than it is to wash the dishes or take out the trash—much more so than to raise an autistic child or befriend that awkward church member. Where is the glory in any of that? Real love is actually hard. Unsurprisingly the God whom the Apostle John tells us is love is the same whom the Apostle Paul presents as a God of order.
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1. Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, II-II, q.31, a.3
2. Aquinas, Summa theologiae, II-II, q.31, a.3.
3. Augustine, On Christian Doctrine, I.28.
4. J. Gresham Machen, Christianity and Liberalism (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1923), 64-65.
