I am well aware of these texts of Garrigou-Lagrange, as well as other similar ones in the Christian Perfection and Contemplation, The Three Ways, and in his commentary on the Summa. I had to undertake the study of them for my doctoral thesis.
Nevertheless, I still maintain what I said, that in St. Thomas’ mind, the deliberative love of the will is perverted through sin, but not even sin can remove the natural love of God as principle of nature and as extrinsic common good. See for example De Veritate 22, a. 2, ad 3:
“To the third it must be said that God can be considered in two ways: either in himself, or in his effects. In himself indeed, since he is the essence of goodness, he cannot be not loved. Wherefore, by all those seeing him through his essence, he is loved, and there as much as someone knows him, so much does he love him. But in some of his effects, insofar as they are contrary to the will, such as punishments inflicted, or commandments which seem heavy, God himself is refused, and in a certain way is hated. And nevertheless, it is necessary that they who hate him as so some effects, love him in other effects; just as the Demons themselves, according to Dionysius in the 4th book of the Divine Names, they desire to be and to live naturally, and in this, they desire and love God himself.”
It is perhaps better explained in the Commentary on the Sentences, lib. 4 d. 50 q. 2 a. 1 qc. 1: “I answer that, A twofold will may be considered in the damned, namely the deliberate will and the natural will. Their natural will is theirs not of themselves but of the Author of nature, Who gave nature this inclination which we call the natural will. Wherefore since nature remains in them, it follows that the natural will in them can be good. But their deliberate will is theirs of themselves, inasmuch as it is in their power to be inclined by their affections to this or that. This will is in them always evil”
The upshot of this is that… (qc. 5): “Now God is apprehended in two ways, namely in Himself, as by the blessed, who see Him in His essence; and in His effects, as by us and by the damned. Since, then, He is goodness by His essence, He cannot in Himself be displeasing to any will; wherefore whoever sees Him in His essence cannot hate Him. On the other hand, some of His effects are displeasing to the will in so far as they are opposed to any one: and accordingly a person may hate God not in Himself, but by reason of His effects.”
Even better is II-II, q. 34, a. 1: “I answer that, As shown above (I-II, 29, 1), hatred is a movement of the appetitive power, which power is not set in motion save by something apprehended. Now God can be apprehended by man in two ways; first, in Himself, as when He is seen in His Essence; secondly, in His effects, when, to wit, “the invisible things” of God . . . “are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made” (Romans 1:20). Now God in His Essence is goodness itself, which no man can hate–for it is natural to good to be loved. Hence it is impossible for one who sees God in His Essence, to hate Him.
Moreover some of His effects are such that they can nowise be contrary to the human will, since “to be, to live, to understand,” which are effects of God, are desirable and lovable to all. Wherefore again God cannot be an object of hatred if we consider Him as the Author of such like effects. Some of God’s effects, however, are contrary to an inordinate will, such as the infliction of punishment, and the prohibition of sin by the Divine Law. Such like effects are repugnant to a will debased by sin, and as regards the consideration of them, God may be an object of hatred to some, in so far as they look upon Him as forbidding sin, and inflicting punishment.”
I realize that these texts are speaking about hatred of God, and not about the inability to love him. Nevertheless, they are quite pertinent, since they all speak of a natural love of God that cannot be subverted or displaced by sin, not even by the obstinacy in actual mortal sin found in the demons and the damned.
It is not sufficient, then, simply to assert that my previous post “goes against the plain meaning of I II 109, 3.” Does St. Thomas go against the plain meaning of I II 109, 3. I should say not, unless by plain you mean not requiring any understanding of the terms used, But I think the plain meaning is, well, what St. Thomas says there, namely, “in statu naturae corruptae homo ab hoc deficit secundum appetitum voluntatis rationalis.” It is quite plainly consistent with St. Thomas’ other thought elsewhere.
As for Garrigou-LaGrange, my adherence to him is quite strong, but my adherence to St. Thomas is stronger, And I have found that Garrigou-LaGrange is a sure guide to Thomas’ thought, with few exceptions. This is one of those exceptions, where, with the Carmelites of Salamanca and many others, he placed an already existing aversio to God in the will of man in Original Sin, an aversio with which he is born, present even before a child’s first motion of will (as the texts you supplied so clearly point out). St. Thomas, on the other hand, does not think so; he says that in original sin, there is “something corresponding to the aversion [i.e. of actual sin], namely, the destitution of Original Justice” (De malo, q. 5 a. 2). For St. Thomas, the essence of Original Sin is not an inordinate love of self that we are born with, but the loss of the gratuitous integrity of our Original State (which makes it so that our first rational act will certainly be one of inordiinate love of self unless we are helped by grace, I-II, q. 89, a. 6), plus the real culpa that accrues to our nature, since the loss of Original Justice was perpetrated by the human will in the active principle of our nature, i.e. Adam. Even the wound of malice for St. Thomas is by way of privation of a previous order, not by way of position of a perverting self-love (I-II, q. 85, a. 3).
As for religion in sinners, we agree. As for whether the State can compel acts of religion, I’m not sure, but you might want to look at De Regimine Principum, Bk. 1, ch. 15. My first interpretation would be that before Christ, the State could command acts of religion, but afterwards, it must leave that to the Church,
Mr. Keiser (apologies for misspelling your last name earlier):
I concede that according to these texts, the demons and sinners love God in the way spelled out in those texts. But, we need to keep in my the distinction between an inclination and the will act or volition. Commentary on the Sentences, lib. 4 d. 50 q. 2 a. 1 qc. 1 identifies the natural will with an inclination. Just because the will is inclined to certain acts, does not mean that it is reduced to those acts necessarily. None of the texts show that sinners or the demons actually love God more than themselves. So, the damned may be inclined by nature to love God more than themselves, but they do not actually do so.
The inclination to the love of God (and to love God more than one's self), being natural, is present in children before the age of reason. I believe St. Thomas stipulates that once a child reaches the age of reason he must make a true choice between God and sin. For those who reject God sinfully, they have turned themselves away from God, and they cannot love God more than themselves even with a natural love. The inclination to love God remains but it is not actualized.
Regarding your last comments: here and here -
Also the texts do not directly speak of loving God more than one's self - I think it is correct to say that the love of God more than one's self is possible when we understand that God is greater than our selves, is the final end of all creation, and so on. Is it possible for someone to love God naturally and yet not love Him more than himself [once he has this understanding]? I think it is possible for a disordered or sinning will to do so - the love of God in such a manner is nonetheless made subordinate to the love of one's self (and the rejection of God as the [supernatural] last end). Is it possible for those who are damned to have multiple or successive acts of the intellect and will? It seems that this is the case for the demons and the blessed in heaven while we have not reached the Last Day - but afterwards?
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