Love for the Fatherland
Christians are called to love all men (and women and children and those of indeterminate gender). God makes his rain to fall on the just and the unjust. We are called to love even our enemies. But are we called to love all equally, in the same way and in the same measure? Is the Christian call to universal love a solvent of all natural distinctions? Or does the commandment to love apply in different ways to different people?
A secular universalism born of the Enlightenment wants us not to discriminate (a doubleunplusgood word, in the politically correct Newspeak of George Orwell’s 1984) between people: We should have the same attitude toward the Australian aborigine and toward the Arab terrorist as we do toward our next-door neighbor. Whatever coherence and practicality such an attitude may have (and no one in practice follows it), it is not Christian. Christianity has always recognized an order of charity that takes into account the distinctions in our obligation to love other men, distinctions that are based on our different ties to them.
Thomas Aquinas recognizes that some Christians, following Augustine, claim that we must love all equally. Thomas thought this “unreasonable,” because both natural affections and the affection of charity are “orderly,” that is, they follow an order, since both affections flow from Divine Wisdom. We are not simply more obliged to love those near to us; we are obliged to love them more. “If any man have not care of his own and especially of those of his house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel” (1 Tim. 5:8).
THIS ARTICLE ONLY AVAILABLE TO SUBSCRIBERS.
FOR QUICK ACCESS:
Leon J. Podles holds a Ph.D. in English from the University of Virginia, has worked as a teacher and a federal investigator, and is president of the Crossland Foundation. He is the author of The Church Impotent (Spence), Sacrilege (Crossland Press), and Losing the Good Portion: Why Men Are Alienated from Christianity (St. Augustine Press). Dr. Podles and his wife have six children and live in Baltimore, Maryland. He is a senior editor of Touchstone.
Get six issues (one year) of Touchstone PLUS full online access including pdf downloads for only $39.95. That's only $3.34 per month!
Get a one-year full-access subscription to the Touchstone online archives for only $19.95. That's only $1.66 per month!
bulk subscriptions
Order Touchstone subscriptions in bulk and save $10 per sub! Each subscription includes 6 issues of Touchstone plus full online access to touchstonemag.com—including archives, videos, and pdf downloads of recent issues for only $29.95 each! Great for churches or study groups.
Transactions will be processed on a secure server.
more from the online archives
32.6—November/December 2019
on Taking Heed of the Parallels Between the Crises of Yesterday & Today by Korey D. Maas
32.5—September/October 2019
Some Trivial Thoughts on the Study of Philosophy by Graeme Hunter
36.1—Jan/Feb 2023
A History of the Protestant Debate over Contraception by James A. Altena
calling all readers
Please Donate
"There are magazines worth reading but few worth saving . . . Touchstone is just such a magazine."
—Alice von Hildebrand
"Here we do not concede one square millimeter of territory to falsehood, folly, contemporary sentimentality, or fashion. We speak the truth, and let God be our judge. . . . Touchstone is the one committedly Christian conservative journal."
—Anthony Esolen, Touchstone senior editor
