„Meilės“ sąvokos reikšmė tomistinėje onto-teo-logijoje

Abstract

The article aims to analyze and interpret the “mystical” terminology in St. Thomas Aquinas, questioning why Thomas speaks about “unspeakable” experience not in negative, but in affirmative way, which he calls “analogy”. The investigation deals with the notion of “love” (amor) showing that there are some interesting ontological implications in how St. Thomas constructs his discourse about love. There are two main notions that are usually translated as “love”: amor and caritas. The possible terminological classification shows that amor, being a passion, usually belongs to the domain of psychology, and caritas, being a virtue, – to the domain of ethics. Both, however, belong to psychophysical human nature which, according to Thomas, was created by God in a state of grace with his only goal – beatitude, “knowing love” of God. The passion of love is a sensitive appetite which, on the one hand, links us to animals, and, on the other hand, can have supernatural consequences being a direct cause of mystical “elevation”, or extasis, in respect of the appetitive power in which feelings reside. Because of love human natural powers are elevated and this way integrated into the supernatural domain. Human feelings can be called “rational” because they participate in reason, thus fall into competence of the will or rational appetite, become conscionable experience and, according to Aristotelian view, obeys the virtues. Love (amor) is defined by Thomas as a fitness or inclination of the appetitive power to some extrinsic good according to human nature’s likeness or proportionality to the object of love. Speaking of love as a cause of extasis, Thomas reminds us that love can be twofold: amor amicitiae and amor concupiscentiae (“the love of friend-ship” and “the love of desire”). [...]