Loving Like a Saint: Aquinas on Charity

Thursdays, April 9-30th from 7:00-8:00 PM ET on ZOOM

Open to all current students

THE APPLICATION DEADLINE IS MARCH 31, 2026.

This reading group will consider St. Thomas Aquinas’s treatment of the virtue of charity, the greatest of the theological virtues. We will consider, among other things, Thomas’s simultaneous appropriation and expansion of Aristotle’s understanding of friendship in order to elucidate this distinctively Christian virtue, we will examine the relationship between love of God and love of neighbor, the question of self-love, love for enemies, and the way that natural affections and relations determine the expression of charity.

Relevant Summa Articles:

I-II.62.1 - Whether there are any theological virtues?

I-II.62.3 - Whether faith, hope, and charity are fittingly reckoned as theological virtues?

II-II.23.1 - Whether charity is friendship?

II-II.23.6 - Whether it is the greatest of the virtues?

II-II.24.4 - Whether charity can increase?

II-II.24.8 - Whether charity can be perfect in this life?

II-II.24.9 - Whether charity is rightly distinguished into three degrees: beginning, progress, and perfection?

II-II.25.1 - Whether we should love God alone, out of charity, or should we love our neighbor also?

II-II.25.4 - Whether one may love oneself out of charity?

II-II.25.6 - Whether sinners should be loved out of charity?

II-II.25.8 - Whether we should love our enemies out of charity?

II-II.25.9 - Whether we are bound to show them tokens of friendship?

II-II.26.4 - Whether a man ought to love himself more than his neighbor?

II-II.26.5 - Whether man ought to love his neighbor more than his own body?

II-II.26.6 - Whether he ought to love one neighbor more than another?

II-II.26.7 - Whether he ought to love more, a neighbor who is better, or one who is more closely united to him?

Apply below!