There’s been a dustup over love. No, I’m not talking about Taylor and Travis, who seem to be doing swimmingly. It’s JD Vance. The vice president was being interviewed by Fox, and he made a straightforward observation: There is an order or hierarchy of loves—what is classically called an ordo amoris. We should love our family first, then our neighbors, then love our community, then our country, and only then consider the interests of the rest of the world. Vance called this a Christian view.
Some reacted with horror. To be Christian is to be universal and impartial, they said! Vance is endorsing an anti-Christian nativism! But Vance is correct. The Christian tradition has a consistent teaching that we are to love those near with a greater fervor than those far away.
In his discussion of the virtue of love, Thomas Aquinas addresses the key question: Should we love one man more than another? At first glance, a love-universalism rings true. Consider this mode of deduction: In his love, God offers salvation to all the world. We are called to imitate God. Therefore, we must love everyone and seek to promote their wellbeing.
Aquinas does not dispute the conclusion. Yes, Christianity teaches that we must love widely. Jesus reiterates the great commandment to love our neighbors as ourselves, and he goes on to clarify that “our neighbor” includes those outside our families, communities, and nations. (That’s the gravamen of the parable of the Good Samaritan.) But Aquinas refines the conclusion, concluding that we should not love all things in the same way and to the same degree.
For example, we should love good food and good company. But surely there are higher goods that we should love to a greater degree. If getting invited to the party requires you to dissemble or to pretend to hold views you know to be false, then you betray the higher love of truth for love of the far less important love of a good spread and congenial companionship.
Good health offers another example. It’s something to love, which means seeking it for ourselves, as well as for others. But health is not the highest good. As we discovered during the pandemic, to love physical wellbeing at the expense of spiritual goods such as companionship, to say nothing of worship, leads to a grave perversion of civic life.
“There is an ordo amoris, an order of love.”
Put simply, there is an ordo amoris, an order of love. We need to love the right things in the right way.
Aquinas applies the notion of ordo amoris to our love of other people. There is no question that all persons are equally worthy of our love. We are created in the image and likeness of God. But each of us is cast into a world of already existing relationships. These relationships bring with them duties and responsibilities.
Aquinas lays down a basic principle: “One’s obligation to love a person is proportionate to the gravity of the sin one commits in acting against this love.” Put differently, we’re to love with greater devotion those for whom we have greater responsibility.
Aquinas gives our relation to our parents as an example. We are obligated to honor our mother and father. It’s right there in the Ten Commandments. It follows, therefore, that a love of others that impedes or contradicts our proper love of our parents is misguided, even wrong. The same holds for children. Do we imagine that God calls us to love others in a fashion that leads us to neglect our obligations as parents? In Bleak House, Charles Dickens creates a character, Mrs. Jellyby, who exemplifies the perversion of love. She is devoted to philanthropic endeavors abroad while neglecting her own children.
Jesus tells us that we must be prepared to hate our mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters. It’s an apt warning, but it concerns our love of God, which must be the highest love, higher even than family. Woe unto him who substitutes “mankind” for God. His loves will be disordered, and like Mrs. Jellyby, he may well imagine that he should love mankind more than his wife and children.
Vance speaks of neighbors and communities. Here, too, the principle articulated by Aquinas applies. Neglecting the needs of someone in Syria by failing to make a donation to a relief organization may be sinful. (I emphasize may.) But standing by with indifference when one’s neighbor is in distress is likely a far graver sin. Let me put this in concrete terms: Christ-like love encourages concern for victims of fires in other states, regions, or countries. But all the more so does Christ-like love compel us to come to the aid of neighbors whose houses down the street are burning.
I suspect that most of Vance’s critics anguished over his forthright affirmation of our love of our fellow citizens. They fear “nativism,” or some other manifestation of xenophobia. But we should not let disordered loves discredit a proper order of loves.
Remember Aquinas’s principle—our obligation to love is proportionate to the sin committed in acting against that love. Treason is a grave crime. I cannot commit treason against China or any other nation than my own. Therefore (if you will permit me a moment of scholastic logic), we should love our own country more than any other country.
Love is jealous. I love my wife to the exclusion of others. The same holds for my country. But love is also fecund. A man who loves his wife with selfless devotion has prepared his heart to love his country and make sacrifices on behalf of his fellow citizens.
Vance is not undermining America’s concern for the other nations and peoples, for the same fecundity operates on the world stage. God forbid that our future rests in soulless technocracy and bloodless “best practices.” We need leaders who love others rather than manipulating or managing them, including those in far-flung lands. This love must be encouraged, trained, and deepened—which happens when we live in accord with a warm and unapologetic ordo amoris.