On Love, Law, and Virtue: or of Chairs and Charity

What does it mean to love and what is love’s relationship to law, especially when the love in question is divine charity? To answer this question we must develop a renewed understanding of law. If we reject the rationalist understanding of law (with its conception of the self-evidency of its natural principles), are we forced to embrace a subjectivist theory of law (accepting the relativity of all moral principles), or is another way open to us? In the Second Annual Aquinas Lecture, Fr. Sherwin will with draw on classical analogies from the arts and crafts to present Thomas Aquinas’ understanding of law and it role in one’s growth in love and virtue.