Whether Law is an Act of Love?

I recently rediscovered a fragment from what appears to be an extension of the earliest draft of my thesis (c. 8 May 2013-25 December 2013, or 29 March 2014, 11:30 PM [the various word document drafts are unclear regarding the date of composition]), a fragment which did not end up evolving into the final argument, but a concept with which I still firmly agree. That first thesis draft was written in the style of a Thomistic quæstio since it was on Aquinas' Treatise on Law; hence the "Whether...?", "It would seem that...", "Objection", "I say that—", and "Reply".

 

Whether Law is an Act of Love?

 

It would seem that law is not an act of love—

 

Objection. Law issues certain restraints and requirements, and love does not restrain or require anything. Therefore law cannot be an act of love.

 

I say that—

 

Love is an act of willing the good of the beloved. The good of the beloved is often achieved by forbidding morally-illicit actions or by requiring morally-good or morally-permitted actions. Therefore forbidding or requiring can be aimed at the good of the beloved. But love is nothing other than willing, or aiming at, the good of the beloved. Therefore the acts of forbidding or requiring, which both belong properly to law, can be acts of love. All just laws are aimed at the good of the beloved, for the beloved of the legislator is the community of persons over which he has been appointed governor. Therefore every law is an act of love, for law is nothing other than the legislator willing the good of his beloved, the community for which he legislates.

 

Reply. This [is] a faulty conception of love. Although this may have been true before the fall of man, in a postlapsarian world it is often necessary for love to require or forbid, for the ability to stray is ever present in a fallen world. Therefore, etc.