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Gabriel Vázquez and the moral rehabilitation of hatred
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 May 2024
Abstract
Thomas Aquinas and most Christian theologians after him asserted that it is improper to attribute hatred to God. In 1598 the Jesuit theologian Gabriel Vázquez intrepidly argued that God can hate – not only with hatred of abomination but also with inimical hatred. Vázquez's surprising innovation is best explained in the context of the theological disputes between Jesuits and Dominicans on justification. Specifically, Vázquez is elaborating on the idea found in the Council of Trent that justification is a transition from enmity to friendship requiring a real change in the person being justified. He did so to counter views among Dominican theologians that this interior renewal could be in some way operated by God from the outside by way of a reconceptualisation of the sinner or a reevaluation of the value of his meritorious actions. These polemics drove Vázquez to rely on a robust, realist picture of friendship, based on the idea that affections must fit real qualities.
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References
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40 Such as Wis 14:9, Mal 1:3, Rom 9:13 and Ps 5:7. When canvassing possible objections to his rejection of the possibility of divine hatred in ScG 1.96, Aquinas does not cite these scriptural assertions of divine hatred. Perhaps the reason is that he had already argued in ScG 1.91c. that all the divine passions referred to in the Scriptures which are incompatible with divine perfection are not referred to God properly [proprie] but rather metaphorically, because ‘of the similitude of an effect or of some preceding affection’. He adds that a will that acts in accordance to the order of wisdom can sometimes tend to an effect to which a defective passion may also be inclined to. So that, while a judge punishes out of justice, the angry person [iratus] punishes out of anger [ira]. Vázquez clearly takes Aquinas to include hatred among the defective passions metaphorically attributed to God. Aquinas’ exegetical stand may explain why Vázquez abstains from discussing the precise meaning of scriptural passages attributing hatred to God. Doing so, it seems, would not have done much to persuade Aquinas’ followers.
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43 As argued by Peter Auriol, Reportatio in In I Sententiarum d. 1. a. 1, in Kitanov, Severin Valentinov, ‘Displeasure in Heaven, Pleasure in Hell: Four Franciscan Masters on the Relationship Between Love and Pleasure, Hatred and Displeasure’, Traditio 58 (2003), p. 302CrossRefGoogle Scholar, n. 41.
44 The point is that if someone displeases me because he is too loud, in order for my resulting hatred to count as inimical, I need not wish him to become mute. So long as what I wish for him is genuinely bad for him (say I wish him to lose his sight), then my hatred counts as inimical.
45 Vázquez, In ST I, d. 84, c. 3, n. 13 at p. 691: ‘Deinde de odio inimicitiae id ipsum probatur: quoniam Deus non tantum vult homini peccatori poenam, sed etiam illi eam vult, ut illius malum est et ex displicentia ipsius: ergo ipsum prosequitur odio inimicitiae, ut ex definitione ipsa odii inimicitiae manifeste colligitur. Porro autem ex displicentia personae Deum velle malum illud constat. Nam licet persona ipsa, quatenus homo, et creatura Dei est, non displiceat, displicet tamen quatenus peccata foedata est, ut autem sit odium creaturae, velle illi malum, satis est, si peccator ipse displiceat aliqua ratione, et ob eam moveatur affectus ad volendum illi malum, ut malum illius est. Neque enim necessarium est ad rationem odii inimicitiae malum volitum personae esse malum illus ea ratione, qua ipsa persona displicet, sed quod re vera sit malum illus, et ut tale volitum ex displicentia eius sub hac, vel illa ratione.’ I translate ratio in the last sentence as ‘feature’ since Vázquez is referring to the attribute in the person which is the source or cause of disgust.
46 Vázquez, In ST I, d. 84, c. 3, n. 13 at p. 691 ‘Unde iudex qui propter flagitium punit aliquem eo quod iustum est, et ipsum ut flagitiosum detestatur, vere et proprie habet odium inimicitiae, non ex displicentia personae ut talis homo est, vel aliqua alia privata ratione, sed quia homo flagitiosus est: quocirca tale odium est secundum virtutem.’
47 Cajetan, in ST I-II, q. 46, a. 7, n. 4 at p. 297: inimical hatred is ‘infinite and insatiable’.
48 In ST I, d. 84, c. 3, n. 13 at p. 691.
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55 On late scholastic views on color see Daniel Heider, ‘Suárez on Visual Perception’, Scientia et Fides 5 (2017), pp. 65–7.
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58 Vázquez, In ST I-II, d. 31, q. 8, c. 3, n. 13–14 at p. 180.
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63 Jean Calvin, Harmonia Evangelica, in Eduard Reuss, Alfred Erichson and Paul Lobstein (eds), Opera exegetica et homiletica, vol. 23 (Braunschweig: Schwetschke, 1891), p. 187.
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65 See Aquinas, ST II-II, q. 34, a. 3, ad 2: ‘Deus in detractoribus odio habet culpam, non naturam.’
66 de Coninck, Gilles, De moralitate, natura et de effectibus actuum supernaturalium in genere (Lyon: Cardon and Cavellat, 1623), d. 29Google Scholar, dub. 3, n. 48 at pp. 498. Pedro Hurtado de Mendoza, Scholasticae et morales disputationibus de tribus virtutibus theologicis, vol. 2 (Salamanca: Jacinto Taberniel, 1631), d. 151, sect. 3, subsectio 1, n. 18 and fol. at pp. 1189, Emanuel de la Concepción, Quaestionum moralium theologicarum, pars IV (Avignon: the author, 1692), tract. 6, d. 3, q. 1 at p. 144.
67 Salas, In primam secundae divi Thomae, tract. 9, sect. 1, a. 2 at p. 762.
68 Arriaga, Disputationes theologicae, tract. 5, d. 37, sect. 3, subsectio 2, n. 24 at p. 464.
69 Martinon, Disputationes theologicae, d. 16, sect. 5, n. 46 at p. 341.
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76 Vázquez, In ST I-II, d. 206, c. 4, n. 31 at p. 556.
77 de Medina, Diego Alvarez, De incarnatione divini verbi disputationes LXXXX (Lyon: Cardon, 1614), d. 36Google Scholar, n. 3 at p. 237; also his Responsiones ad obiectiones adversus concordiam liberi arbitri cum divina praescientia (Trani: Valeri, 1624), lib. 5, c. 16, n. 6 at pp. 247–8; and Domingo de Soto, In quartum sententiarum, tomus primus (Venice: Sign of the Fountain [possibly Gabiano], 1519), d. 15, q. 2, a. 2, col. 2 at p. 766.
78 Vázquez, In ST I-II, d. 204, c. 4, n. 41 at p. 540. Becanus, Martin, Summa theologia scholasticae: De mysterio incarnationis Christi Domini, partis tertiae, tractatus primus, tomus quintus (Lyon: Gay, 1644) c. 31Google Scholar at p. 731.
79 Konstan, The Emotions of the Ancient Greeks, p. 192.
80 I would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on an earlier version of this article as well as Elizabeth Miles for her careful editing work.