The 'Ordo Amoris' and Half-Truths

By Daniel B. Gallagher. "The whole truth is generally the ally of virtue; a half-truth is always the ally of some vice." If G. K. Chesterton was right about this, any attempt to glue two half-truths together not only misses the whole but compounds the vice. If the whole is "love," the result is catastrophic. And if you put any stock in 1 John 4:8, the whole is indeed love. So, provided love is directed toward its proper object, John Lennon was right: All we need is love. Or as the Bishop of Hippo put it, "Love, and do what you will!" But this is only half the truth. For he immediately adds, "Human actions can only be understood by their root in love. All kinds of actions might appear good without proceeding from the root of love." Augustine contrasts a father spanking his son to discipline him and a kidnapper caressing him to keep him quiet: "Offered a choice between blows and caresses, who would not choose the caresses and avoid the blows?" In other words, if I happen to catch sight of a man caressing my neighbor's son on the cheek, I have only half the truth. Once I know he's a kidnapper, I wouldn't think twice before calling 911 (provided I'm virtuous, of course). Thus, Augustine's concluding exhortation: "Let the root of love be in you! Nothing can spring from it but good." As these examples show, love - true love, by its very nature - is ordered. Ultimately, moral actions can be judged according to whether they spring from love, but only from love directed toward the true good. If actions are so ordered, their corresponding objects are hierarchically ordered such that those more proximate to the fundamental requirements of love are attended to first. Conversely, Augustine imagines the chaos that ensues if we hierarchically arrange our actions with no regard for their respective objects. In his mind, if the object - i.e., the "whole truth" - is to discipline my son, then (provided I love him), the spanking I give him for stealing can only be virtuous, and the precept "never spank your son" is, at best, a "half-truth." The "whole truth" will rear its ugly head if I fail at disciplining him and later have to bail him out of jail for shoplifting: "Love should be fervent to correct. Take delight in good behavior, but amend what is bad. Love the person, but not the error in the person." Only against the background of this ordering of love can we understand what J.D. Vance meant in a recent interview when he invoked the ordo amoris: There is a Christian concept that you love your family and then you love your neighbor, and then you love your community, and then you love your fellow citizens, and then after that, prioritize the rest of the world. If the Vice President had meant this to be a list of unrelated spheres of concern, he would be clearly wrong. But it's clear he did not mean this. So, if I know the man caressing the cheek of my neighbor's son is a kidnapper, I better call 911 before spanking my son for the theft his mother just reported to me. But if I spend the whole evening searching for a suspected kidnapper I heard about on the radio rather than taking the time to play a game of basketball with my son, my order of loves is definitely out of whack. This was James Orr's point in a recent essay: "the idea that we must structure and not dissipate our finite and fragile stock of affections and loyalties does nothing to undermine Christianity's revolutionary insistence on the inestimable worth of every human being." Indeed, the "inestimable worth" of my neighbor's son must take priority when I spot him receiving a caress from a suspected kidnapper, but the "inestimable worth" of my own son demands that I attend to helping him achieve his full potential even if my neighbor's dad is neglecting the potential of his son. But if we stop there, we've only identified a "half-truth" about Christian love. That is why Kat Armas is also correct in pointing out that Christian agape "is ultimately not about love confined to bloodli...