Capax Dei
Eo mens est imago Dei, quo capax Dei est et particeps esse potest.
St. Augustine, De Trinitate XIV:11
Tuesday, May 14, 2002 :::
A side-note on loving persons:
Love of mankind is not love of persons. "Mankind" is an idea, an abstraction. A person cannot be abstracted, because abstraction makes a thing impersonal.
In any case, in order to love something we must know it, and mankind -- in the sense of the collection of every human being -- is unknowable to us. The idea of the collection of every human being is, of course, entirely knowable, but what good will come from loving an idea? What does "to love an idea" even mean? However that concept is defined, it will necessarily not mean the same thing as "to love a person."
All of this applies to "God," too, when "God" is an abstraction, a job title. In order to love God, we need to know God personally.
