Thanks to our newly minted Vice President, JD Vance, the phrase ordo amoris is in the news and all-over social media. For this, I am grateful. The VP has been making the point that America has a responsibility to its citizens before it has a responsibility to the citizens of any other nation. Therefore, it is not outside the bounds of love or justice to deport illegal immigrants.
Vice President Vance clarified on X that this comes from the ancient Christian idea of the ordo amoris, order of loves. The idea is that we should love some things more than we love other things and that we should love some people more than we love other people. This isn’t bigotry, it isn’t racism, it isn’t white ethno-nationalism, it is classical Christianity.
What Should We Love?
Christians ought to love everything that exists. 1 Timothy 4:4 says, “For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving.” God has created everything that exists (sin and wickedness do not have their own existence but are rather privations of what is good). If this were not so, then there would be more than one God, but scripture and nature prohibit us from believing such an absurdity. Since all things are made by God, and since all things made by God are good, then Christians have an obligation to love all things, in their proper order. I ought to love my computer, I ought to love the oak tree in my backyard, and I ought to love my daughter, but not in that order.
Some Things Should Be Loved More Than Other Things
Though we should love all things that exist, we ought not love all things equally. Rather, we ought to love things in accordance with their nature. How great is a thing? That is precisely how much you ought to love it. The greater a thing is, the more beautiful a thing is, the more worthy a thing is, the more it ought to be loved. This goes for mundane things like water bottles and seat belts, and it goes for exceptional things like people and virtues. Our loves must be commensurate with the nature of the thing loved.
There’s a really important point here that we can’t miss. We don’t get to choose the nature of things. Only the Creator does. So, we don’t get to choose how much a thing ought to be loved. God does that. Beauty is not in the eye of the beholder, it is determined by God, who is the Creator of all and who is Beauty itself. Some things are inherently more lovely than other things and it is our duty, as God’s creatures, to bring our loves and desires into alignment with that objective reality.
Beauty is not in the eye of the beholder, it is determined by God, who is the Creator of all and who is Beauty itself.
I may really love boxed mac n’ cheese (I don’t). Perhaps it conjures pleasant memories of childhood. Perhaps my tastes have been trained by the regular consumption of said mac. But my love for it ought not exceed the love it should receive according to its nature. I ought not prefer boxed mac n’ cheese to a medium rare rib eye steak. Why? Because the nature of the rib eye steak demands greater love. Indeed, the man who has trained his loves to desire the steak more than the mac gets greater enjoyment from the steak than the man who loves the mac more gets enjoyment from his overly processed meal. The more you give your love to greater things, the more you are satisfied.
Or perhaps, to bring it a little closer to home. I may really love my pets (as I ought). But my love for my pets should not exceed that which the nature of those pets deserves. One ought not love their ‘fur babies’ as much or more than one loves his children or his grandchildren, or anybody else’s children for that matter. Because the nature of a child is far greater than the nature of a dog. If I love my pets and my children in accordance with their respective natures, I will get far more enjoyment from my children than my Chameleon.
This rhymes with what Aristotle says about the aim of education. The purpose of education is to get the student to associate pain with bad things and pleasure with good things. In education, our duty is to help the student love what he ought to love in the degree that he ought to love it. This does not come natural to us in our fallen state, but it can be learned and trained and given by the grace of God.
What Ought to Be Loved Most?
The obvious answer to the obvious question is God, as it often is. God must be loved most. Matt. 22:37-39 says, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” God is the only being we cannot love too much. We are to love things insofar as their nature demands, God’s nature is infinite, and thus demands infinite love, which we do not have to give. But so much as we do have, we give. When, by the Spirit, we make God the highest of our loves, our hierarchy of love begins to fall in place. After God I must love those made in His image, my fellow man. But so long as God is not my greatest desire, my desire for everything else will be misplaced and misshapen. I will not get enjoyment and satisfaction out of life as I ought because God is not my greatest love.
This is a transformative thought. The more I love God, the more enjoyment I will receive. Not just from Him, but also from all the things He has made. Because everything He has made reflects His goodness, beauty, and majesty in some way or another. When our love for God is not greater than everything He has made, our disordered loves make us miserable. We are not satisfied to the degree we ought to be in the things we love because we love them too much or too little. The Bible calls these disordered loves idolatry. And the end of idolatry is always misery.
The Nature of Sin is Disordered Love
All sin finds its genesis in disordered love. Our desire for some things are greater than they ought to be, or less than they should be. An excessive love for rest leads to sloth and indolence. A deficient love for truth leads to deception. An excessive love for food leads to gluttony. A deficient love for man leads to murder. As Augustine says, “When the miser loves gold more than justice, he does not reveal a fault in the gold, but in the himself.” And this all flows from our lack of love for God. Furthermore, virtue is found in the proper ordering of our loves. Again Augustine, “It is a brief but true definition of virtue to say it is the order of love.” Either we will love God first, or we will be idolatrous. Either we will be virtuous, or we will be miserable.
We Should Love Some People More Than Others
We ought to love man in accordance with his nature. But ought we love some men more than others? In one sense yes, in another sense no.
No, we ought not love some men more than others because all men share a common nature, human nature. No man’s nature is superior to another’s because the essence of who we are is the imago dei. No one has more of it than anyone else. If our love is to be commensurate to the nature of a thing, then our love for man must be equal since we have the same nature. A denial of this truth has led to all manner of bigotry, racism, and abuse.
When our love for God is not greater than everything He has made, our disordered loves make us miserable.
However, in another sense our love for all people ought not be equal. Not because men’s natures are different, but because the nature of our relationships is different. My wife is not greater by nature than anyone else, yet I am still obligated to love her more than I love any other human being because the nature of my relationship to her is greater than the nature of my relationship to anyone else. She is my wife. Ephesians 5:25 says, “Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.” The scriptures demand of me a greater love for my wife than for any other human being.’
Furthermore, I should love those in my immediate family more than I love anyone outside of it. 1 Timothy 5:8 says, “But if anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for members of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.” I have a greater responsibility to my family than to anyone else. More than that, I have a greater responsibility to my own household than to my extended family. This is the proper ordering of loves.
I am commanded to honor my own father and mother. This does not negate the necessity of honoring other fathers and mothers, but I have a priority to my own first. Then to my grandparents, then to my great grandparents and my ancestors before them. In fact, I ought to love and honor my own ancestors more than I love and honor the ancestors of other people. I ought to love and honor my own cultural heritage (insofar as it is good) which my ancestors have given me than I love the cultural heritage of others.
In like manner, I am to have a greater love for my own children than I do for the children of my neighbors. I am commanded to love the children of my neighbors, but I am commanded to love them less than my own children. In the same way I have a greater responsibility to my grandchildren than my neighbor’s grandchildren, and to my great-grandchildren, and to all my future descendants. The proper order of loves in the family sphere helps us to understand the nature of love on the communal and national level. Bavinck says it like this, “The one relationship of family is terminal and is the type of all the others. From the household family and its relationships stem all the other relationships in variegated complexity.”
Who is My Neighbor?
In Matthew 22 Jesus makes it clear that love must be given to God first, then to our neighbors. But the question the rich lawyer asks is the same many of us might ask, ‘who is my neighbor?’ Jesus proceeds to tell the parable of the Good Samaritan. For the Good Samaritan, his neighbor was a man at his feet who was from a different nation, different family, and different religion than he, yet he loved him anyway and manifested that love in acts of mercy and service.
The proper order of loves in the family sphere helps us to understand the nature of love on the communal and national level.
Jesus is making it clear that all men are our neighbors, and we ought to love them all. However, the Good Samaritan had the means to help the wounded man because they were in the same locale. We have a greater responsibility to love our closest neighbors first, not because they are better than other people, but because we have a greater capacity to do them good than we do people who are far away.
Augustine says,
All men are to be loved equally. But since you cannot do good to all, you are to pay special regard to those who, by the accidents of time, or place, or circumstance, are brought into closer connection with you.
I can love my next-door neighbor far better than a man in Mumbai who is equally deserving of my love. Therefore, I have an obligation to my next-door neighbor first. John Calvin echoes Augustine when commenting on Matthew 22 he says,
Now since Christ hath demonstrated in the parable of the Samaritan, that the word “neighbour” comprehends every man, even the greatest stranger, we have no reason to limit the commandment of love to our own relations or friends. I do not deny, that the more closely any person is united to us, the greater claim he has to the assistance of our kind offices. For the condition of humanity requires, that men should perform more acts of kindness to each other, in proportion to the closeness of the bonds by which they are connected, whether of relationship, or acquaintance, or vicinity; and this without any offence to God, by whose providence we are constrained to it.
In the proper ordo amoris, I must first consider my family, then my neighbors in my community, then those in my city, county, state, nation, then those around the globe. More love for one person than another person is not hatred nor bigotry. It is proper according to nature.
The Ordo Amoris and Immigration
What does all this have to do with immigration? The Vice President’s point is this. Yes, it will be hard for illegal immigrants to be deported. Yes, it will be hard on the countries to which they are returning. But the rulers of this nation, and the citizens of this nation, have a moral duty to their fellow citizens before they have an obligation to the citizens of other nations who have taken up residency here. We ought to love illegal immigrants and care for them as we can, but not to the demise of our families, communities, cities or fellow citizens. Love for the homeless man who is down on his luck does not require that you give him a key to your home. This especially when your home is in disarray, disrepair, debt, and disaster.
Our nation is currently in disarray, disrepair, debt, and disaster. We ought to love those outside our nation, but not at the expense of our nation. We need first to get our own house in order, from there we will be in a position to help those outside who need it.
The Household of Faith
Our love for the household of faith ought to supersede our love to those outside the faith. Our love for our brothers and sisters in Christ ought to outstrip our love for our brothers and sisters by blood. Galatians 6:10 says, “So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith.” Everyone should receive our love, but especially those of the household of faith.
We ought to love illegal immigrants and care for them as we can, but not to the demise of our families, communities, cities or fellow citizens.
This does not undo our responsibility to family or nation. We do not seek to do harm to our family or our nation for the sake of those in the church. The church ought not advocate that all Christians of other nations be given automatic citizenship. Just as we ought not give a key to our house to every person who calls himself a Christian. Even so, our love and loyalty ought to be for the Church first and foremost, to the people that Christ loved the most, then to others after them.
God has made everything good, and everything good must be loved by His people. But not equally. Our love for things must be commensurate with the nature of those things. Our fallen intellects blind us to the true nature of things, our deficient loves lead us to hate those whom we should love. But in His grace, God has granted us His Spirit, and He will give us wisdom when we ask for it. Wisdom to see the true nature of things, and grace to love them the way we ought. And as the Spirit makes us wise and virtuous, He will also reorder our loves to what they were intended to be.
