A Philosophical-Theological Reflection on Thomas Aquinas and Eleonore Stump

Israel Centeno

In a world that has drained the word “love” of its ontological and spiritual depth, it is urgent to return to a radical and realistic understanding of love. Not a sentimental or purely emotional version, but the one proposed by Thomas Aquinas and recovered and deepened by Eleonore Stump in Wandering in Darkness. This essay aims to unfold that conception in its philosophical, spiritual, and existential implications: love as a structure composed of two fundamental and inseparable desires—the desire for the good of the beloved and the desire for union with the beloved.

For Aquinas, love is not a passive reaction to beauty or value in the other, nor a fleeting emotion. It is, in essence, an activity of rational will, expressed in two acts: to desire the good of the beloved, and to desire union with the beloved.

Stump emphasizes that these two desires are interconnected but not reducible to one another. The first can be unilateral: one can desire the good of another even without reciprocity, relationship, or knowledge. This love is agapic, free, spiritual. The second, the desire for union, necessarily implies a relational dimension, as it cannot be fulfilled without some degree of openness from the other. Here, the vulnerability of the lover is revealed: their longing to share inner life with the beloved.

As Stump puts it, “Since love arises from the interaction of two desires—for the good of the beloved and for union with him—the absence of either is enough to nullify love” (p. 104).

Stump challenges the “responsiveness account” of love, common in contemporary philosophy, which holds that we love because we perceive value in the other. But this theory breaks down when faced with fundamental human realities: a mother’s love for her child does not diminish when the child acts unworthily; we do not replace our loved ones with others who are “better”; true love persists even through corruption, illness, or rejection.

Thomas’s theory, by contrast, explains the constancy, irreplaceability, and depth of love. This is possible because love is not grounded in the changing value of the beloved, but in the will of the lover and the kind of relationship—what Aquinas calls the “office”—such as mother-child, friend-friend, or God-creature.

“The role of love between a mother and her children determines the kind of love between them… that role is not based on the beloved’s intrinsic characteristics and therefore does not vary with them” (p. 103).

One of Stump’s most illuminating contributions is her treatment of self-love. To love oneself, according to Aquinas, is not to seek pleasure or gratification, but to desire one’s true good and to desire union with oneself—that is, interior integrity.

“To love oneself is to desire the good for oneself and to desire union with oneself… Aquinas describes someone lacking internal integration in the will as a person who wills and does not will the same thing, either because they desire incompatible things or because they fail to will what they wish to will” (p. 100).

To love oneself well is to seek inner peace through volitional coherence and soul integrity. “The good for a person therefore requires internal integration” (p. 100).

At first glance, it may seem absurd to speak of desiring the good of God—He is the fullness of Being, lacking nothing. But Stump clarifies: God desires the good of all His creatures. Therefore, if I desire the good of another, I desire what God desires. In that act, my will unites with God’s will, and in that deeper sense, I love God by desiring His good—that is, what He wills as good.

“She effectively desires what God desires. In this way, she desires the good that God desires to have; and in that sense, she also desires the good for God” (p. 101).

Stump shows that forgiveness is a concrete form of love. To forgive is not simply to forget, to let go, or to avoid hatred. It is to desire the good of the one who has harmed me and, in some degree, to desire a form of union with him.

“Whatever exactly forgiveness may be, it appears to involve a kind of love for someone who has done harm or committed injustice” (p. 104).

Without both desires, there is no love. Without love, there is no forgiveness. This redefines forgiveness as a high expression of Christian charity. To forgive is to participate in the love of God, who desires the good and union even with those who crucified Him.

Thomas’s theory of love, as interpreted by Stump, is not theoretical philosophy—it is spiritual anthropology, medicine for the soul. To love well, to love truly, is to desire the good and union even in suffering, even in rejection, even at a distance. This is what God does. This is what Christ embodies. And it is what is called to heal the human heart.

Love, understood in this way, is not an emotion that comes and goes, nor a mechanical response to another’s value. It is an act of freedom, of illuminated will. It is a fire that desires the good even when the face of the other is disfigured by offense or indifference. It is a bridge stretched toward unity, even when the fracture seems final.

To love is to say: I want your good, I want to be with you, I want your fullness—even if you do not answer me, even if you do not embrace me, even if you do not understand. This is how God loves. And in this way of loving, not only our sanctity but also our redeemed humanity is at stake.

Where love like this exists, hell dissolves and the Kingdom begins.