I'm doing my best not to comment on every little (or big) thing that comes out of the White House these days. However, when it's something that touches directly on my actual areas of expertise, I cannot stay silent. 1/ - ThreadSky

andyshamel.bsky.social • 27 days ago

I'm doing my best not to comment on every little (or big) thing that comes out of the White House these days. However, when it's something that touches directly on my actual areas of expertise, I cannot stay silent.

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valouriousknight.bsky.social•27 days ago

Brilliant thread, thank you Andy

andyshamel.bsky.social•27 days ago

The actual Christian idea that Vance claims to be representing is Saint Augustine's doctrine of *ordo amoris* or order of loves. Vance claims that this represents a prioritisation of love first for family, then for neighbour, and on outward from the self until the rest of the world is reached. 2/

andyshamel.bsky.social•27 days ago

At each stage, the next circle is not due the Christian's love until it has been adequately expressed for the present one. This is exactly *not* Augustine's ordo amoris. Augustine understood all human action in terms of love. What we love we move towards, value, do, promote.

andyshamel.bsky.social•27 days ago

In order to explain why people value, do, and promote evil things, he describes it in terms of loving the wrong thing, or giving inordinate love to a thing, over and above what it is due. The ultimate example of this being giving to anything else the ultimate love which is due to God alone. 3/

andyshamel.bsky.social•27 days ago

To each thing under heaven its proper amount of love and thus correct and Christian relationships and behaviour are established. Christian love is due in equal measure to all human beings, regardless of who they are, how closely related they may be, whether they look, sound, or act like you. 4/

andyshamel.bsky.social•27 days ago

The fact of our human finitude and what Augustine would call our limitations due to original sin, we do not do this properly even as Christians. Of course we love our families more than strangers. But this is not the end to which Christians are to strive. 5/

andyshamel.bsky.social•27 days ago

Jesus was famously skeptical of family bonds: they more often than not, it seems to have appeared to him, they get in the way of the human being's relationship with the divine (and so with other human beings) than help it. 6/

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