Theology and Charity

Clearly, one can readily admit that a distance often does exist between the daily exercise of theology and its ideal mode of realization.  Furthermore, separations can even occur that contradict the practices of a holy way of life, those which should inform the exercise of theology.  One can practice theology with a dead faith.  I ought to remark, however, that this objection does not touch on theology as such, but only on the theologian.  We thus pass from the de jure realm to what is de facto.  The latter might justify all kinds of reservations, but it remains that, de jure, “theology is a pious science” [cf M-D Chenu OP].  Although the loss of charity does not bring about the dissolution of the theological habitus, nevertheless it constitutes a state as violent as that of a dead faith.  The diminished habitus that we designate by this name still allows a person to adhere to supernatural truths, but the absence of charity radically deprives the theologian of his or her ability to cling to these truths in a life-giving manner. The same is true of theology itself: it is literally drained from the inside by the loss of charity. Without charity, theology cannot bring its task to completion, because charity alone gives it the dynamism to reach its end. Accordingly, it is not simply under the title of finis operantis that the love of charity has its place in theology; indeed, charity has this place in virtue of the finis operis.

J-P Torrell, Christ and Spirituality in Thomas Aquinas,
(Washington, D.C.:  Catholic University of America Press, 2011), 28-29.