Thomas Aquinas, Scriptum super Sententiis I d.17 q.2 a.1 (Parma vol. VI, 1856, archive.org sanctithomaeaqu06thom; text located via Corpus Thomisticum)
To the first the procedure is as follows. It seems that charity is not increased. For nothing is increased except a quantity. But nothing simple is a quantity, since every quantity is divisible. Now charity is a simple habit, and so it is not a quantity of itself, nor likewise by accident, since its subject, namely the soul, is also indivisible. Therefore it is not increased.
If you say that it is a quantity, not by the quantity of bulk but by the quantity of power, against this: the quantity of a power is divided according to the objects the power extends to. But any charity whatever, however small, extends to all the objects of charity. Therefore it is not increased according to the quantity of power.
Likewise, since increase is a species of motion, whatever is increased is moved, and what is increased essentially is moved essentially. But what is moved is a body, as the Philosopher proves; and what is moved naturally is corrupted. Since therefore charity is not corrupted, because charity never falls away (1 Corinthians 13:8), nor is it a movable body, it seems that it is not essentially increased.
Likewise, that whose cause always stands in the same way is neither increased nor diminished, nor varied in any way. But the immediate cause of charity is God, who always stands in the same way. Therefore charity is not varied by increase.
Further, it is established that the increase of a quality cannot be reduced to any species of motion except alteration. But alteration, as the Philosopher proves, is only about the sensitive part of the soul and about its objects. Since therefore charity is a quality and is in the intellective part — otherwise it would not be in the angels, who lack the sensitive part — it seems that it is not increased.
On the contrary, Augustine says: charity, when it has been born, is nourished; when it has been strengthened, it is perfected. But everything in which progress through different degrees is observed is increased. Therefore and so on.
Further, through the act we arrive at knowledge of the habit. But it happens that the act of charity becomes more intense. Therefore charity too can be increased.
I answer that certain men held that charity is not essentially increased, and among these there was a fourfold opinion. For certain men said, as the Master does in the letter, that charity is not increased in itself, but is said to be increased in us inasmuch as we advance in charity; and this because he holds charity to be the Holy Spirit, into whom no variation falls. But this cannot stand: because it is not intelligible that we should advance in charity, which is the Holy Spirit, unless something comes about in us which was not there before; and this cannot be an act only, since every act is from some power, and a perfect act, of the kind by which we are united to the Holy Spirit, is from a power perfected by a habit. Others said that charity is not essentially increased, but is said to be increased inasmuch as it is more firmly settled in the subject, by a kind of rooting. But from this too it follows that it is essentially increased. For no form can be understood to be more firmly settled in a subject except through having a greater victory over its subject. And the increase of that victory redounds into an increase of power, and consequently into an increase of essence: because power, if it is not the essence itself, must be from the essence, and be commensurate with it as an effect with its proximate cause. Others said that charity is not essentially increased, but that when a greater charity comes, the lesser charity which was there is destroyed. This too cannot stand: because no form is destroyed except either by a contrary agent or accidentally by the corruption of the subject. Since therefore the subject of charity remains, and the charity that comes is not contrary to the charity already found there, it cannot be that it is destroyed, neither of itself nor accidentally, in the way a small fire is destroyed by a great one through the consuming of its material. Others said that charity is increased only as to fervour. But this too cannot stand: because the fervour of charity is taken in two ways, properly and metaphorically. Metaphorically, according as we say that charity is heat, and call the intensity of the act of charity fervour metaphorically, in the way Dionysius attributes the fervid to the love of the angels. But fervour so taken follows of itself upon the essence of charity; whence there cannot be an increase in such fervour unless charity itself is essentially increased, since a thing and everything that follows of itself upon it are varied together. In another way fervour is spoken of as it is in the sensitive part; for since the lower powers follow the motion of the higher, if it is more intense — as we see that at the apprehension of a beloved woman the whole body is kindled and moved — so also when the higher affection is moved towards God, a certain impression follows in the sensitive powers too, by which they are stirred to obey the divine love. But the intensity of this fervour does not suffice for an increase of charity: because the quantity of merit is not measured by the increase of this fervour, since it consists in a disposition of the body. Whence the more fervent do not always merit more. But he who is said to grow in charity grows also in merit, if he is in a state of meriting. And therefore it must be said that charity is essentially increased. Yet it is to be known that to be increased is nothing other than to take on a greater quantity; whence, as a thing stands to quantity, so it stands to increase. Now quantity is spoken of in two ways: one virtual, one dimensive. Virtual quantity is not quantity from its own genus, because it is not divided by a division of its own essence; but its magnitude is measured against something divisible outside it, or multipliable, which is the object or the act of the power. Rather, from its own genus it is either an accidental form in the genus of quality, or a substantial form, which however is not greater or lesser. And therefore increase according to quantity of power does not belong to the species of motion which is called increase, but rather to alteration; and it is in this way that charity and other qualities are increased. But dimensive quantity belongs to some things accidentally, as to whiteness, which is called a quantity according to the quantity of the surface, as is said in the Predicaments. Whence it is not increased except accidentally; but of itself it is found in bodies, which are increased of themselves. Now this happens in two ways. For sometimes that which takes on a greater quantity is moved from a lesser quantity to a greater. But sometimes it is without motion of the thing which is said to be increased; whence not every part is increased, as every part of what is moved is moved of itself. And this happens when a greater quantity is brought about by the addition of quantity, as when wood is added to wood, or a line to a line. Whence this is an increase, but not a motion of increase. But that something should be moved towards a greater quantity happens in two ways: either so that the quantity is of itself the term of the motion, or so that it follows upon the term. When quantity is of itself the term of the motion, there must be an addition to the whole, and to each part, so that the whole is increased and each of its parts; as is the case in an animal and in a plant; and then it is properly a motion of increase. Whence a motion of increase occurs only in things having a nutritive power. But it follows upon the term of the motion when the motion is towards some form upon which a certain quantity follows. For to every form a determinate quantity is owed; and because a motion is specified only by what is of itself the term of the motion, therefore such a motion is not called of itself a motion of increase, but either generation, if it is a substantial form, as when fire comes to be from air, or alteration, when it is an accidental form, as is plain in the rarefaction of air.
To the first, therefore, it must be said that charity, although it has no dimensive quantity either of itself or by accident, because its subject too is not a quantity, nevertheless has in it a quantity of power, by reason of which it is said to be increased, as whiteness and heat are.
To the second it must be said that quantity of power is measured in two ways: either as to the number of objects, and this is after the manner of discrete quantity; or as to the intensity of the act upon the same object, and this is like continuous quantity; and it is in this way that the power of charity grows.
To the third it must be said that charity is not said to be increased as though it were the subject of the increase, since it is an accident, but because the increase is measured according to it; just as quantity too is said to be increased, and whiteness to be varied, when something is varied through whiteness. Nor does it follow that if it is essentially increased it is destroyed. For a thing is said to be moved according to its essence in two ways: either because the essence is of itself the term of the motion, and so to be moved through the essence is to lose the essence and be corrupted; or because it is according to something joined to the essence which is of itself the term of the motion, as a thing is said to be moved essentially while it is moved according to place, because according to its essence it is in a place. And so essential increase is called that which is according to a quantity following upon the essence, one and the same essence remaining under a different quantity — whether the quantity be the essence of the thing itself, as the quantity of a power is the same as the power itself, and yet it is moved, properly speaking, according to quantity, according to greater and lesser perfection.
To the fourth it must be said that although the efficient cause of charity is in itself immovable, nevertheless according to the order of his wisdom he can grant a greater charity to someone at the good pleasure of his will, and according as a man prepares himself differently for charity — who also stands in a certain way to charity as a receiving material cause, upon whose difference a variation in the effect also follows.
To the fifth it must be said that, since passive alteration includes passion in its very notion, then just as passion is twofold, so also is alteration. For passion is spoken of commonly in one way as every reception, according as even to understand is said to be to undergo, and so alteration according to this passion consists in any variation about the reception of some quality; and in this way there can be alteration even in purely intellectual substances, and so there can be alteration in charity. In another way passion is spoken of properly, when something is cast off from a substance, and this is from the action of a transforming contrary; and according to this passion the alteration spoken of is only about sensible things and about the sensible part of the soul of itself, and about the intellect accidentally, as regards those qualities which arise in the intellective part from the senses, such as all acquired habits are — among which charity is not.
Draft English (Claude), awaiting Wilson · cc-by · published at bonaventure.wrootpress.com. This page quotes it; that is its home.
Thomas Aquinas, Scriptum super Sententiis I d.17 q.2 a.1 (Parma vol. VI, 1856, archive.org sanctithomaeaqu06thom; text located via Corpus Thomisticum) · pd
The corpus surveys four opinions that deny charity is essentially increased and refutes each. The Master's is the first, and Thomas states its ground rather than merely its content: caritas secundum se non augetur, sed dicitur augeri in nobis, inquantum nos in caritate proficimus; et hoc quia ponit caritatem esse spiritum sanctum, in quem variatio non cadit. The fourth opinion, that charity increases only in fervour, draws from Thomas the one image on this page taken from outside the schools: ad apprehensionem mulieris dilectae totum corpus exardescit et movetur.