Observations placeholder
Leibniz - Love must give us the greatest pleasure of which we are capable
Identifier
020568
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
A description of the experience
Principles of Nature and of grace
Since God is the most perfect and happiest, and consequently the substance most worthy of love, and since genuinely pure love consists in the state that allows one to take pleasure in the perfections and happiness of the beloved, this love must give us the greatest pleasure of which we are capable whenever God is its object..............
One cannot love God without knowing his perfections, or his beauty. And since we know him only in his emanations, there are two means of seeing his beauty, namely in the knowledge of eternal truths and in the knowledge of the harmony of the universe. That is to say, one must know the marvels of reason and the marvels of nature (Grua 580/R 84)