The simple fact is, God is not obligated to love anyone the way they insist. God has ordered His own loves in keeping with His prerogative. God is not accountable to man and has stated that His decision to express mercy and show compassion is determined only by His own good pleasure (cf. Rom. 9; Eph. 1).

Last week, our newly minted Vice President, J.D. Vance, elucidated the principle of ordo amoris quite proficiently. The phrase in question is Latin for “ordering our loves,” or prioritizing them.  During an interview with Fox News, Vance said, “You love your family, and then you love your neighbor, and then you love your community, and then you love your fellow citizens, and then your own country, and then after that you can focus and prioritize the rest of the world.” To the average listener, this should come as no shock whatsoever. For the record, the Vice President is a practitioner of Roman Catholicism.

The issue of rightly prioritizing our loves has come under fire by the liberals (both theological and political), the woke, the progressives, and proponents of the Social Gospel. The claim has been made that no such principle exists within the greater context of Christian History. Those who make such claims should probably go back to the books and study a bit more before running off at the mouth. The principle was discussed at some length by 13th-century philosopher and church father, St. Thomas Aquinas. He, in turn, learned at least some of what he espoused from the bishop Augustine of Hippo. These names are hardly unknown in the world of theology, and their works have influenced tens of millions.

As Vance stated, the ordo amoris has to do with having a specific hierarchy of loves, indicating that there are some he loved more than others. Most who ascribe to this understanding of love would say that our love for God is to come first, followed by our love for our spouse, our children, our local neighbors, those of our own country, and lastly, those in the larger world. By way of illustration, we would rightly be concerned with the priorities of one who spent much time volunteering at the soup kitchen, while their own children starved. Such a scenario would be demonstrably absurd.

Why is it that the leftists are so opposed to this idea? Well, with their disordered priorities, those on the left are incensed at the idea that God might love someone better than themselves. Their warped view of God demands that God love everyone equally, no matter what. The very notion of accountability before a thrice Holy God terrifies them. We can consider the situation between Cain and Abel as demonstrative of this concept. God clearly preferred the sacrifice of Abel, accepting it. Cain was furious, not so much that his own offering was not good enough, but that God actually had the audacity to prefer his brother. This, of course, is borne out in the fact that instead of repenting when urged by God to do so, Cain murdered his brother in cold blood (Gen. 4). Human nature is desperate for the acceptance of God, in spite of doing nothing to earn such acceptance. Conversely the Scripture itself declares that it is Christ who makes us accepted (Eph. 1:6).

Biblical Examples

Following the example of Cain and Abel, we can next consider the story of the Flood. Who would be willing to argue that God loved Noah and his immediate family equally to the rest of the world? It was Noah who found favor in the eyes of God. The rest of humanity fell under the expressed judgment of God. It was only to Noah and his family that God gave the invitation to come into the Ark (Gen. 7:1). 

Then there’s Abraham and the covenant God made with Abraham’s future descendants, making it clear that through Abraham’s family, all other families on the earth would eventually be blessed. The separation of Abraham from his countrymen, and even his own extended family, shows God’s clear favoritism toward Abraham. Even in the following generations, God preferred Isaac to Ishmael (even after Abraham begged that God would find favor with Ishmael), and He preferred Jacob to Esau (cf. Mal. 1:1-3).

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