“The knowledge or touching of the Good is the greatest thing, and Plato says it is the greatest thing...”
—Plotinus
A man’s heart is right when he loves the Good in every created thing, which is God’s thumbprint stamped in it. We love the Good through things and God through the Good.
It reminds me of this statement from Steiner, in Philosophy of Freedom, which was epiphanic for me:
“The way to the heart is through the head. Love is no exception. Whenever it is not merely the expression of bare sexual instinct, it depends on the mental picture we form of the loved one. And the more idealistic these mental pictures are, just so much the more blessed is our love. Here too, thought is the father of feeling. It is said that love makes us blind to the failings of the loved one. But this can be expressed the other way round, namely, that it is just for the good qualities that love opens the eyes. Many pass by these good qualities without noticing them. One, however, perceives them, and just because he does, love awakens in his soul. What else has he done but made a mental picture of what hundreds have failed to see? Love is not theirs, because they lack the mental picture.”
“The knowledge or touching of the Good is the greatest thing, and Plato says it is the greatest thing...”
—Plotinus
A man’s heart is right when he loves the Good in every created thing, which is God’s thumbprint stamped in it. We love the Good through things and God through the Good.
It reminds me of this statement from Steiner, in Philosophy of Freedom, which was epiphanic for me:
“The way to the heart is through the head. Love is no exception. Whenever it is not merely the expression of bare sexual instinct, it depends on the mental picture we form of the loved one. And the more idealistic these mental pictures are, just so much the more blessed is our love. Here too, thought is the father of feeling. It is said that love makes us blind to the failings of the loved one. But this can be expressed the other way round, namely, that it is just for the good qualities that love opens the eyes. Many pass by these good qualities without noticing them. One, however, perceives them, and just because he does, love awakens in his soul. What else has he done but made a mental picture of what hundreds have failed to see? Love is not theirs, because they lack the mental picture.”