585. Can one rightly say that, just ...

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Can one rightly say that, just as it is God alone whom we are to trust, so it is God alone to whom we are to be loyal?

Yes, one can rightly say this. If we are commanded, as we are, to love God with all of our powers, then, clearly, God alone must be the object of our loyalty just as God alone is the ground of our trust. Moreover, in the one case just as in the other, the force of "alone" is not to make God the only ground of trust or the only object of loyalty, but, as in all proper uses of the particula exclusiva, to make God the only primal ground of trust or the only final object of loyalty.

In any event, it lies in the nature of the case that, just as we cannot possibly fail to trust others as well as God if we are to live humanly at all, so we cannot possibly fail to be loyal to others as well as God in order to exist as human beings. Besides, we are commanded to be loyal to our neighbors as ourselves, so, clearly, we are not commanded to be loyal to God alone in any sense that would simply preclude our being loyal to others.

Fall 1983; rev. 10 September 2003