The Catholic University of America Press has just published a book by Anthony T. Flood, The Metaphysical Foundations of Love. Aquinas on Participation, Unity, and Union. It is devoted to the issue of love in the writing by Thomas Aquinas. As the author notes:
St. Thomas Aquinas identifies love as the source and summit of the life of each human being. Everything in the created realm issues forth from God’s creative love, and the ultimate end of all human persons is the greates possible union with God. Aquinas contends that the love of friendship allows for the greatest union between two persons; thus, the greatest union with God takes the form of friendship. He identifies the virtue of charity as precisely this union of friendship with God – imperfect in this life but fully realized in the life to come (p. ix).
Anthony T. Flood is a professor of philosophy at the North Dakota State University. He has studied the issue of love – especially of the love of friendship – in the works by Aquinas for quite a long time. A few years ago he published The Root of Friendship. Self-Love and Self-Governance in Aquinas (Catholic University of America Press 2014; excerpts from the book may be found at Google Books). On the web you may also find his papers on the topic:
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Marriage as Friendship: Aquinas’s View in Light of His Account of Self-Love, „Nova et Vetera”, no. 13/2 (2015), p. 441-458 (the article is available online after registering at the publisher’s website);
- Love of Self as the Condition for a Gift of Self in Aquinas, „Studia Gilsoniana”, no. 7/3 (2018), p. 419-435.