The Heart

An Analysis of Human and Divine Affectivity

Dietrich von Hildebrand

South Bend, Indiana: St. Augustine’s Press, 2007

 “He [von Hildebrand] thinks that the affective sphere has been wrongly reduced to other
things in the human person, such as body feelings, or the will, and that only the resolute
anti-reductionism of the phenomenologist can bring to evidence the logos and the genius of
affectivity” -pxvii, John F. Crosby
 Arguing for a tri-partite division of man: intellect, will, and heart

Reducing Affective Responses/Conflating Them With Lower Emotional Responses

 “According to Aristotle, the intellect and the will belong to the rational part of man; the
affective realm, and with it the heart, belong to the irrational part in man, that is, to the
area of experience which man allegedly shares with the animals.
This low place reserved for affectivity in Aristotle’s philosophy is all the more surprising
since he declares happiness to be the highest good, the one for the sake of which every
other good is desired…. A happiness which is only ‘thought’ or ‘willed’ is no happiness.
Happiness becomes a word without meaning when we sever it from feeling, the only form
of experience in which it can be consciously lived” -p4
 “One of the principal reasons for underrating the affective sphere—for denying the
existence of spiritual affective acts, for refusing to grant to the heart a status analogous to
that of the intellect and the will—is that one identifies affectivity with the lowest types of
affective experience. The entire affective area, and even the heart, has been seen in the
light of bodily feelings, emotional states, or passions in the strict sense of the term” -p4
 “This misinterpretation of the affective sphere is in part due to the fact that this sphere
embraces experiences of very different levels—experiences ranging from bodily feelings to
the highest spiritual experiences of love, holy joy, or deep contrition. The variety of
experiences within the affective sphere is so great that it would be disastrous to deal with
the entire sphere as something homogenous” -p5
 “As soon as the affective response is deprived of the object which has engendered it and
from which its meaning and justification stem, and to which it has a subservient position,
the affective response is reduce to a mere affective state” -p6
 “Because they [affective responses] are essentially ‘intentional,’ this detachment from the
object destroys their inner substantiality, dignity, and seriousness. Thus what should have
been an affective response becomes something hollow, something without serious
meaning, a floating feeling, an irrational, uncontrollable wavering emotion…one naturally
wants to escape from this unsubstantial, irrational world of ‘feelings’ to the world of
reason and clear-cut intellectual formation” -p7, translator’s note: intentional here points
to a conscious meaningful relation between the person and object
o Men are surely more prone to this given their typical bias towards rationality and
their fallen bias towards over-rationality
 “Should we look at the intellect with suspicion and mistrust because of the innumerable
absurdities it has thought up, and because non-intellectual people who have never been
touched by these absurdities have remained healthier than those who have been influenced
by them” -p16
 “It is the heart that experiences happiness, and not the intellect or the will” -p17

Perversions of Affective Responses

 “Three main perversions are here in question. First, the shifting of the theme from the
object to the affective response, which by its very nature has its raison d’etre in the object
to which it responds. The second perversion goes further, for the affective response in
question is detached from its object, and is regarded as absolutely independent of it, as
something which exists minus the object, and as having its meaning within itself. This
results in a falsification of its very nature. The third perversion consists in reducing to an
affective state something which is not in the affective sphere at all, or which by its very
nature cannot be a feeling at all, nor anything psychic” -p7
 “Needless to say, this pleasure in one’s own affective heart adversely affects the
genuineness of one’s feeling, whether it be enthusiasm, indignation, or whatever…. The
theme is shifted from the object side to the response itself, and such a shift is a death-blow
to every affective response itself” -p11
 “Thus it must be stressed from the outset that it is not the affective character of a religious
feeling, nor the fact that this feeling delights us, which is a perversion, but rather the
introverted enjoyment of that feeling which is already, in its content and quality, a
caricature of any genuine religious feeling” -p12
 “It must, however, be emphatically stressed that there is a fundamental difference between
any degree of intensity of an affective experience and the irrational, inconsistent character
of certain emotional states. The person who is in the grip of these states gives expression to
his feelings not only in a completely inadequate way, but by behavior which belies and
contradicts the true nature of his feelings” -p14
o Affective responses are not distinguished by intensity
 “The real antithesis to sentimentality so neither a neutral indifference which excludes
feeling, nor the cramped virility of the man who believes every feeling to be a concession to
weakness and effeminacy. The real antithesis to sentimentality is the genuine feeling of a
noble and deep heart” -p15

The Heart
 “It is, however, characteristic of the heart in its true and most specific sense that it is chosen
as representative of man’s inner life, and that the heart, rather than the intellect or will, is
identified with the soul as such” -p20
 “But even when ‘heart’ is understood as representative of affectivity, it has two meanings
which we must distinguish. First we may refer to the heart as the root of all affectivity. Thus
just as the intellect is the root of all acts of knowledge, the heart is the organ of all
affectivity. All wishing, all desiring, all ‘being affected,’ all kinds of happiness and sorrow, are
 rooted in the heart in this broader sense. But in a more precise sense, we may use the term
‘heart’ to refer only to the center of affectivity, the very core of this sphere” -p21
o We can use heart for all affectivity or specifically for affective responses


Affective Responses
 They are “intentional”—that is, they relate meaningful to the object that is motivating them
 They are intelligible—that is, we understand that object calls for a particular response from
us
 “To see the role and rank of the heart and of the affective sphere in its highest
manifestations, we have to look at man’s life, at his quest for earthly happiness, at his
religious life, at the lives of the saints, at the Gospel and the liturgy” -p16
 “‘Being moved’ genuinely is one of the noblest affective experiences. It is a melting of one’s
hardheartedness or insipidity, a surrender in the face of great and noble things which call
for tears. Only an outlook perverted by the cult of virility could confuse the noble
experience of ‘being moved’ with sentimentality” -p10
 “To be moved by some sublime beauty in nature or in art or by some moral virtue, such as
humility or charity, is to allow ourselves to be penetrated by the inner light of these values
and to open ourselves to their message from above. It is a surrender which implies
reverence, humility, and tenderness” -p10
 “Between drinking and conviviality there is a link of efficient causality only, a link which is
not intelligible as such. We only know by experience that alcoholic beverages have this
affect. In the case of joy over the recovery of a friend, the link between this event and our
joy is so intelligible that the very nature of this event and tis value calls for joy. And this
means that our joy presupposes the knowledge of an object and its importance, and that
the process by which the object in its importance engenders the response is itself a
conscious one, a process which goes through the spiritual realm of the person” -p26

Types of Feelings
 Bodily feelings: “The feeling is characterized by a clearly experienced relation to our body.
All of these feelings are, of course, conscious experiences and are, as entities, separated by
an unbridgeable gap from the physiological processes, although in the closest causal
relationship with them” -p22
o His examples: a headache, how good it feels to rest when tired
 “It would be completely erroneous to believe that human bodily feelings are the same as
those of animals. For the bodily pains, pleasures, and instincts that a person experiences
display a radically different character from that of an animal. Bodily feelings and urges in
man are certainly not spiritual experiences, but they are definitely personal experiences” -
p23
 Non-bodily feelings/psychic states: “Psychic states need not be caused by bodily
processes” -p24
o His examples: being in high spirits, being depressed, feeling jolly
 “But even if such moods are caused by our body, they do not present themselves as the
‘voice’ of our body, for they are not located in the body, nor are they the states of the body.
They are much more ‘subjective,’ that is, they are much more in the subject than the bodily
feelings. We are jolly, whereas we have pain; and this jolly mood displays itself in the realm
of our psychic experiences: the world appears in a rosy light, worries vanish, and a
contentment pervades our being” -p24–5
 “But if states such as jolliness and depression are not bodily feelings, they differ
incomparably more from spiritual feelings—for example, from the joy over the conversion
of a sinner or a friend’s recovery from illness, or compassion, or love. It is here that we fall
prey to a disastrous equivocation in using the term ‘feeling’ for both psychic states and
spiritual affective responses, as if they were two species of one and the same genus” -p25
 “A state of jolliness clearly differs from joy, sorrow, love or compassion insofar as it lacks, in
the first instance, the character of a response, that is, a meaningful conscious relation to an
object…. Intentionality, in this sense, is precisely one essential mark of spirituality” -p25
 “Psychic states are ‘caused’ either by bodily processes or by psychic ones, whereas affective
responses are ‘motivated.’ Never can an authentic affective response come into existence
by a mere causation, but only by motivation. Real joy necessarily implies not only the
consciousness of an object about which we are rejoicing, but also an awareness that it is
this object which is the reason for this joy” -p26
 “In psychic states, the ‘unreliability,’ the transitory and fleeting character which is often
unjustly ascribed to ‘feelings’ in general as opposed to acts of knowledge or acts of will, is
really present: bad humor, jolliness, depression, irritation, ‘nervousness,’ have a wavering
irrational character” -p27

Overcoming the Tyranny of Psychic States

 “It is an important task in our spiritual and religious life to free ourselves from the rhythm of
these psychic feelings, not only in our actions and decisions, but also in our heart. We all
know people who let themselves be dominated by these moods to an excessive degree” -
p27
 “What we mean here are the irrational moods which are not the legitimate resonance of a
spiritual response and therefore are not ‘justified’ and ‘meaningful,’ but which are the
effect either of bodily causes or of experiences which is no way justify these moods. The
moods either are in no proportion to the foregoing experience or are in no way rationally
linked to them…. It is precisely the immanent claiming of these moods to be rationally
justified, this presenting themselves as much more than they objectively are, which makes
them illegitimate and noxious burdens in our spiritual life” -p27
 “It is not enough to emancipate our intellect and will from enslavement to these irrational
moods; our heart must also be freed from this tyranny. When we overcome the despotism
of these psychic feelings, we make room for spiritual feelings. Our heart can eb then be
filled with meaningful affective responses” -p28
 “The very fact that this depression or mood is in no way objectively justified, that it even
contradicts what we should feel as the true response to the situation in which we find
ourselves, should make us suspicious of these feelings and lead us to the realization that
 this mood may be a mere result of bodily processes or of some repression. And this insight
has a great bearing on our bad mood; it grants us a spiritual distance from it, invalidating it,
and liberating us from it, at least to a great extent. Whereas bodily feelings as such remain
the same whatever our position toward them may be, depression or bad moods, once
recognized to be the result of bodily processes, more or less lose their impact” -p29

Passions
 “The low way of ‘being out of our mind’ (cited above as one meaning of passion or
passionate) is characterized by irrationality. It implies a blurring of our reason which
precludes its most modest use. Not only is our reason confused, but it is throttled.” -p30
 “In the higher way of ‘being out of our mind,’ that is, being in ecstasy, or in every
experience of being ‘possessed’ by something greater than we are, we find the very
opposite of the passionate state” -p30
 “But this does not result from a blurring of one’s reason but, on the contrary, from its
extraordinary elevation by an intuitive awareness which, far from being irrational, has
rather a suprarational and luminous character” -p31
 “There are, of course, many stages and degrees in this affective ecstasy, but every stage is
antithetical to that state in which one is swallowed by passions. Instead of having one’s
reason befogged as in passions, one experiences a luminous intuitive clarity. Instead of
being brutally overpowered and dethroned in one’s free spiritual center, one is enraptured
and caught up into a higher freed. In one case, a person is carried away by forces which are
below his normal life; in the other he is transported above it by something greater and
higher than he is” -p31
 Reason and will can be enslaved by habitual passion: “In a deeper sense of enslavement and
at a deeper stratum of the person, the domination of passion over reason and free will
manifests itself here” -p33
 “There are four types of affective experiences which have an antirational dynamism, each in
its own way, and may thus be called passions in a wider sense of the term” -p34
 “The point at issue is the radical difference between passions and affective experiences
motivated by goods endowed with values. It is imperative to lay bare this decisive
difference if one is to lift the ban indiscriminately placed on the entire affective sphere
and on the heart” -p35

Value Response to an Object

 “We find in man’s fallen nature the possibility of a sudden transition from value-responses
to certain passions, or in any case to some irrational feelings” -p36
 “The spirituality of an affective response is not yet guaranteed by formal ‘intentionality,’ for
it requires in addition the transcendence characteristic of value-responses. In the value-
response, it is the intrinsic importance of the good which alone engenders our response and
our interest” -p37
 “The fact that our heart conforms to the value, that the important in itself is able to move
us, brings about a union with the object which goes even further than in knowledge. For in
love the totality of the person is drawn more thoroughly into the union established with the
 object than in knowledge…. Spiritual affective responses always include a cooperation of
the intellect with the heart” -p37
 “The more the lover wants to dwell in his love; the more he aspires to experience the full
depth of his love…the more he will possess this true affectivity. But to the extent that his
love has a merely dynamic character and shuns a full contemplative unfolding, he possesses
only a temperamental or energized affectivity” -p44
 “True consciousness implies no introversion whatever, but rather a fuller, more awakened
experience. The more conscious a joy is, the more its object is seen and understood in its
full meaning, the more awakened and outspoken the response, the more the joy is lived” -
p46
 “One of the most important points in the elaboration of the role of the heart and of the
sphere of tender affectivity is to expose the error of considering them as merely ‘subjective’
or to building up a contrast between ‘objectivity’ and ‘affectivity’” -p46
 “A judgment is objective when it is determined by the matter or theme in question and
not by any prejudice. And an affective response is objective when it corresponds to the
value of the object” -p46
 “The true affective experience implies that one is convinced of its objective validity….
Thus what matters primarily is not the question, ‘Do we feel happiness?’ but rather, ‘Is
the objective situation such that we have reason to be happy?’” -p47

The Domain of Affectivity

 “It is characteristic of the affective sphere (in distinction to the volitional sphere) that it is
not directly accessible to our free spiritual center. Joy or sorrow cannot be freely
engendered as we can engender an act of will or a promise, nor can they be commanded as
we can command movements of our arms. We can influence joy or sorrow indirectly only by
preparing the ground for it in our soul, or we can sanction or disavow affective responses
that have arisen spontaneously in our soul” -p49
 “Certainly the will and actions provide tests for the depth and sincerity of those affective
experiences in all cases in which an action is in question. But this does not mean that a
genuine and sincere affective response of compassion is of no value. Far from it, for such a
response gives something and has a value which never can be replaced by actions which do
not flow out of such an affective response” -p51 (cites an example of the wrongness helping
a suffering person with will and actions, but stripping out compassion)
 “In truth, the intellect, the will, and the heart should cooperate, but each must respect the
specific role and domain of the other…. When the heart exceeds its own domain and usurps
roles it was never destined to play, it discredits affectivity and causes a general mistrust of
itself even in its own proper domain” -p51
 “A certain analogy to this illusion is exhibited in a general tendency in human nature to
nourish the illusion that what is experienced in a convincing manner in our soul cannot
change and will prove able to undergo all tests” -p53
 “It is not the degree of affectivity which is responsible for these perversions, but a
disordered state of our soul” -p54
 “Here we must again repeat that the heart has a function other than the will, and that
God has entrusted the heart to ‘speak’ an irreplaceable word, a word which sometimes
differs from that to which the will is called” -p115
 Lays out various deformations of heart in the chapters that follow (notes not added here)
The Heart as Center
 “In the moral sphere it is the will which as the character of a last, valid word. Here the voice
of our free spiritual center counts above all. We find the truth self primarily in the will. In
many other domains, however, is the heart which is the most important part of the person,
the core, the real self, rather than the will or the intellect” -p67
 In the realm of human love: “The heart is here not only the true self because love is
essentially a voice of the heart; it is also the true self insofar as love aims at the heart of the
beloved in a specific way. The lover wants to pour his love into the heart of the beloved, he
wants to affect his heart, to fill it with happiness” -p67
 “When we love a person and long for a return of our love, it is the heart of the other person
which we want to call ours. As long as he only willed to love us and merely conformed his
will to our wishes, we should never believe that we really possess his true self” -p67
 “If, on the contrary, the heart of the beloved is filled to the brim with longing for one, with
joy in one’s presence, with the desire for spiritual union with one, then the lover feels
content” -p67–8
 “It is indeed a surprising fact that something which arises spontaneously and as a gift in the
soul should be a manifestation of a person’s true self to a higher degree than that which is
an utterance of his free spiritual center” -p68
 “Freedom is indeed an essential mark of the person as an image of God. But what may also
mark the specific high rank of a thing is the fact that it can be granted to us only as a gift” -
p68–9
 “Man is greater and deeper than the range of things he can control with his free will; his
being reaches into the mysterious depths which go far beyond what he can engender or
create” -p70
 “These affections of the higher level, then, are truly gifts—natural gifts of God which man
cannot give himself by his own power. Coming as they do from the very depth of his person,
they are in a specific way voices of his true self, voices of his full personal being” -p70
 “Our deep love for another person is a gift from above—something we cannot give to
ourselves; yet only when we join this love with the ‘yes’ of our free spiritual center does it
have the character of a full self-donation” -p71

Affective Transformation and the Sacred Heart

 “Natural benevolence sees in the other person simply a human being. Charity, on the other
hand, pierces through to the incomparable value of a person being destined to love God
and to be united with him. It seems the image of God in him—this individual loved by Christ
and for whom Christ died on the Cross” -p79–80
 “We must understand the meaning of the transformation of our hearts according to the
Sacred Heart. It means that we attain the holy affectivity dwelling in the Heart of Jesus” -
p115
 Fac cor nostrum/meum secundum cor tuum – Make our hearts/my heart like unto thine
 “Man could no longer live a full human life if his heart spoke the same fiat that his will
speaks in all those cases where the endangering of a good endowed with a high value, or
the loss of it, calls for a specific response of the heart…. The heart also submits to God’s will
in throwing itself into the loving arms of God, but it does not for that reason cease to suffer”
-p117
 “After having emphasized the specific mission of the heart, we must realize that the
transformation of our heart in no way implies a banning of affectivity, which would amount
to a silencing of the heart. On the contrary, transformation in Christ implies that the heart
is incomparably more sensitive, more ardent, and endowed now with an unheard-of
affectivity. At the same time it is purified of all illegitimate affectivity, from any affective
response which is not motivated by a value or a high objective good for the person “-p117
 “The first step in the transformation of heart is overcoming all hardheartedness” -p120
 “The second step is the purification of the heart from all the corruptions that enslave and
enfeeble it” -p120
 The third step is the purification of transformation of heart around genuine goods
 “The Christian should not seek worldly goods, and when they are bestowed upon him,
without his having striven for them, he should use them, remaining aware of the danger
which they include, aware that as soon as we start enjoying them for their own sake, they
are prone to thwart our full concentration on Christ” -p122
 “Natural goods endowed with a high value, on the contrary, call for another response. Their
value, when rightly understood, has the character of a message of God, a reflection of his
infinite beauty. Thus, an enjoyment of them for their own sake, our praying for them, need
not be incompatible with the full desire for heavenly goods” -p122
 “There can be no question of despicere [in relation to natural goods]. It is rather the amare
in Deo, ‘the loving all things in God,’ which here marks the transformation of our heart. This
attitude implies not only that we love Christ above all, but also that our love of all other
things in incorporated in Christ. Thus, for example, beauty in nature and art should be
enjoyed in Christ. This does not mean that we should consider the beauty in question only
as a starting point for meditation about Christ. It means rather that this fully appreciated
beauty draws us in conspectus Dei, that we find in its own quality a ray of God’s infinite
beauty, and that we hear in it the voice of Christ” -p124