It often happens in human history that an important thinker assumes the mantle of philosophy not because he has any talent for philosophy but simply because he has proved himself in some other field.

The names Pythagoras, Descartes, Rousseau and Nietzsche spring to mind. Nearer to our age, we must include Bertrand Russell, whose gifts for logic, mathematics and prose are undeniable, while whatever gift he might have had for philosophy remains undetectable.

The main problem with Lord Russell is that he preferred to wage verbal warfare — blindly and obsessively — against Christianity rather than look at the broad panorama of life with the kind of fairness and objectivity that is expected of a true philosopher. And so we read, in his work On Education, the following caricature of Christian morality: “The Church led men to think that nothing mattered save virtue, and virtue consists in abstinence from a certain list of actions arbitrarily labeled sin.”

This statement would be comical if it were not influential. At the very heart of Christianity is the command to love God and to love one's neighbor as one loves himself. The first act God commands us to do is to love. Does love “matter”? A better question is whether anything else matters. Somehow, Lord Russell missed the commandment to love and thought God's Church placed abstaining from all actions at the heart of her teaching. The growth of Christianity must have puzzled him.

Once a person loves another — that is, promotes the good of the other — it logically follows that he will refrain from doing anything to harm that person. Love comes first. But consistent with that initial act is the continuation of more loving acts and abstinence from unloving acts. “May God love you and protect you from harm” are the words of a lover.

St. Thomas Aquinas, who is a better philosopher than Bertrand Russell, makes the point that “love is not only a virtue but the most powerful of the virtues.” It is, in fact, “the form of all virtues” (De Caritate a.3; Summa Theologiae II-II, q.23, a.8).

Love, therefore, is the pre-eminent virtue and all other virtues derive their virtuousness from love. Loving parents do not want to spoil their children. The virtuous acts they employ in order not to spoil their offspring are merely extensions of their initial act of loving them. Therefore, they will refrain from being overindulgent and excessively permissive as well as negligent and unconcerned. But these restraints are not purely negative. Rather, they logically flow from an initial act of love.

The Church teaches clearly, consistently and forcefully that the first act of a Christian is an act of love.

It is most ironic, given the secular world's caricature of Christianity, that the first rule of political correctness, “Thou shall not offend anyone,” is itself not an action but an inaction. Now, if the first rule of a moral philosophy is to abstain from acting, it necessarily follows that everything subsequent to that inaction will also be inaction. If we begin with the fear that whatever we say or do (including love) might offend someone, we will retreat from others like the receding galaxies and be of no positive use to anyone.

Russell's indictment is better applied to the contemporary world of political correctness.

“Thou shall not offend” as a first principle of morality is a form of alienation. Putting it into practice is a way of increasing alienation. Its implementation makes it difficult for parents not to spoil their children, teachers not to ignore their students and priests not to leave their flock untutored. Fear is hardly a virtue; alienation is hardly a desirable outcome. But love casts out fear, just as fear casts out love.

To begin with love is to assume a risk. Christ was crucified because he dared to love. If he had been politically correct and preferred to avoid offending people (“sin no more”) he would have accomplished nothing and would have never been remembered.

How, we might ask, can a man as intelligent and accomplished as Lord Russell (and others) be so egregiously wrong about so transparent a point? The answer might be found in the very word philosophy (love of wisdom). For the first act of the philosopher is not an act of intelligence or power or reason or influence but an act of love. A philosopher may abstain from many things, but he may not abstain from love.

Philosophy, unlike mathematics, for example, begins with this generous and realistic act of love. In the absence of this love, philosophy cannot begin. If we do not love, we might become successful. We might even become influential. But we cannot achieve the destiny God gave us when he created us out of his own initial act of love.

Dr. Donald DeMarco is professor emeritus at St. Jerome's University and adjunct professor at Holy Apostles College & Seminary.