"Reason. Lady Love, I ask yet one more question: why does this book say that this Soul has everything and yet has nothign? Love. That is true, says Love, for through divine grace this Soul has God, and he who has God has everything, and it says too that she has nothing, because everything which this Soul has within her from God through the gift of divine grace seems nothing to her, and it is nothing, too, in comparison with what she loves, which is in God and which he will not give to anyone except only to himself. And it is in this sense that this Soul has everything and yet has anything, she knows everything and yet she knows nothing."
In this exchange between Love and Reason, Reason has a difficult time understanding the paradoxical nature of the Soul. He questions how one can possess everything and nothing at once. Love explains that the Soul is capable of being possessed by God, in which case it has the potential for everything. The nothing is that none of what the Soul possesses is its own, except in relation to God.
"Charity takes no notice or account of anything under the sun, for the whole world is no more than superfluity and excess. Charity gives to everyone everything that she possesses, and does not withhold even herself, and in addition, she often promises what she does not possess, in her great generosity hoping that the more one gives, the more one will have left.”
Charity is an entirely selfless figure, but her giving appears to be motivated by an expectation of return. She is self-absorbed with her giving, as it becomes the only thing which she sees. The material possessions, time, whatever it is that she gives away mean nothing to her in comparison to the act of giving them.
“On these two crutches is the Soul supported, and so she need pay no heed to her enemies to the right or to the left. Yet still she is so filled with confusion, says Love, at the knowledge of her poverty that she seems all confusion to the world and to herself. Indeed, she is so drunk3 with knowledge of the love and the grace of the pure Deity that she is always drunk with knowledge and filled with praise of Divine Love. And she is not drunk simply with what she has drunk, but extremely drunk and more than drunk with what she never once drank and never will drink.”
Love describes the process of being loved by God as an intoxication. It overwhelms and confuses the Soul, although the Soul has done nothing to deserve it. The experience is simply too much for one entity to process and completely involuntary.
“Reason. And who are you, Love? says Reason. Are you not also one of the Virtues, and one of us, even though you be above us? Love. I am God, says Love, for Love is God, and God is Love, 1 and this Soul is God through its condition of Love, and I am God through my divine nature, and this Soul is God by Love’s just law. 2 So that this my precious beloved is taught and guided by me, without herself, for she has been changed into me. And this is the outcome, says Love, of being nourished by me.”
Love and God are the same thing, so when Love says that she is God she means that God has overcome the Soul with her -- Love. Love has taken over the Soul, so that the very identity of the Soul has changed. In her own esteem, then, Love is something entirely different from the other virtues because she is one with the divine.
