Another, even more important distinction is that between _perfect_ and _imperfect_ charity. Imperfect charity is the love of God as our highest good (_amor Dei ut summum bonum nobis_); perfect charity is the love of God for His own sake above all things (_amor Dei propter se et super omnia_). The holy Fathers and a number of councils(193) declare that it is impossible to love God perfectly without the aid of grace. The context and such stereotyped explanatory phrases as “_sicut oportet_” or “_sicut expedit ad salutem_,”(194) show that these Patristic and conciliary utterances apply to the _supernatural_ love of God. Hence the question narrows itself down to this: Can fallen man without the aid of grace love God for His own sake and above all things by a purely natural love? In answering this question Pesch,(195) Tepe,(196) and other theologians distinguish between _affective_ and _effective_ love. They hold that whereas the _amor affectivus_ in all its stages is possible without the aid of grace, not so the _amor effectivus_, since that would involve the observance of the whole natural law. This compromise theory can be demonstrated as highly probable from Scripture and Tradition. St. Paul says(197) that the gentiles knew God and should have glorified Him. This evidently supposes that it was possible for them to glorify God, and consequently to love Him affectively, as easily and with the same means by which they knew Him. Else how could the Apostle say of those gentiles who, “when they knew God, glorified him not as God,” that they “changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator”?(198) This interpretation of Rom. I, 21 sqq. is explicitly confirmed by St. Ambrose when he says: “For they were able to apprehend this by the law of nature, inasmuch as the fabric of the cosmos testifies that God, its author, is alone to be loved, as Moses hath set it down in his writings; but they were made impious by not glorifying God, and unrighteousness became evident in them when, knowing, they changed the truth into a lie and refused to confess the one God.”(199) 3. It follows, by way of corollary, that Vasquez’s opinion,(200) that there can be no good work without supernatural aid in the shape of a _cogitatio congrua_, is untenable, as is also the assertion of Ripalda(201) that in the present economy purely natural good actions are so invariably connected with the prevenient grace of Christ that they practically never exist as such.