Knowing and loving, metaphysics and ethics

I was thinking that Levinas' emphasis might be understood in terms of the two ways. on the way up, knowing precedes loving; but on the way down, loving precedes knowing; and since loving has, in the ultimate sense, the precedence, perhaps we could say that love comes before knowing. and it does: God's love is prior to our knowing; the love of parents, in a sense, precedes their knowing their child; and so on. ...

I think the question of ethics and metaphysics parallels the question of which is prior, metaphysics or phil. of knowing. Lonergan says somewhere: as far as we are concerned (the priora quoad nos), knowing comes before being; but in itself (priora quoad se), being precedes knowing...

in his later writings L would constantly speak of the primacy of the existential, and would quote a number of philosophers: Newman, Pascal, Kierkegaard, Blondel... I suppose he was not familiar with Levinas...