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> Home Page > More About Diligo Vita > The Making of This Philosopher. > Looking For Answers > Christianity And Religion > What Is This Thing Called Love<you are here> |
Just one of those words
Love; whispered to sweethearts, proclaimed by drunks to best mates and embraced by parent and child a-like. Outside of these contexts love is one of those faintly embarrassing topics that threatens to be emotional. One of those words that we use ad-nauseam and just make assumptions that the meaning we want, will be understood. The ancient Greeks had several words for love in different contexts. Wikipedia has an excellent article on the subject explaining the various historical definitions: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love So why should I write another comment on an already over written subject? Well, I have used the word to describe what I feel should be the substance to the three attitudes in Child to Adult Transition, section "what we are left with": I feel it is important to explain, how I arrived at the specific understanding of the word love in the context I am meaning.
In the article Looking for Answers, I explain that my "journey of thought" took me to look for the answers to my teenage angst from with in the Christian religion, specificity the notion of forgiveness, from that introduction I went on to find and look at the notion of "love" as it related to Christianity. From that I developed my own philosophical understanding of the word love.
In the article Looking for Answers, I explain that my "journey of thought" took me to look for the answers to my teenage angst from with in the Christian religion, specificity the notion of forgiveness, from that introduction I went on to find and look at the notion of "love" as it related to Christianity. From that I developed my own philosophical understanding of the word love.
What is this thing Called Love
Love form a Christian context is pivotal to the faith. From the New Testament God is described as love and is personified in Jesus coming to live with mankind on earth. The Christ Messiah that went to the cross for our sins to demonstrate an expression of that love.
In today’s cynical/techno world such language sounds a little bazaar and off putting. The idea of someone dying on a cross has an unreality about it in our present culture but for the Jews of that time there would have been nothing strange in either sacrifice, as they would have done this constantly within their religion, nor death on a cross, a particular favourite means of slow death by the Romans. Looking past the cultural and time differences and if for nothing else than deference to Christ’s teachings, still being around two thousand years after his death, we should perhaps take a closer look at his teaching and in particular the notion of love.
In today’s cynical/techno world such language sounds a little bazaar and off putting. The idea of someone dying on a cross has an unreality about it in our present culture but for the Jews of that time there would have been nothing strange in either sacrifice, as they would have done this constantly within their religion, nor death on a cross, a particular favourite means of slow death by the Romans. Looking past the cultural and time differences and if for nothing else than deference to Christ’s teachings, still being around two thousand years after his death, we should perhaps take a closer look at his teaching and in particular the notion of love.
The Notion of Love
For a moment let’s leave out the problem of authorship of God that I alluded to in “My Problem With Religion” where I suggest that God is a creation of man: nothing more than that of man's the alter ego. Instead take a belief in God at face value. Up to this time Gods relationship with man; the Jewish faith, was one of extreme conformity to a rule book where everything wrong/bad was prescribed a sacrifice. The style of relationship between God and Man was that of God being dominant, authoritative and demanding of the adherent’s obedience to all the rules and ceremonies. It could be described as a fearful relationship: do it or else. This could be seen to have a flaw, in that an adherence to rules does not mean an attitude to the spirit of the rules but more as a fear of the consequences of not obeying them. Such relationships of fear do not encourage a feeling or spirit of willing obedience but in a sense god had made puppets, good at perfuming a set of rituals. Lets for argument sake say God wanted to change the nature of that relationship to one where there would be willingness of man to enter the spirit of the relationship. For that to be possible there would need to be an element of choice, freedom from. A relationship based not on fear but love; on the attitude/ the spirit and not the conformity to rules. To this end God sent his son Christ to demonstrate that love by doing something very momentous, a selfless act that would put an end to the old ways of sacrifice for sins (the bad things that separated man from God) once and for all and in doing so demonstrate the selfless nature of this new relationship.
Me at the time
Well this was, is my understanding of what the gospels where about and up to a point it did make sense with in its own context. So this is the context that I began to looked at the word love.
I'm not sure what it is about entering a religion but once you've got a foot in the door one tends to "go with the Flow " as it were, perhaps because one likes some of what one hears and selectively become deaf to that which is .... well a bit bizarre...I liked the idea of God loving me ... after all I didn't feel that anyone else was lining up for the job of loving me ... and besides this was God loving me, cant be bad: the guy at the top ...the fact that some one had died in order for me to get that love ... well ... really! The attraction of someone loving one is (all be it a God/ an imaginary friend?) was none the less nice. As to whether I really had an understanding of what that love was at that time is another story, but probably not. Looking back I also get the feeling that what was really happening was, a lonely boy was grasping at straws to placate his feelings loneliness, wishing to believe in what he wanted to be the truth. (but interestingly enough that self-doubt/non-self-deluding attitude has stood me in good stead as a philosopher.)
But what is love? It’s all very well to say it is an attitude of mind but without defining it how can one know it or do it? It is true that Christ, allowing himself to be nailed to a cross was in essence a very selfless act, and could be seen as a demonstration of love (with in that context) but as an explanation of what love is, it does not suffice.
Can love be taught? A bit like Meno in Plato’s Socratic writing arguing over whether Human Virtue can be taught, It is true to say that many abstract concepts like love cannot be taught in rule like terms but are taught experiential, that is to say by the experience of being loved one learns to love.
It is true you can find in Corinthians, a list of thing that love will be but it is more than just the adherence to the list it is the attitude of mind that invokes the action. There aren’t any rules (as such) other than that which the conscience of an individual decides when loving. In a sense going back to my Suggestion about morality as being “good for” and that how this was to some degree a perceptual matter.
New International Version; Corinthians 13
4Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
But this is still only a list and belies the motivating attitude behind the action. The nearest we can get to exemplify the attitude of love is in the unwavering, biased love of a mother for her child (all right not always perfect). This would explain the initiation of “Father” God sending his son the ultimate sacrifice “and God so loved the world he sent .....” So God is love, perfect love and invites us all be like wise, loving, and in doing so join the family in the faith.
But Why
I have to concede that from a non Christian stand point the notion of God deciding to love us in order that we would freely love him back could be seen as being a bit random to use a modern colloquialism, a convenient piece of manipulation. However the notion of perfection is “discoverable” form a non religious corollary. If we go back to man becoming aware of himself as I wrote about in “for head o talk to sole”: as part of man discovering things about himself he may well have come to realise not only his impotence in regard to his existence and his fallibility in living but perhaps also that he is very self centred by nature and as such will do things because of his selfishness that will hurt others. From within such a state of knowledge man may well have concluded that he is “imperfect” not so much from a “moral a code” but that by the nature of his being, he is like an animal, bound, enslaved to an instinctual nature. And yet ? And yet he can see, perceive beyond that to an unfettered freedom, of perfection. I would propose that because he can see imperfection he can imagine a “notional perfection”, not from within the reality of his own world but from the realms of his imagination; “heaven”, if you like, a place where such perfection would be possible. This imagined notion would make a good candidate for the character of God, The God of perfect love.
An Invitation to be loved
Now ... as I said a minuet ago love is experiential so in order for my reader to have the best understanding of what I am trying to describe I should like to invite you, to actively enter into the passage that follows by using your imagination to feel what it would be like to be loved.
Me at the time
Well this was, is my understanding of what the gospels where about and up to a point it did make sense with in its own context. So this is the context that I began to looked at the word love.
I'm not sure what it is about entering a religion but once you've got a foot in the door one tends to "go with the Flow " as it were, perhaps because one likes some of what one hears and selectively become deaf to that which is .... well a bit bizarre...I liked the idea of God loving me ... after all I didn't feel that anyone else was lining up for the job of loving me ... and besides this was God loving me, cant be bad: the guy at the top ...the fact that some one had died in order for me to get that love ... well ... really! The attraction of someone loving one is (all be it a God/ an imaginary friend?) was none the less nice. As to whether I really had an understanding of what that love was at that time is another story, but probably not. Looking back I also get the feeling that what was really happening was, a lonely boy was grasping at straws to placate his feelings loneliness, wishing to believe in what he wanted to be the truth. (but interestingly enough that self-doubt/non-self-deluding attitude has stood me in good stead as a philosopher.)
But what is love? It’s all very well to say it is an attitude of mind but without defining it how can one know it or do it? It is true that Christ, allowing himself to be nailed to a cross was in essence a very selfless act, and could be seen as a demonstration of love (with in that context) but as an explanation of what love is, it does not suffice.
Can love be taught? A bit like Meno in Plato’s Socratic writing arguing over whether Human Virtue can be taught, It is true to say that many abstract concepts like love cannot be taught in rule like terms but are taught experiential, that is to say by the experience of being loved one learns to love.
It is true you can find in Corinthians, a list of thing that love will be but it is more than just the adherence to the list it is the attitude of mind that invokes the action. There aren’t any rules (as such) other than that which the conscience of an individual decides when loving. In a sense going back to my Suggestion about morality as being “good for” and that how this was to some degree a perceptual matter.
New International Version; Corinthians 13
4Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
But this is still only a list and belies the motivating attitude behind the action. The nearest we can get to exemplify the attitude of love is in the unwavering, biased love of a mother for her child (all right not always perfect). This would explain the initiation of “Father” God sending his son the ultimate sacrifice “and God so loved the world he sent .....” So God is love, perfect love and invites us all be like wise, loving, and in doing so join the family in the faith.
But Why
I have to concede that from a non Christian stand point the notion of God deciding to love us in order that we would freely love him back could be seen as being a bit random to use a modern colloquialism, a convenient piece of manipulation. However the notion of perfection is “discoverable” form a non religious corollary. If we go back to man becoming aware of himself as I wrote about in “for head o talk to sole”: as part of man discovering things about himself he may well have come to realise not only his impotence in regard to his existence and his fallibility in living but perhaps also that he is very self centred by nature and as such will do things because of his selfishness that will hurt others. From within such a state of knowledge man may well have concluded that he is “imperfect” not so much from a “moral a code” but that by the nature of his being, he is like an animal, bound, enslaved to an instinctual nature. And yet ? And yet he can see, perceive beyond that to an unfettered freedom, of perfection. I would propose that because he can see imperfection he can imagine a “notional perfection”, not from within the reality of his own world but from the realms of his imagination; “heaven”, if you like, a place where such perfection would be possible. This imagined notion would make a good candidate for the character of God, The God of perfect love.
An Invitation to be loved
Now ... as I said a minuet ago love is experiential so in order for my reader to have the best understanding of what I am trying to describe I should like to invite you, to actively enter into the passage that follows by using your imagination to feel what it would be like to be loved.
To be Loved
I have a friend, who’s always pleased to see me,
Who welcomes me with outstretched arms.
He never has expectations of what I should be
He just accepts me as I am.
And when I want to talk about things
He listens,
He never interrupts
Or gives advice or judges me
But listens to understand.
He never thinks badly of me
Or talks behind my back.
He encourages me in all that I do
And would want me to be all that I can be.
He always tells the truth but never as a weapon.
He thinks I’m wonderful
In spite of me being me.
sisdeas
I don’t think anyone one would disagree that in principle the sentiment of either being loved or in deed of loving others was not a good thing. Certainly for me as a young man in search of reassurance, the idea of being loved in the manner that I perceived God was suggesting, sounded very good both in terms of my being loved and in my having an attitude of love towards others. At a practical level, the understanding of what it means to be loved or indeed to love others has taken a lot of getting used to, it is as if one has to change the way we view any specific event; to use a different set of eyes, the eyes of perfect love to view both ourselves and others.
I have a friend, who’s always pleased to see me,
Who welcomes me with outstretched arms.
He never has expectations of what I should be
He just accepts me as I am.
And when I want to talk about things
He listens,
He never interrupts
Or gives advice or judges me
But listens to understand.
He never thinks badly of me
Or talks behind my back.
He encourages me in all that I do
And would want me to be all that I can be.
He always tells the truth but never as a weapon.
He thinks I’m wonderful
In spite of me being me.
sisdeas
I don’t think anyone one would disagree that in principle the sentiment of either being loved or in deed of loving others was not a good thing. Certainly for me as a young man in search of reassurance, the idea of being loved in the manner that I perceived God was suggesting, sounded very good both in terms of my being loved and in my having an attitude of love towards others. At a practical level, the understanding of what it means to be loved or indeed to love others has taken a lot of getting used to, it is as if one has to change the way we view any specific event; to use a different set of eyes, the eyes of perfect love to view both ourselves and others.