The Table Video

Thomas Jay Oord and Alan Tjeltveit discuss the theology and psychology of love.

Transcript:

We seek love, at a personal level, at an emotional level, but we also try to grasp it at a rational level. And that’s some of the things that I wanna discuss this morning. So Tom, in an effort to define love, in an effort to understand it, say a little bit about this deep human desire to understand the phenomenon of love.

Yeah, I agree with you, I think we all reach out for and intuitively know there’s something about love that we want, it compels us toward it. I’ve spent a lot of time trying to define love, but I’ve come to believe that even my best efforts can’t fully encapsulate and capture everything that I intuit about love.

And yet I think it’s important because, as a Christian, my tradition says that love of God, love of neighbor as myself, is at the very core of who I ought to be, and so if I don’t have some intuition, some grasp, some understanding about what love is, I’m not sure I can feel even halfway confident that I’m doing what I’m called to do. So I’ve thrown out a sort of quick and easy definition of love, I’ll put it on the table. I don’t know if Alan likes it or not, but. I define love as acting intentionally in response to God and others to promote overall wellbeing.

It’s that wellbeing aspect that I think is key to thinking about love. It’s the doing of good, it’s the promotion of good, not only between persons but, I think, throughout all dimensions of life.

So that benevolence, the focus of your definition of love is thinking about the other and caring for their wellbeing and helping them to flourish.

Yes, and it’s in response to them. There’s a relational aspect that’s inherent in it. Because in order for me to act for the wellbeing of the other, I have to somehow empathize. I have to listen, I have to take account of what it might be that can help the other person.

I think love is psychological, it’s theological, it’s philosophical, and if you chop any of those dimensions out, you don’t fully understand it. Psychologists wanna chop out the theological and the philosophical, and so few psychologists actually look at the term love as something they’re studying. They’ll sometimes talk about altruism, and altruism is kind of helping someone else from a pure motive.

But, in fact, in rare instances only do we act from pure motives. There is a line of research, though, that focuses on the relationship between empathy and altruism, and shows that if you have a lot of empathy for someone, if you can really kind of feel what they’re feeling, in that situation then you’re more likely to, you can act out of pure motives genuinely to help someone else. So that’s one of the strands of research that’s kind of related to what we would say is love.

So Tom has set up a definition that really focuses love on an outward expression toward others. Acting intentionally, responding to the other for the sake of their flourishing and their wellbeing. But there’s an internal component to love, too. Something you might think of as a psychological, emotional experience. I mean, what is your perspective on a definition of love?

Well, working in psychology, since the term itself is rarely used, I’ve learned I have to be flexible, and part of my task is, when I’m reading what a psychologist says about a research finding, or about a theory, is I have to figure out what’s their implicit understanding and then kind of how does that connect with what I see as a more adequate definition. So psychologists talk about norms, for instance. And one of the norms is, “I will help you because I anticipate “that you’ll help me later if I help.” So there’s a, we kind of aim for a sort of reciprocity.

Evan: Mhm.

So that’s an internal norm,

You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours.

Sort of thing, yeah.

Evan: Yeah.

Yeah. And actually, one of the big issues is whether or not that really counts as love. Some people would say it has to be sacrificial, it has to be totally, this beneficent act has to be totally to meet the other’s needs and not on one’s own needs.

And that’s one of the differences among, it’s a philosophical, theological, psychological difference. I actually like the idea of kind of being inclusive, and saying, “I can love my wife, and that’s Christian love, “even though I get something back from it.” There’s a funny, to me at least, story along those lines.

Tom and I first met at a conference at Calvin, and we left our families behind. One of the tricky things about studying love is that immediately you get jokes, ’cause people assume you’re talking about romance, you’re talking about sex. And so she kept talking about, “Oh, Alan’s going off on his summer of love.” [everyone laughs] And of course I detect a little dig in that, because my kids were three and six at the time, and I left her for three weeks. But here’s the quid pro quo, a year later, she went to Israel for three weeks, leaving me with the kids. [Evan laughs] So yeah, it kinda balanced out. And it actually seemed kind of right and nice.

Evan: Yeah.

So I think that’s fully Christian love, although some, like Andresh Nichiren, would say, “No, no that’s not love.” So I’m willing to have it more inclusive. I think there has to be an openness to self-sacrifice, in a robust notion of Christian love, just as Jesus died for us, that’s sacrificial. So I wanna include that in the definition of love. Some psychologists are very suspicious about this notion of self-sacrifice. It’s unhealthy. It’s a–

I agree with Alan here, and I think it has to do partly with how we think about ourselves as relational people. I’m of the view that we live an inter-related world, and what I do for you is likely going to end up affecting me in some way or another, positively or negatively. And so the idea that I could act in such a way that I get absolutely no benefit whatsoever is very suspicious in my mind.

Now, there is the possibility that I could act primarily for your benefit, and secondarily for my own, so if there’s sort of a primary issue there. But if we truly are related, if we take the Christian example of being in the body of Christ, if we’re all a part of the body and that body extended beyond Christians to the whole realm, then this notion that altruism, love, true generosity is only for the other’s good, I think we can set that aside and say, “Okay, in some instances it can be “primarily for the other’s good, “but it’s okay also to act in ways that can benefit myself.” Self-love is genuine and appropriate.

Indeed, it’s the foundation, at least, for the communication of the greatest commandments.

Tom: Exactly.

Love of God, of course, isn’t tied to the self, but the love of neighbor, the foundation of that love is, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” And so there has to be some kind of robust sense of seeking your own wellbeing, and understanding what that means. What it is to flourish. And then, the high calling of that neighbor love, is to seek another’s wellbeing as much as you seek your own.

There’s an interesting history of interpretation of the as love. I categorize three responses. One said, “Well, self-love is natural, “and so you wanna kind of bring up your love for others “and God to kind of your natural level “of love for self.”

The second approach says, “Wait a minute. “Some people don’t really love each other very well.” And so, particularly humanistic psychologists, say, “So, first you need to love yourself. “‘Cause you can’t love other people, “you can’t love God if you don’t love yourself.” And so the stereotype is then they move to Marin County and spend 40 years learning how to love themselves. [Tom laughs] Somehow they never get around to loving others or God.

So I’m a little suspicious of that. And actually, my own mother, who is a very loving person, never liked herself, wasn’t very good at loving herself. So the third perspective says, “These are really kind of three separate, “but ideally inter-related, categories.” So the right kind of love of yourself is good, because we’re worth.

Here’s an instance, I’m an Episcopalian, and for the most part I’m more conservative than Episcopalians. But there’s old language in one of the services that says, “I am unworthy even “to gather up the crumbs from under your table.” Which I call the Prayer of Self Abasement. I just cannot go there! It’s like, “What do you mean, “I’m not worthy to pick these up? “God made me, Jesus died for me, “I am worthy of picking up the crumbs!”

Yeah, exactly.

I am sinful, but I can’t go there. There are right kinds of self-love. And if it’s only self-love, that’s not the right kind of self-love. So I think there are three kinds of love that should be integrated.

Yeah. Now let me ask about perspectives on love that help us be more loving in our particular actions.

So, in theological and psychological and philosophical work on love, is there anything that can be learned and sort of formed in our character that then conduces to becoming better people? More loving in our actions towards others? This is a question of, you know, can theology and psychology make us better? [all laugh]

One hopes.

Yeah, I hope! [all laugh] A lot of wasted time on our part if it can’t.

But I think this is a common criticism or misunderstanding, that work on love is really just to think about esoteric and very ethereal concepts. But we don’t see it come down into real life, and I think that’s a mistaken notion, but one which is difficult to sort out. So how does the study of love conduce to making us more loving?

Well, one area of research show that moral identity, that is seeing oneself to be someone who strives to be moral, has a big impact on the course of someone’s life in terms of being more moral. So self-perception, self-identity. So here’s one of my role models. I think Tom’s been treated unfairly, without going into any details.

But he’s written about love and he’s kind of worked through this with an intention of being loving, and I’ve seen it. I have no idea whether he’s done so perfectly, I suspect not, but the intent is really important. So, “Am I committed to being loving,” is a key.

I agree. I’ll go from a theological angle on this. I think, fundamentally, nearly all of us, I wanna say all of us but I’ll say nearly all of us, want to be aligned with what we think is ultimate in reality. And for the Christian, God is ultimate. And so I think if we want to be aligned to who God is, and if we believe God is a God of love, then that will incline us, motivate us, move us toward being that kind of person.

Again, we might not do it perfectly all the time, but I think that can be a strong impetus in our lives to love. And then likewise, prompt us to ask what God’s love is like. There’s been a strong mode in the Christian tradition that says that God is entirely self-giving, entirely benevolent, entirely going outward. I’m of the theological opinion that God is also receiving, is also affected. There’s a giving and receiving in God’s love.

And if I am going to imitate that, with my wife, with my kid, with my colleague, with my enemies, with a stranger, then I have to ask, “Okay, what did giving “and receiving look like?” When I’m thinking about Donald Trump, who’s not in my wheelhouse of political likes. What does that look like? And his followers, who are on my Facebook page, posting things. What does it look like when I hang out with my brother, who thinks about life differently than I do? Et cetera. This giving and receiving love, then, if as I try to align myself to what I believe is ultimate, should, and I think does, affect the way I live my life.

This is a personal question, but what sources do each of you turn to for seeking that kind of enrichment? Looking to sources of learning to enrich your understanding of love, but then hopefully, see that work itself out into actions? Who do you read, who are you inspired by?

In that case I’m not sure. My first response was, ongoing self reflection is really important, because one of the strange things about love, like with many other things, I can start off with really good intentions, like I’m helping my kids to do something. It begins with their best interests, but somewhere along the line it becomes my self-interest. I take over their projects. So unless I’m kind of monitoring myself, my love gets twisted or distorted or malformed. And so self-awareness is part of–

Sounds like just being mindful. There’s a rich work in psychology around mindfulness, and its ability to help improve our own wellbeing. But perhaps being mindful also improves others’ wellbeing, insofar as we can remain reflective, as you say.

But then I also wanna turn it into, I’m primarily a Lutheran, theologically. But I think Luther was a profound psychologist, among other things. But he talks about drawing on Paul’s language of being baptized in Christ. Luther talks about this being an ongoing, daily need to be re-baptized. So, I die with Christ, so I become aware of my distorted, selfish alterations of love, and I’ll allow myself to die with Christ and be risen unto that.

So that’s the participation motif that’s becoming more prominent in recent years in theology. And it’s also the cross, which I think is kind of at the heart of my understanding of love. So dying and rising again, on an ongoing basis, is part of how I think I become more loving, so.

I think my answer to the resources is gonna sound cliche, gonna sound, “Yeah, I figured you’d say that,” but I’ll say it anyway, ’cause it really is true. Resources. Scripture, I think the Bible can help us. I’m not saying the Bible is consistently clear on this issue, there are some passages that I think do a poor job of reflecting what love ought to be like, but the overall message of scripture, the preponderance of Biblical passages, I find helpful.

Particularly wise Christians in the Christian tradition, exemplars of love throughout history. Contemporary science and theology and philosophy that explores these things, I spend a lot of time reading Alan’s work and other people’s work. That is motivating for me, thinking through the issues. But then the practices, you know. Being a part of a Christian community. I happen to be very fortunate to be a part of a small church that does a very good job of loving me, my family, and others. Participating in the typical worship and sacraments.

All these kinds of thing you’d expect a theologian to say. [all laugh] But I say them because they really are true for me and my life, they really do make a difference. And it’s not exhaustive list, but those are the things that I draw upon often as I try to think through what love means and then live that consistently in my life.

Yeah. There’s a psychologist, Barbara Fredrickson, who works on love, and she refers to macro-moments. Macro-moments of positive experience. So this is to pick up on this idea that it’s sort of in the air that we breathe, it’s in our atmosphere. Now, those macro-moments can be negative or positive, but they’re so formative, and these community elements, just about day in, day out, the every day, those things shape us.

And I think that says a lot about who and what we are. We arrive in this world looking for love. A friend of mine, psychologist Todd Hall, says, “We’re loved into loving, “we need experiences of being loved “in order to shape a kind of loving character.” But that’s what I wanna ask each of you about, is what practices, whether these are the practices of parents towards children, the practices of neighbors towards neighbors, the practices of, your own practices towards one’s enemies. How do we think about these macro-moments, or these habits, or practices, forming a more loving character in us? Thinking about what we do from moment to moment. How can we shape a more loving character?

Well, Aristotle of course talked about developing habits, and the right kind of habits, which would help one move towards character. I think, I’m in a funny position. I’m a very rational, and part of love is emotional. My mother was better at loving than I am, my father was, my wife is, and one of the things my wife stresses, where she likes kind of, you know, putting money in the plate.

She likes going to the soup kitchen and actually giving people food. These practical, hands-on things. At one point I wanted to be an engineer, so with regard to, you know, my tithe, I said, “Why don’t we just have “an auto-deduct from the bank? “It would be so much simpler.” [all laugh] But I think there’s merit in kind of the hands-on, regular, doing that. Because it does kind of shape one’s character.

Evan: Mhm.

The author Jonathan Haidt tells a story about, it’s fictitious, but imagine that your son’s going in for surgery, and there are two nurses taking care of him. Both are technically competent, and suppose also we know that our son doesn’t actually feel anything. But one nurse kind of reflexively, as the procedure’s being done, strokes his head.

And, which nurse do we admire more? What’s the one who, kind of an ongoing basis, it’s her character, it’s who she is, that leads her to do that. And I’m sure that that is a result of years and years of being acutely attuned to the needs of the people in front of them.

What do you think, in the case for the nurse to kind of make this story more robust. What kinds of life experience makes her the kind of person that is gentle and caring and loving toward a person who might not even receive it?

Well, there are a couple possibilities, because people get to the same place in different ways. The most obvious possibility is she herself was deeply loved. But then there are some people, you know, who come from really horrible backgrounds, and they say, “This was a terrible way to be raised. “I am determined to be something other than that.” So some very loving people come from non-loving homes. So it can work either way.

I’d like to explore that a little bit more with you, and Tom, please, I’d love for your perspective on this too. But thinking about the difference, right, some people who emerge from circumstances of abuse and exploitation and a very difficult upbringing, emerge and they emerge with the same characteristics as those who raise them.

And others emerge from abusive backgrounds with loving character that is almost the opposite. And I think, in a vacuum, of course, anyone who comes out of circumstances like that wants to be better than their abusers. What’s the difference, though? What is the x-factor in making someone transcend their own upbringing?

I have at least two possibilities. One is, resilient children from at-risk backgrounds are often resilient because of one key person. Might not be their parent, it often isn’t their parent. But a neighbor, an aunt, a grandmother, someone who deeply cares about that person. So that’s the safe person that enables them to grow and mature and so forth.

And the other is, I wouldn’t underestimate the power of choices. Sometimes people have goals, and they pursue them, pursue them doggedly, so with kind of an end in mind, it can end up shaping somebody’s character.

Evan: Mhm.

Those are the two that I first thought of. And the third I might just throw in is that, at least in most situations I know, folks who are in abusive situation, homes, et cetera, have some access to a community outside that home, be it the classroom at school, be it the church community, be it friends in the neighborhood. Sometimes, some of those people, some of those communities can really make a big difference in pushing someone away from the abuse that they’ve been raised in.

Yeah. So the definition of love that we started with, Tom, your three-fold definition of intentionally working out from oneself in response to others, to act for another’s wellbeing, that doesn’t have any particularly Christian elements. There’s nothing in conflict, of course. It’s a wonderful definition from the perspective of a believer, but is there anything specific or distinctive that emerges from scripture, or the Christian tradition, or contemporary Christian scholarship, that would add something to that definition and help us to understand the reality of love any better?

That’s a good question. I mean, I think, sort of from the get-go, I have to acknowledge that I am a Christian, I have been largely formed by the Christian tradition, so therefore any sort of definition I offer is going to be roundabout, at least, informed by my background and who I am. But that doesn’t get quite to your question, I think. I also think that I believe in a God who is omnipresent, who is the source and inspiration for love, no matter who the person is. In fact, I think it even goes beyond humans.

And so therefore, whatever love is wouldn’t just be something Christians could do or Christians could express, so in that sense it’s universal, or at least the potential is universal. And third, I think that Christians ought to say something like this. The fullest revelation we have of a God of love is found in Jesus Christ, and the Christian church has done a, more or less, has tried its best to express what love should be like, given Jesus as the revelation of God’s love in the world. That still doesn’t quite say, “Okay, Christians have a definition of love, “but Buddhists have another.”

And I don’t think that’s the way we ought to go at it. But I do think Christians ought to say, “We can agree on the general view of love, “but also say that our tradition inclines us “towards certain ways of thinking about it, “maybe some practices like participating in the Eucharist, “that the Buddhists wouldn’t do.” But at the end of the day, love is love, no matter who you are or where you are. Love, as I defined it, involves this promotion of wellbeing in response, relationship, and intentionality.

Evan: Hm, yeah. Alan, any thoughts?

Yeah, I have a few thoughts. Like Tom, I don’t think that my definitions would be exclusively Christian. But I can’t imagine a Christian understanding of love that doesn’t allow for the possibility of kind of sacrificial giving. Some people like Freud thought that was really bad. You know, if I can give to you, if you’ve already given to me. But beyond that it’s unhealthy.

And I think that a Christian understanding has to be much more proactive, acting to meet the needs of others, even if at some cost to ourselves. The second is that there are approaches to understanding love that say, “Well, love in the family is good,” or, “Love in my group is good.”

There’s a popular book that just came out called Moral Tribes that talks a lot about this, where we have our own moral tribes, and we look out for the people in our tribe, but that other tribe, you know, they don’t get our love. Christianity says, “Love your enemy, “love those people, love the stranger, the alien.” So it seems to me that a Christian love has to embrace other people not of our tribe.

What we’re called to as Christians is to love in response to the brokenness of the world. And I believe, Tom, as you’ve been pointing out, so many of us are called to that kind of response. Love is a call to heal brokenness. How should we think about love as a response to the vast brokenness in our world?

Especially when you break brokenness down into matters of suffering, or pathology, especially psychopathology, our own mental health breakdowns. Love is a response to sin, and thinking about forgiveness. And then love in response to our own natural finitude, our limits that we’re simply unable to be better at certain points. What are the marks of love as response to this brokenness?

It’s not, I think, different than love in other regards. There’s an acute attention to the personhood of the person we’re with, we view the person as someone of worth, we kind of strive to meet their needs. Psychotherapists, pastoral counselors, obviously do more of that, but the fact of the matter is, every one of us has neighbors who suffer in the ways you’re talking about.

Mental illness is common, increasingly, there’s recognition that college students have mental illnesses, so it’s present. So part of love is breaking down this stigma, saying that I love you and you have problems, and I love you. So that’s very important.

It seems like that requires a great deal of patience.

Mhm.

And acceptance of serious tension, at times.

Yeah, so partly what one needs to do, I think, is to open ourselves up to being loved, because as we’re loved, we’re able to be more patient, to be more loving. As we receive God’s love, as we receive love in a Christian community, then we’re more able to do that. And a really critical part of that is what Tom said in terms of the give and take.

We have to receive love, not just give love. ‘Course, it’s a occupational hazard of therapists, nurses, doctors, who are always giving, that they don’t receive it, they get burned out. Teachers. So there has to be a giving in order, there has to be receiving in order to give.

Yeah.

I think this, I’ll speak for myself at least, I’m a person who sometimes sees a difficult situation in which there’s a great deal of pain and suffering, and my reaction is, I wanna step back, because engaging means that I have to empathize at a level that will bring me discomfort.

Evan: It exposes you.

Exactly. And I’m oftentimes reminded of the story Jesus tells about the good Samaritan, you know. The two religious folks go on the opposite side of the road, but what makes that good Samaritan particularly interesting is he comes near and has compassion. And I think there’s something important about this idea of suffering with those who suffer. Now, that doesn’t mean that you necessarily have to leave everything in the suffering state, you want to help in the healing and transformation. But the coming near to empathize and being with, I think is often a profound movement in the work of love.

It speaks of the incarnation.

It does.

God’s own coming near to us.

Yes.

Yeah. Well, thank you both for your time today.

Thank you.

And sharing your thoughts on love, and all the best.

Thanks.

Thank you, Evan.