The Table Video

The word “love” is used in many ways and has various meanings. Thomas Jay Oord explores that diversity and then offers a prescriptive definition of love that includes what Oord considers love’s essential aspects. Once love is defined well, various forms of love can be understood in terms of their uniqueness and what they share in common. Dr. Oord draws from philosophy, science, theology, and scripture to proffer the meaning of love he believes most plausible for research and practice today.

Transcript:

This is a topic that, as Evan’s introduction suggests, is near and dear to my heart, and I sure, to yours, as well. So, I thought it might be appropriate to begin my lecture a little differently, than I often begin an academic lecture. I wanna begin, by talking about a little of my own, personal journey, a little autobiographically. I was born into a family with pretty good parents. We attended church an awful lot. I’m a Christian. I began at early age, to commit my life to Christ, over and over and over.

By the time I was in high school, there was one particular event, that I look back to, as very decisive in my deciding to become a Christian. My parents were loving. I mean, they weren’t perfect, but they were better than average. The Christian community, I was a part of, was probably better that average. I was a person who took my faith very seriously. I went to college and became very active in evangelism and apologetics. I did a lot of door-to-door witnessing, I was a part of Campus Crusade for Christ.

I would go to bars and begin conversations with, do you know about Jesus Christ, I was one of those kind of people. [laughing] This, really, was at the core of who I was. I believed that the kingdom of God was at stake, our eternal destinies were on the line. I still believe that, but my methods were very aggressive. Then, my senior year of college, I took a class in philosophy religion.

Now, because I took my faith so seriously, I read an awful lot, and when I got in conversations with most people, I could win the debate, because, you know, I did my homework and I thought I had all the right answers and, I had this inerrant Bible, that proved everything I said, and this philosophy religion class turned my world upside down.

For the first time, I read serious arguments from atheists, or those from other theological traditions that kinda pulled the rug out from underneath me, the really slam dunk arguments I thought, I had, no longer seemed like slam dunks and I’ll never forget, my senior year of college, pulling up in my car to pick up my fiance, in the midst of this time of struggle in my life, and me, turning to her and saying, I just can’t believe in God, anymore. Now, I was a person, studying to be a minister, and here was my fiance, who’s now my wife, fortunately, she stuck with me, [laughing] you know, what are we gonna do?

You don’t believe in the God, whom you’re supposed to be preparing to proclaim and to preach and to be a minister. I wasn’t an atheist for very long, only a few months. I began to piece together, reasons why I thought it was more plausible, than not, that God exist, and a part of that piecing together, involved looking for meaning in life, looking for purpose, and above all, love. I came to believe that the very core of what it meant, to make sense out of reality, were the issues of love, that there must be a source of love, that we, in the Christian tradition, and other theistic traditions, call God, that I would be called to love, to live a life of love, and, as the issues of love, that began to reshape the way I thought about, not only who God is and how I ought to act, but also, how I ought to do evangelism, I do it a little differently, these days, than I used to do it. But, that began, then, a quest. This happened, oh, 25, 30 years ago.

This began a quest in my life, to try to make better sense out of love, because, as we all know, that love is, as one of my favorite theologians likes to say, a weasel word. It has a lot of different meanings, a lot of different understandings and definitions. So, today, I want to talk a little bit about the kind of result of my research, the kinds of things that I, personally, have come to believe, are at the very core of what love is all about. Not everyone in this room’s gonna agree with me, I know that, but I wanna propose these sorts of ideas, as a way to help, perhaps, if not, help you to find your own definition, at least, for you to look at this, and say, hm, that might be helpful, as I think about my own research, my own life, my own journey.

So, I’m looking at, as my title says, Love’s Essential Aspects and Diverse Forms. Now, when we talk about love, there’s certain people, who say, you know what, trying to find the essence of love, trying to get a definition of love, that’s a fool’s game. I mean, love is used in speech, in such a wide variety of ways. Why, even, give a definition of what love is? Let’s just look to see how love is used in a particular text, or particular language.

So, the first question, that I want to face, or talk about, this morning, is, should we even define love, or ponder it’s core, or speculate on its essential aspects? I think, we do need to do that, but, let me begin with some of the more influential philosophical literature, here, and I wanna look at a set of books, done by Irving Singer, some time ago, in which he goes through the major literature, speaking about love, from Plato to the present, and ask questions about, what love is doing, in the particular literature, what does it mean, what’s going on, and he aims to be, primarily, analytic. He aims to be someone, who’s not trying to prescribe, what should be the right definition of love.

He’s saying, look, this is what the philosophers, the theologians, the poets, the romantics, this is what folks have been saying, throughout the centuries, love is all about. When he gets done with these three volumes, he really hasn’t given us, what he thinks, love is, [chuckling] so he writes yet another little book, in which he tries to sum up, everything he did in the three previous books, and a couple of quotes from that book, I think, are instructive to give you an idea of his approach. He says, “My trilogy, the nature of love, “tried to make sense of the historical progression “of thought and inspiration about love, “within a framework of distinctions that I, myself, imposed “and that reflected, whatever analytic talent, I might have. “Reflecting on what I, myself, have done, “I see only a string of approximations and reconsiderations, “without any reason to think that I’m either, closer to, “or more distant from, an all-inclusive statement.”

In a subsequent book, he tries to distinguish between what he calls, bestowal love, and appraisal love, and I think that helps us, get a little bit closer to understanding what love is, but, I use him as a representative of someone, who is not trying to give us the right definition of love, or, at least, prescribe what we might consider to be the best definition of love, but as someone who is trying to analyze, and then, at the end of day, say, these are all the possibilities.

I think, this approach has some real limitations, however, and I summarize those limitations, by my first answer to the question. I put it this way, those who claim merely to analyze how “love” is used in language show by what they select for an analysis and by the “results” of their work, that they pre-suppose some meaning, or meanings of love. In other words, I think, even in the attempt to just be purely analytic, to not take any sort of bias into it, at the end of the day, you start tot see some certain biases creep in, and I think that’s just fine and dandy, I just think, we need to be clear at the outset, that, that might just happen. In deciding what we think is important, language or literature and love, some of our own pre-suppositions and biases might come into play.

But, the second answer to my question, is even closer to my own heart. I said that I’m a Christian. As I read the Christian Scriptures, I see, over and over again, claims about love, and they’re normative claims. They’re claims that’s saying, this is how I ought to act, and I know, many of you in the room are Christians, as well.

These phrases, or these passages, that I’m going to put up here, might not be new to you, but I want you to think about what’s going on, in each of the, oh, I probably got about 15 or so, phrases, here, for us to look at. “Love the Lord, you God.” Deuteronomy, Luke and other New Testament passages. “Love you neighbor as yourself” “Show your love for the alien.” “Love your enemies.” “For God so loved the world, that He gave,” “Greater love, has no one, that this, “that he lay down his life for his friends,” “Love one another, in the way that I have loved you.” One of my favorite passages, “Imitate God, as beloved children, and live a life of love.” “Love does no wrong to a neighbor.” “Love is patient, love is kind”, and many of you, who know this particular passage, know it goes on and on. “Love does not delight in evil, “but rejoices with the truth.” “If you are loving your neighbor “as yourself, you’re doing right.”” “Whoever has the world’s goods, “and sees his brother in need, “and closes his hart against him, “how does the love of God abide in him?” “Let all that you do, be done in love.” “I’m not writing to you a new commandment, “but the one which we have had “from the beginning, that we love one another.”

In other words, I think it’s important for, at least, Christians, and those of other theistic traditions, who think that love is at the center of who God is, and how we are to act, I think, it’s crucial for us, to have some idea of what this love-thing is. Sometimes, people say, well, I don’t need a definition of love, I just wanna be a loving person, and I say, well, how do you know if you’re a loving person, if you don’t know what love is? We need to have something at the core.

So, my second answer is, Those who believe that God, through Scripture, calls them to love, should have some idea of what love means, and I think, a definition seems necessary. So, what does the literature provide for us? Well, as you know, it’s all over the board. Love is desire. It would be hard to overestimate the power, influence and force of Plato on discussions of love. He says a lot of things about love. It’s not exactly clear, all the time, what he means by love, but, at the center of it, is often this claim, that there’s a desire aspect of love, that is, desire to posses, or obtain, or achieve the good, and this idea has radically influenced the Christian tradition.

We see it, especially, in Augustine. “Love, but see to it, what you love.” I, personally, think the desire element is important, but it cannot, in and of itself, give us everything we need to know and affirm about love. After all, if we want to desire the good, and we also want to love our enemies, it seems like, there’s some questions about our enemy’s good, what’s going on here, is love more than just desire, and how do you know the good? Deep questions. In fact, there’s a strong strand in the Christian tradition, that I don’t particularly like, and I’m probably gonna offend a bunch of people by saying this.

There’s a strong strand in the Christian tradition, that uses this word, love, primarily as aiming toward what one believes, is of ultimate concern, to use the language of Paul Tillich, that love isn’t primarily by doing the good, love is primarily about, where we’re aiming for, what we’re worshiping. One of my good friends, Jamie Smith, has a new book out, derived from some of his previous works. It’s called, You are what you Love, and the idea is, that you shape your lives around the habits of things that you desire. I think, that’s an important idea. I just wish, we wouldn’t put the word, love, with it, because, in my way of thinking, love always has to do with well-being, and we can love things, wrongly, in this kind of tradition. I think, we ought to have a different word, than love, there. Desire, is a good word.

But, desire, of itself, to me, doesn’t give us a full explanation of what I think, love is. There’re other people, who describe love, primarily, in terms of feelings. Helen Fisher calls love, a “feeling of elation.” If you look up, in most dictionaries, this is the way love is often defined. One that I happened to look at, before I came to this conference, says, “Love is an intense feeling of deep affection.” I think that is partly true, at least some of the time, but, again, loving your enemies, I don’t feel deep affection for the people who’ve wronged me.

I don’t think this quite sums up the Biblical claims about loving those who have hurt us, of turning the other cheek. I think, there’s some aspect of feeling emotion, in most forms of love, but, feeling, in and of itself, it doesn’t seem to give us everything we need. There’re other, who emphasize the importance of love, as a choice. I also think love is a choice. Erich Fromm, for instance, calls love, a decision or a judgment, but, as you might guess, I don’t think choice, in and of itself, tells us everything about love.

Then, there’s been a strong emphasis, I think, in the more recent days, about emphasizing love, primarily as relationship. One of my favorite philosophers, Charles Hartshorne, says, love is “life-sharing,” or “the realization in oneself “of the desires and experiences of others”, or Vincent Brümmer calls it, “a reciprocal relation”. I think Paul Tillich’s notion of the re-uniting of that, which was separated, has also something to do with this kind of relationality, inherent in love. I’m big into relationships.

I think, the world is interrelated, all the way down. So, I think, relationships are core to, not only humans, but all of existence, but I don’t think relationships, in and of themselves, tell us everything we ought to say about what love is. The one that I, oftentimes emphasize, is this one, love as well-being, or, love does good. Shalom, eudaimonia, flourishing, genuine happiness, blessedness, abundant life, healing, salvation, all of these words, I think, are at the very core of what love is, but, in and of themselves, they also can’t tell us everything about love.

After all, sometimes people do good, when their motives were to do evil, and I don’t think that’s a good way to talk about love. If I, intentionally, want to harm you, and it turns out, you end up, getting blessed in some ways, I don’t think you are [sound break] be, boy, you’re sure a loving person. So, it’s got to be more that just consequences, that are good, although goodness and well-being, I think, are really important. And then, finally, the theological traditions have argued about, how it is, that love is connected to God, and there’re different proposals on the table. I’ll talk a little bit about those, my own preferences there, but, most of us who do believe in God, think that in some way, love comes from God, or, is God.

There’s all kinds of ways of talking about this. I like this phrase from John’s letter, “We love, because God first loved us.” So, given all of this, all of these options, each of which, I think, give us something helpful, I, in my own scholarship and life, have tried to pull together, what I think I find helpful, to, in a concise way, which is really hard to do, and a concise way offer a definition, I, at least, find helpful.

So, here goes. This is how I define love. To love, is to act intentionally, in sympathetic or empathetic response to others [including God], to promote overall well-being, and there’s actually a book that I wrote, few years ago, that explores some of this in more detail. I want to, I see some of you, writing this down, I’m gonna talk about each phrase, individually. So, if you don’t get it here, you’re gonna get it in the next few slides. So, what do I mean by saying, love involves acting intentionally? Well, first of all, I don’t think we ought to call accidental things, acts of love.

As my previous illustration suggested, if I try to do harm to somebody, and I accidentally end up, doing well, that doesn’t seem to be an act of love, or, even if I’m not trying to do harm, but, just some luck, or chance events, ends up promoting overall well-being, I don’t think we ought to say, well, that’s obviously an act of love. Now, there’s some people, have some views of divine action, who will say that there are no chance and luck things, and God must have done that. I’m not in that camp. I think there is real luck and randomness in the world, so, when I think about the accidents, that bring about positive results, I don’t wanna call those things, loving. I think, oops.

We lost you for a second.

Alrighty.

Coming back.

I think, motives matter. I think our motives, consequences do matter, but our motives ought to be for good consequences, and so, when we think about ethics, and we think about, what we think is loving, we ought to ask the question, what did the person intend? What was the person’s motives? So, when I talk about loving, as acting intentionally, I want to include the motive aspect. Third, and this is a little more hidden in this particular phrase, I think love involves some measure of freedom. I call it limited freedom.

I don’t think we’re free to do absolutely anything, but, those of you who know the philosophical traditions, I’m a libertarian, in that sense. I think that we generally choose, amongst options. I’m not a libertarian in the political sense, but I’m [chuckling] a libertarian in the philosophical sense. We choose amongst real options, but those options are always limited, always limited by our background, our culture, our community, our biology, our histories, our personalities, and yet, none the less, we have some choices.

So, love is not forced, it’s not coerced, there’s some options at play, even for God, I believe. This particular lecture, I’m not gonna talk a lot about a divine love, we’ll have some time for questions, if you wanna ask me about those, I can do that, but, I think, even God’s love, is limited, in some ways, but God’s, I mean, I’m sorry, God’s freedom is limited in some ways. God’s love is unlimited, in the sense that God loves everyone, but God’s freedom is even limited, in some ways. There’s some things, God can’t do, because to do them, would be, being un-divine. Let’s see, see if I can remember the fourth thing, I was gonna say, ah, motive– [mumbling] Oh, cool. Excellent. Good timing.

Ah, there we go. Some folks, when they see me, talk about, or hear me talk about love is action, they say, yeah, but, how do you understand prayer, then, or meditation? No one’s acting, when they meditate, or when they pray, and I say, no, I think that is real action. It may not be bodily movement, but our thoughts, thinking good thoughts, those kinds of things, are real actions, even if we don’t necessarily see something happen, through bodily movements. So, those are some of the things, I had in mind, by talking about that first phrase, that love involves acting intentionally.

The second phrase, in sympathetic or empathetic response to God, including others, is a strong emphasis upon the relationality, I think, is inherent in love. We are inter-related. Who I am, is partly determined by who you are, and who my surroundings are, not entirely determined, but partly. We are relational beings, and love is a relational activity. Now, when I first started constructing this particular definition, I used the word sympathy, exclusively. I’ve been trained in philosophy of religion, and in philosophy, the word, sympathy, at least in some of the American philosophers, has a connotation of feeling with, sym-pathy, feeling with, but when I threw out this definition to some of my psychologist friends, they were, like, oh no, sympathy is not the right word, because, for them, sympathy meant pity, and so, they said, what you really mean, is empathy, and I thought to myself, well, you know, what philosophers mean by sympathy, you’re saying is empathy, and so, it doesn’t matter to me, which one you like better.

I’m using these words, interchangeably. Sympathy and empathy, those things have some sort of emotional response. There is, oftentimes, a great deal of emotion involved in love. It doesn’t have to necessarily be so, but, oftentimes, there’s a great deal of emotion. Some of you’ve done more work in research on the emotions of love, that I have, and can speak much more eloquently on this, but I’m a person, who thinks that there’s oftentimes deep levels of emotion, and different kinds of emotions. Sometimes, however, emotions are fairly minimal, and they may not be directly related to the particular subject, at hand.

We seem to be emotional beings, at our core, even some of those of us, who have brain damage and don’t have the same kind of emotions as other people, there’s still some emotionality, and this particular part of the phrase, is intended to account for the emotions, inherent in love. And then, finally, I think love requires divine action. I don’t think you have to believe in God, to love, but because I think God is omnipresent, and the source of all love, even those who don’t believe in God, are inspired to love, unconsciously, because God is active in their life.

I think, all events begin with God’s, what we say in my Wesleyan tradition, prevenient grace. God acts first, we can respond, but we rely upon God’s loving presence to empower us to respond, and therefor, our love requires God’s initial action. Because God is faithful and loving, God will always provide that empowering action for our response, but we are, to use Schleiermacher’s phrase, we are utterly dependent upon God for our love. So, those are some of the things, I have in mind for the second part of my definition. And then, finally, the last part of my definition, involves promoting overall well-being.

When I talk about overall well-being, I have in mind, this genual notion of the common good, the ethicists oftentimes talk about. One of my colleagues, who’s actually here, Jo Banker and I, oftentimes discuss this, whether or not, this has to be a utilitarian kind of notion, this emphasis upon overall, strike some philosophers as utilitarian ethics. I’m not a utilitarian ethicist, although I do find some things valuable, about utilitarian ethics. I think, some of the problems with utilitarianism, has to do with being able to assess, or discern how you get the greatest good, for the greatest number, but also, some of them have to do with the inter-relationality. It’s hard to discern, how the relationships will end up, affecting one person or another.

Finally, I think that there are, probably, some fundamental or basic rights, that we all have, that have to be preserved, or upheld, when we try to understand, what it means to promote overall well-being. But what I like about the utilitarian aspect, is that utilitarian ethics asked us to think about the big picture. Utilitarian ethics ask us to talk about the common good, the overall well-being, and sometimes, when we think about love, we’re so focused on the one individual, that we’re doing good for the one, at the expense of the many, and that is what I call, unjust, and the justice issue, as all see, I think, in a moment, here, is really important.

The other aspect about the word, overall, in well-being, is that, oftentimes, people think that love is always doing something for somebody else, but I think there’s a healthy sense of self-love. I teach a class on love, every semester, at my university, and in the first day, I ask them to give me their definitions of love, to see where they’re at, and almost everybody says, well, love is doing something for the other, or desiring the other, and I say, well, what about the self, is there any possibility you can do for yourself, and that be genuinely be loving?

Now, those of you who know the Christian tradition, know there’s been a debate on that. I’m in the camp that says, yip, you can love yourself, in fact, you ought to love yourself, because God loves you, and this emphasis upon overall well-being, is to try to include this aspect of self-love, as well. Then, here’s the justice issue, as well. I think, it’s important for us, to understand our acts in the world, as having some sort of contribution and affecting the whole.

Actually, Nick Wolterstorff has written a nice book, here, recently, on this relationship between justice and love. I think, justice, here I’m not using it in the retributive kind of way, the idea of eye for eye, you do this, I’m gonna get back, revenge in some way. Justice, here, is this idea that we need to think about the whole. We need to distribute the goods to as many as possible, as we try to think about what the loving act is. And that’s hard. It’s really hard.

I’ve got three daughters, that were going into, actually, my youngest is gonna be in college, next year, my middle daughter’s in college, and my oldest daughter’s in grad school. I’m paying big bucks, for them to go to school, right? [audience laughing] And, it’s difficult, to know, what’s the most just thing to do, when there’s other people in this world, who could use that money, for probably even more basic things. Why would I give a bunch of money to my kids, and not use that same money, other places?

Those are difficult questions, and actually, I’m gonna talk a little bit about that more, in a second, here. But, that’s the kinds of questions that we have to ask each other, when we’re talking about promoting overall well-being. Okay, so, that’s answering the first part of it, the essential aspects of love, my definition of love. Now, I want to move on to the different forms of love, and here, when I talk about forms of love, I’m talking about all kinds of forms, but I wanna begin with the ones, that philosophers oftentimes focus on, the three Greek words, agape, eros and phileo. Now, I think of each of these words, as particular ways to think about love, not in opposition, or alternatives to love.

For instance, I’m not of the opinion that we ought to call Christian love, agape, and secular love, eros, or something like that. I want to provide a definition of love, and then, underneath that, those things that we think, are forms of love, have to adhere to the definition. So, that means, as I look at Scripture, and the way that the word, agape, is used, I find, boy, Scripture doesn’t have one way to talk about agape. It’s all over the board, and the writers of Scripture used the word, agape, in a lot of ways. John tells us, God loved the world so much, that He gave His Son, which sounds like an awfully good thing to do.

Love, there, is agape. Paul writes, in one of his letters to Demas, don’t love the world. Agape is the same word, there, and yet, in one instance, loving the world is good, in another instance, loving the world is bad. Agape doesn’t have a uniform definition in Scripture. So, that means, I have to ask myself, okay, what do I think, are kind of the major ways, that agape is used? What are the instances in Scripture, which I find most common, and so, as a form of love, I define agape in this way, agape is a form of love that promotes overall well-being, like all forms of love do, according to my definition, when responding to activity that generates ill-being.

So, something bad happens, I respond, by promoting overall well-being. I don’t take revenge. It might be an act of forgiveness, it might be an act of reconstruction. I like to call it, in spite of love. In spite of what happened, to me, or to others, that’s difficult, that’s bad, I’m going to do good, I am going to repay the evil, done, with something good. That’s how I understand agape. In spite of the bad, I will do the good.

Eros, then, is similarly defined, as another form of love, that promotes overall well-being, but here, appropriating the way eros is oftentimes used in the literature, as pertaining to value, or beauty, eros is a form of love, that promotes overall well-being when appreciating or seeking to enhance beauty or value, or, as I like to say it, it’s because of love. There’s something about you, or, that thing, or, what’s going on, that I find attractive, that I find helpful, interesting, beautiful, valuable, so, I appreciate that. I appreciate that value, and I can enhance that value, in my response, to promoting well-being.

So, eros is because of love. In spite of love, for agape, because of love, for eros. And then, the third form of love, phileo, because, again, it’s another form of love. It’s going to share, in common, the idea, that it promotes overall well-being, but it does so, by seeking to develop cooperation, friendship, or solidarity. It’s “alongside of” love, to use my little pet phrase again. It joins with others, to do what’s good. Now, each of these loves, are oftentimes intermingled, intermixed. One might predominate.

When my daughter comes in, at three o’clock in the morning, and I’m not really happy with her, I’m going to love her with agape, by repaying evil with good, but I’m also someone, who has phileo, that I wanna join with her. We’re part of a family, and we wanna, I’ll frame it in the sense of, this is who we are, and we wanna be the kind of people who do good in the world, to each other, and as a unit, and, of course, that I find value in my daughter, and I appreciate that, and I want to enhance that, for her own good. So, these aren’t like, totally separated, kinds of loves, but sometimes, one predominates.

When someone does something harmful to me, it’s agape, that’s probably the one, that I’m thinking about, most. I’m going to try to repay this evil, with something good. Finally, I guess there’s a couple more slides. I wanna end, though, in talking about other forms of love. Love takes many, many, many different forms. Love is a many splendored thing. Stephen Post, whom you’ll hear later on, in one of the lectures, has written an awful lot of good things about love. This particular book, here, Why Good Things Happen to Good People, is one of my favorites, because, in this book, Stephen has eight or 10 chapters, in which he talks about particular ways love is expressed, particular forms of love, and I’m not gonna be able to go through all those, if you wanna talk to him about those, he’s sitting over here, if you haven’t met him, yet, but that’s a really good book to think about practical ways, or forms of love, expressed in the world.

One of the most important ones, is the form of love, compassion. Now, notice, I’m saying this is a form of love. I actually believe that compassion, in and of itself, doesn’t have to be loving. You can have feelings of compassion, without actually, then, responding, by doing something good. That passage in James, that I quoted earlier, James says, when you see someone in need, and you see that, and you say, go on your own way, you’re not actually helping them, that might be a compassionate feeling, you see they’re in a horrible situation, and you feel bad, but you just don’t do anything about it. That can be compassion, that isn’t really love.

Lynn Underwood expresses this in a few paragraphs, really well, in the book she edited, The Science of Compassion and Love, that compassion, in and of itself, is not necessarily love, but it, oftentimes, leads to love, because of the motives involved. Another form of love, is romance and sex. My particular theological tradition has a fairly conservative stance on the world, and most of the time, when I hear sermons on love, the preacher begins by saying, God’s love is different from sexual love, and they end up, sounding as if sex and romance are bad things, at the end of the day. I think, sex and romance are not, in and of themselves, loving, I can think of sex that is unloving, but, they’re also, sometimes, profound, deep, incredible expressions of love, and I think, the literature needs to, we, who are theists, who believe that sexual and romantic love is important, need to do a better job of articulating that, in ways that can help the larger community, whereas Jeanne Ron’s book does that in a few chapters, really well. Forgiveness.

Forgiveness doesn’t necessarily involve love. It oftentimes does, but forgiveness is a powerful form of love, when it becomes agape, repaying evil with good, turning the other cheek. There’s sometimes, in which forgiveness can not be, it doesn’t promote overall well-being, We can forgive with the wrong motives in mind. Maybe, we forgive, simply because we just don’t want to have to face criticism, again, or, we’re afraid to stand up to oppression and those who have abused us, but forgiveness can be a powerful form of love. Self-sacrifice, may, or may not, be a form of love.

Oftentimes it is, but sometimes people self-sacrifice for the wrong reasons. Couple of books, here, that talk about this. Eric’s here. In his particular book, he talks about how loving others can be good for ourselves. Love can be special, as well. Thomas Aquinas talks about this. We can express particular kinds of love, for those we feel special obligations toward. This is what I tell myself, when I write the big cheques for my daughters, when they’re in school. I say, okay, I made a decision to have sex with my wife, a long time ago [laughing] to raise this family.

Now I have certain obligations, to try to treat them well in the world, and still, it’s not easy for me to know, exactly how much money I ought to spend on my kids, in stead of some other kids, in some part of the world, that have greater needs, but that’s part of what it means to try to understand my obligations, my responsibilities, given my past actions, decisions and goals. And then, finally, I have not talked any, in this particular lecture, about what it means to become a loving person. I’ve talked about love, primarily, in terms of acts, in and of themselves, but I think, these kinds of acts, done repeatedly, begins to shape character, begins to develop habits in us, that then, makes us certain kinds of people. Again, in my tradition, this is called, having Christ-like character.

Becoming like Jesus Christ, means, having certain dispositions, certain ways of living in the world, that shape who I am, and being that loving person, no matter if it’s a Christian tradition, or other traditions, that can occur, because we, repeatedly, intentionally, respond to others, because God has inspired us, to promote overall well-being. So, the summary of that, is, love takes many forms. All forms of love involve acting intentionally, in response to others [including God], to promote overall well-being.

We become loving people [love more consistently] with habits of love when we repeatedly choose to love, and various practices, rituals, and communities, incline us toward becoming loving people. That ended up, about the exact link, that I wanted to. We got about 10 minutes for Q&A, right? Excellent. Questions. [mumbling] Ah, let’s see. Yes, I can. Yeah. Yes. [mumbling] Sure. [mumbling]

Man: A little bit about, what it is, for someone to love an individual. What is it, for me, to love my wife?

What is it, when you mean, can you be a little more specific, like–

So–

What does it involve, or– [mumbling] Yeah. [mumbling] Gotcha. Yeah. [mumbling] Yeah. So, by others, I mean, to overall, is the word I use, there. I think love is almost always, individual, or local, or, group-related. When I say, it’s really hard for me to say, I’m loving all universe, simultaneously, in one particular act. Now, I want to take into account, as best I can, the widest array of factors, that I know about, when I make this decision, but when I love my wife, I do specific things for her, right, and those, sometimes, involve the three forms of love, I have up here, right.

My wife is my best friend, so, it’s really easy for me to talk about phileo love. I think, there’s a lot of valuable things about my wife, so, eros is there. Sometimes my wife does things to me, that aren’t very nice. She’s not perfect. [chuckling] Maybe some of you have perfect spouses, I don’t have one. [laughing] I’m not always perfect to my wife. So, in those instances, I have to repay, what I think is evil, with good, and that, the particular ways, those are expressed, they’re just all over the board. [mumbling] Yeah. [mumbling] Empathy– [mumbling] Well, what I’m saying, is it, when I act for my wife, her good, I also, probably, need to account for the wider community, that I have.

There’re may be some instances, in which I am not loving toward the whole, because I do too much for my wife, so, I have to think about, you know, you can imagine a scenario, in which a husband neglects his children, because he spends all of his time on his wife. He’s not taking into account, the whole of the family, in that instance. So, that’s what I mean, by talking about the overall well-being. Again, you can’t, in my view, epistemically, you can’t be able to, can’t gage all of the factors, but you are responsible, for trying to take into account as much as you can. Thanks. Yes, Steven. [mumbling] Oh, thank you. [mumbling]

Steven: I’m a simple-minded guy.

No, you’re not, Steven, [laughing]

Steven: I wanna try something [mumbling]

Okay.

Steven: The meaning of love, [mumbling]

Yeah, I like that– [mumbling] I like that, I like that, a lot, and it’s easier to see, in person, kind-of relationships, I think, than others. I, actually, want my definition to be so broad, as to also include, acting for the well-being of non-humans. So, for instance, I don’t think the well-being of my poodle is on the same par, as mine. However, I think my poodle does have a well-being, and I act for the well-being of my poodle, but there’s sometimes, I impose certain sacrifices on my poodle, for my well-being [chuckling], especially in the middle of the night, when she wants to go outside, and I’m tired. [laughing] So, I do think, there’s something powerful, there.

You’re looking at the other, and you’re seeing value in them, and you acting for that, but there’re maybe some creatures on this planet, whom I think, have genuine intrinsic value, but I’m willing to override their well-being, for my well-being, because I think it promotes overall well-being. I, especially, do that with mosquitoes. [chuckling] [mumbling] I think so, [mumbling]

At least, yeah. [mumbling] All of society may not directly benefit, but I think it does have a ripple effect. [mumbling] Yeah, great comment, thanks. Yes. [mumbling] Yeah. [mumbling] Okay, I was hoping you’re gonna go there, yeah. [chuckling] [mumbling] I think so. [mumbling] And I think, my response would be, there’s still a measure of intentionality, there, but it’s not, sort of, very deliberate, what should I do in this moment, kind of a thing.

Actually, my eschatology suggest that, we can develop to a place where our characters are such, which we can, intentionally, choose love, far into eternity, but, that’s a whole another discussion. [chuckling] I, actually saw this hand, and then I’ll come over to you, Steve, and then Bob. Did you have your hand, no, no– [mumbling] Okay, was that the same question, or–

Man: No, it’s different [mumbling] Okay. [mumbling] Excellent, yeah. [mumbling] Yeah, great question. Some people never unite them. They think love is, either, being self-sacrificial, I get nothing good out of it, or, it’s all about me. I have to love myself and then, only, can I love other persons. I don’t that like either, those alternatives. I think, it depends on what, overall, being requires in the particular situation. Sometimes, I’m self-sacrificial.

This morning, when I got up, I was brushing my teeth, I was acting for my own good, I mean, I guess I was worrying about you, smelling my breath, if it was too bad, but it was, mostly, for my own good. I was doing something, that would benefit me, and I felt no guilt, whatsoever, ’cause I was loving myself. So, there’s sometimes, which self-sacrifice is required, other times, I do things, primarily for my own good, and not anybody else’s, but often, those, acting for myself and for others, has mutual benefit, and so, it’s not a clear cut, you know, I get all the good, and nobody else does, or, they get all the good, and I don’t get any, kind of a thing. [mumbling] All right, I think saw Steve’s hand, next.

Man: Thanks Tom, I have a question, [mumbling]

It may not give you the direct help, you want. It gives you an overall framework. You have to say to yourself, what should I do, here, to promote overall well-being. You and Eric might come to different conclusions. [mumbling] It’s situational, in the sense, that the context matters, yes, but it’s not situational, in the sense that, it’s, whatever seems to work best in the situation, in sort of a relativism, but, my point is, that, this particular definition, people can affirm this definition, and have different views on abortion, or, we know, all kinds of, these kinds of debates, that we have.

The question is, how do you defend, whatever view you have on abortion, or you uncle, or whatever, in light of the question of, how does it promote overall well-being. That’s the issue. Great question. Thanks so much. [mumbling] [audience applauding]