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Wednesday, April 10, 2019

Love: the Basis of Everything;(expansion)

Image result for for God so loved the world

I don't feel very loving right now, but I don't have to feel any way to talk about love, because love is not merely a feeling. A lot of people think that love is just the special way of feeling about a person, or the warm fuzzy that comes from being with a certain person. Love is much more than just a special way of feeling. It is also a value, a commitment, a sense of orientation toward others, a philosophy, a way of being in the world (an existential engagement).

There are degrees of love and kinds of love. The Greeks called sexual and romantic love Eros From which we get our word "erotic." The kind of love friends feel they called Phileo or "brotherly love" (as in "Philadelphia"). The highest form of love they called Agape. That is usually the kind of love the Bible speaks of when it speaks of God's love for us. 1 John tells us "He who loves knows God for God is love."

Agape Means: the will to value the other, or the will to the good of the other; the desire for the other to have the best. It entails the idea of according the other all rights and human dignity. It is not personal, it's a commitment to all people. Agape is sometimes translated Charity (as in kJ trains 1 Corinthians 13 "if I speak with the tongue of men and of angles and have not charity") but this is more condescending and patronizing than the actual meaning of the term. Charity can be paternalistic in the negative sense, controlling, colonizing, derogatory. Agape is a totally positive thing; one must actually seek the good of the other whatever that may be, even against one's own interest.

Now I will start saying "crazy stuff," these are things that I have theorized about and I guess they make up the radical edge of my own philosophy because they have been scoffed at plenty of times on these boards. But I don't care I'm saying it anyway.


Basis of everything: connection with Being

When I say love is the basis of everything, I mean it really is. I believe that when the Bible says "God is love" it means it literally. In other words, we should put an "itself" there. God is "love itself,": the thing that love is actually the essence of what God is. Now you may ask how can God be both being itself and love itself? Because these two are inextricably bound up together.

Love is giving, the idea of seeking the good of the other, according the other full human dignity equal to one's own, these are ideas that entail give over, supplying the other with something. It's a positivity in the sense that it supplies an actual thing to someone. Being also shares these qualifies. Being is giving in the sense that it bettors itself upon the beings and they have their existence. It is positive in the sense that it is something and not taking something away, it's not a void as nothingness is, but moves in the direction of filling a void; nothingness becomes being, the existence of things.

So love and being are really the same impulse and they both unite in the spirit of God. God is the basis of all being, of all reality. God's character is love; that is God seeks the good of the other and bestows upon us the ultimate human dignity of being a child of God.

Motivating force behind creation 

Love is the basic motivating force behind creation. God's motive urge to create was not out of a need due to looniness, but out of a desire to create as an artist, and desire is fueled by love. Art is love, artists love art, as revolutionaries love. Revolutionaries are in love and their revolutions are often expressions of love, what He Che Guevara called "a strange kind of love, not to see more shiny factories but for people." So God creates as a need to bestow love, which entails the bestowing of being.

Now let's not have a bunch of lectures about "perfection" based upon not knowing what perfection is. Let's not have a bunch of Aristotle thrown in as though it were the Bible. There is no base line for comparison from which one can really make the judgment that need is imperfection; especially the sort of need one feels to be creative or to bestow love; that is a different sort of need than the need for food or shelter.

Basis of morality

Love is the basis of morality. Love is the background of the moral universe, as Joseph Fletcher said.[1] Agustin said it too.[2] That means all moral decisions are made with ultimate reference to God's love which is the driving force behind morality. Many people think Christian morality is about stopping impurity. These people regard sex as the greatest offense and think that basically sin = sex. But nothing is further from the truth. Sin is not sex, sin is an unloosing nature, or a selfish desire to act in an unloosing manner.

Love requires selfless giving over to the other for the good of the other. That means all moral actions must ultimately be evaluated with reference to their motivational properties. That's why Jesus spoke as he did in the sermon on the mount: if you hate you are a murderer. Because the motivation itself is the true essence of the sin, the rejecting of love and acceptance of self as the orbit creates the motive that eventually leads to the act. He is not saying that the actual sin is not sinful of course, but that the sin begins with the motive not just with the act. In that sense morality is somewhat teleological, although I normally eschew teleological ethics. I am not saying that the morality of a given act is based upon outcome, That is teleological  ethics and I don;t support that. I am a deontologist. but I do think there is a motivational basis to morality in that the good seeks good ends,


Augustine tells us "if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another. ..... Once for all, then, a short precept is given you: Love, and do what you will:..."[3]

Fletcher was abhorred as the shocking and sinful author of situation ethics, taken to be a wild eyed radical of the 60s I was introduced to the works of Fletcher in graduate school  as a serious theistic  who had the respect  of the academy, Fletcher argues that love is the requirement the one law, and that love and justice are not at odds,in fact he argues that justice is the distributive mechanism of love.The section in Satiation Ethics is labeled: love and justice are the same 87-89 "Justice is love distributed." He tells us  "Let us not forget that Agustin  for all his insistence upon the centrality of love was compelled to explain that love's administration needs more than good will and can be done only by a high degree of thoughtfulness and prudence"[4]  He goes on, "granting that Justice is giving to each man [person] what is his [/her] due...how are we tp chatelaine, weigh ,and distribute love's benefits among so many? As persons we are individuals in community, therefore loves outreach is many sided and wide aimed..."[5] I am amused by Fletcher's pithy  quote: "Love uses a shot gun not a rifle."[6]
While I don;t maintain that love and justice are the same thing I do think they are in service to ease other,



Notes

[1]Joseph Fletcher, Situation Ethics The New Morality. Louisville,London: John Knox Press, 1966 W. L. Jenkins
on google books:
https://books.google.com/books?id=Y4759nkMFq0C&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=true

[2] St Augustine, Homily 7, on 1 John,Translated by H. Browne. From Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, Vol. 7. Edited by Philip Schaff. (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1888.) Revised and edited for New Advent by Kevin Knight.

[3] Ibid

[4]  Fletcher, 87

[5] Ibid 89 
[6]Ibid 


13 comments:

  1. Our valuations are independent of God. We value love not because God is loving, even if God is the source or cause of our loving. God loves because to love is a good thing.

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  2. You make love sound like an insurance policy, it's not a pragmatic passionless decision, we don;t value love becasue it's "good." We measure good by its proximity to love because we thrive on loving and being loved.

    what is this good of which you speak? you can only reduce it to pragmatism or mystify it.

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  3. Despite your claims to have a philosophy of love, your obvious hatred shows that you don't live by the values that you espouse. You're not fooling anyone, Joe.

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  4. Why does God love? Aren't you just substituting "love" for "the good"? At some point, all metaethical questions ultimately must "reduce to pragmatism or mystification." You say that love and being are bound up closely together. Either you are subsuming being under the rubric of love or you must say that there is some greater value that unites love and being together.

    Why on earth wuold you think that the good has to be 'passionless'? We ought to be passionately committed to what's good.

    We value what we do independent of what GOd or anyone or anything else values. I know you're not saying we value love because God does. That's DCT. You're saying: "To love is the background of the moral law, or deeply implicated in the moral law, to love is God's character, therefore God is the background of the moral law." Even if any of that were true, which it isn't, it would have nothing to do with why we value what we value.

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  5. im-skeptical said...
    Despite your claims to have a philosophy of love, your obvious hatred shows that you don't live by the values that you espouse. You're not fooling anyone, Joe.

    Grow up Skep. Banned you for your behavior and attitudes not because I hate you.you
    are subverting intellectual discusssion

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  6. 7th Stooge said...
    Why does God love? Aren't you just substituting "love" for "the good"?

    what is good apart from agope? describe what good is.

    At some point, all metaethical questions ultimately must "reduce to pragmatism or mystification."

    I did not say that, you changed my words, good to meta ethical. Calling the good love is a metaethical move, I said you reduce morality to pragmatism or mystification I did not say metaethical

    You say that love and being are bound up closely together. Either you are subsuming being under the rubric of love or you must say that there is some greater value that unites love and being together.

    Not it;s an ontological statement not an axiological one. It's not a value,

    Why on earth would you think that the good has to be 'passionless'? We ought to be passionately committed to what's good.

    now you start down the path to remake love in a new package, it;s passionate desire for the good of the other that;s love,

    We value what we do independent of what GOd or anyone or anything else values. I know you're not saying we value love because God does. That's DCT. You're saying: "To love is the background of the moral law, or deeply implicated in the moral law, to love is God's character, therefore God is the background of the moral law." Even if any of that were true, which it isn't, it would have nothing to do with why we value what we value.

    you are reducing love to value, agape involves value but is not reduced to it, will to the good of the other, of course I have the problem of using the term:good so I have to define it more and not by just calling it love this is the explication of love.


    Love is the will to that which builds up and supports and secures the well being and of the other,

    even at that there is something irredeemable about love.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Grow up Skep. Banned you for your behavior and attitudes not because I hate you.you
    are subverting intellectual discusssion


    - How can there be a discussion if you don't allow me to comment? I told you many times I would never lower the level of discussion if you didn't do it first.

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  8. that is stupid, how can there be a discussion when you wont let one happen? that;s what you saying well now there will be because you wont be here.

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  9. Monday I am answering your comments on my TS argument.

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  10. what is good apart from agope? describe what good is.

    Your own definition of love presupposes some notion of the good, as in "willing the good of the other." So I could ask you the same question.

    At some point, all metaethical questions ultimately must "reduce to pragmatism or mystification."

    I did not say that, you changed my words, good to meta ethical. Calling the good love is a metaethical move, I said you reduce morality to pragmatism or mystification I did not say metaethical


    I didn't say you said it. I'm saying it. At some point you reach some ultimate value for which there's no further justification. So again, I ask you, Why does God love?

    You say that love and being are bound up closely together. Either you are subsuming being under the rubric of love or you must say that there is some greater value that unites love and being together.

    Not it;s an ontological statement not an axiological one. It's not a value,


    The statement that love and being are bound up together is an ontological one, not an axiological one? Alright, but does that mean that love and being are not good things to God? As in willing the good of the other?

    you are reducing love to value, agape involves value but is not reduced to it, will to the good of the other, of course I have the problem of using the term:good so I have to define it more and not by just calling it love this is the explication of love.

    You have a problem with identifying love as a value. Maybe the motivational aspect of the good? However you want to define it, my main point is that love is a good thing in itself and that we human beings can apprehend this intrinsic goodness not because love is a part of God's character but simply because of its intrinsic goodness, even if God is the necessary condition for any of this being possible in the first place.

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  11. Metawhat is good apart from agope? describe what good is.

    Your own definition of love presupposes some notion of the good, as in "willing the good of the other." So I could ask you the same question.

    I already dealt with that Jim:

    I said:"you are reducing love to value, agape involves value but is not reduced to it, will to the good of the other, of course I have the problem of using the term:good so I have to define it more and not by just calling it love this is the explication of love.

    Love is the will to that which builds up and supports and secures the well being and of the other,even at that there is something irredeemable about love.


    At some point, all metaethical questions ultimately must "reduce to pragmatism or mystification."

    I did not say that, you changed my words, good to meta ethical. Calling the good love is a metaethical move, I said you reduce morality to pragmatism or mystification I did not say metaethical

    I didn't say you said it. I'm saying it. At some point you reach some ultimate value for which there's no further justification. So again, I ask you, Why does God love?

    sorry


    You say that love and being are bound up closely together. Either you are subsuming being under the rubric of love or you must say that there is some greater value that unites love and being together.

    they both share the end-in-itself status n a metaphysical level


    Not it;s an ontological statement not an axiological one. It's not a value,

    The statement that love and being are bound up together is an ontological one, not an axiological one? Alright, but does that mean that love and being are not good things to God? As in willing the good of the other?

    Of course they are but the good stems fro the metaphysical reality of being itself,


    Metayou are reducing love to value, agape involves value but is not reduced to it, will to the good of the other, of course I have the problem of using the term:good so I have to define it more and not by just calling it love this is the explication of love.

    You have a problem with identifying love as a value. Maybe the motivational aspect of the good?

    I know love insoles value but it does not just reduce to a value it;s more than that, it's part of being itself



    However you want to define it, my main point is that love is a good thing in itself and that we human beings can apprehend this intrinsic goodness not because love is a part of God's character but simply because of its intrinsic goodness, even if God is the necessary condition for any of this being possible in the first place.

    being part of God's character stems from it's relation to being itself,

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  12. That's all interesting but it doesn't affect what I wrote. If God embraces love/being , he does so because of their intrinsic goodness, just as we do.

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  13. of course, He does for the nature of love itsekf and things lovedoe for you, which amours to "the good,"

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