About Agape and Eros (Carsten Johnson)

The Part of the Story You Were Never Told About Agape and Eros

By Carsten Johnsen

1982

Introduction

I must here refer briefly to something I boldly state (too boldly some might think) at the close of my book The Part of the Story You Were Never Told–ABOUT WOMEN. That book is a popular English version of my French dissertation, Essai sur l’Alterocentrisme contre l’Egocentrisme en tant que Motifs Fondamentaux du Caractere Humain (Universite de Montpellier, France, 1968). My last heading in that popular edition runs: “Love, Most Unlovingly Ushered into the Defendant’s Dock.” Few readers, I assume, would suspect that this announced any challenge to speak of, directed against Anders Nygren or any other student of fundamental motifs in modern theology or the ultra-modern history of ideas. What I gently wanted to introduce was a remarkable parallel between the peculiar kind of love characterizing the typical woman on the one hand, and that fabulous new concept of love launched by the New Testament with the new term, Agape, on the other hand.

I have already shown in my book, ABOUT WOMEN, how a popular tradition has distorted the real facts about the typical woman’s peculiar attitude toward love. The conventional trend has been to accuse feminine love of indulging in a sentimental wave of excited feelings. Women are believed to be particularly prone to abandon themselves to a mood of subjective fantasy, defying all sound sense and all sober-minded objective thinking. (The “objective thinkers,” you see, are supposed to be men.) The latter part of that book, ABOUT WOMEN, tries to find out whether that reputation, on either side, is fair or not. The data of the research undertaken demonstrate that it is alarmingly unfair, for sometimes it comes close to a case of actual libel. How could any researcher in the field of characterology fail to go against such unfairness? I made it a special point to correct that image of women in the popular mind. I had to demonstrate something striking regarding that fast-spreading myth about woman’s “lack of sound realism.” It is not substantiated by any documented fact produced by differential psychology or by common observation. It is only one in a whole series of misrepresentations regarding peculiar features of the feminine mind.

Besides, there was another capital reason urging me to give a closer study to those various allegations of “female inferiority” made in the past. Every one of those accusations against women of a lack of mental equilibrium seemed to constitute an implicit accusation against something infinitely greater and more far-reaching than the reputation of a wee human being. It inevitably turned into a case of libel against the greatest thing in the world. What has here been downrated in a shameful way is not only women’s elementary ability to love without making fools of themselves or do anything whatsoever without betraying their “lower rank,” intellectually speaking. No, in terms of my inquiry into the nature of a fundamental motif of goodness in God’s world as a whole, it seemed to cry out loud: “The entire Spirit of other-centeredness (alterocentricity) in this world of ours is bound to reveal itself as definitely inferior in logical respect! It is sadly deficient in realistic sense!”

And something seemed even worse by far than that negative reputation kept in reserve for alterocentricity. I had dared, from the beginning, to postulate an identity between that alterocentricity (other-centeredness) in the history of human culture and the great Agape– nothing less than that. So whatever qualities of basic goodness–in heaven and on earth–were heralded as characteristics of alterocentricity, should also apply to the heavenly love (God’s perfect Agape). On the other hand, if feminine alterocentricity (also called the Spirit of Motherliness) was proved to distinguish itself as a trend of sheer irrationality, then Agape must here be assumed to manifest the same features of “distinction.”

So don’t be surprised if I finished by asking myself this historic question: Did it ever happen in a circle of Christian theologians, in our modern Western world, with its notoriously increasing boldness, that a statement like the following was made, quite seriously? “Agape, the great love of God, according to the Gospel, is a fundamental motif we shall simply have to qualify as irrational; that is contrary to common sense reason (ratio).” Did you ever hear any contention of that kind? I assume you did. And now one further question, addressed to you and me: If that historic event ever happened to us, how did we react? Did we accept that sensational dogma of the utter irrationality of Agape as a tremendous revelation coming to us straight from heaven? Or did we geometricians reject it with forceful conviction?

In my personal case there ought to have been quite particular reasons why I should not have been immediately spellbound by such a philosophy about Agape. For was not this something dubiously similar to just that stereotype idea I had found and fought in the average public opinion in our culture about a “lack of rational grasp” in feminine minds? I am referring to the queer idea that women, as a characterological type– particularly women in love–are “definitely less rational,” “less objective,” “less logical” than men. Still I was fascinated, like so many other historians, by Nygren’s revolutionizing concept of Agape as the great “Irrational One.” But at least certain doubts began to bother my mind. They were bound to adopt this critical form: In our cultural milieu is there a general pattern of traditional thought-forms, turning us away from realism, a sort of sentimental romanticism making us terribly confused, even regarding the deepest character of God in heaven? And does an indulgence in that sentimentality drive even our best theologians, sometimes, into a veritable case of slander, more or less unwittingly launched against the most sublime concept of love ever known?

I am daring to establish a pattern of comparisons between what happens in the heart of a creature biologically endowed with the glorious assignment of being a mother, and what happens in the heart of One whom the Bible calls the eternal Father. So, in my turn, I am daring to pronounce definite things about Agape, the Incomparable One. But first now, a critical weighing of definite things others have pronounced.

Is It True That Agape Is Irrational Since It Loves the Unlovable?

One thing is undeniable. The very term “Agape” might seem to elicit notions of a certain enigma. Learned men down through the ages have observed, with increasing astonishment, the incredible peculiarities of Agape, the New Testament love concept. And what, precisely, was it that astonished a man like Nygren in his famous work on Agape? It was what he called Agape’s irrational character. So, without a doubt, this peculiarly biblical concept of love has met with a destiny quite similar to that of feminine love. Agape too is accused of being unreasonable, contrary to all common human sense. To me that means unrealistic, and unrealistic means contrary to realism. But what is the Bible’s idea about realism? The Bible too has a term exactly corresponding to that positive attitude we call realism. It is “the love of the truth.” And that is a term of dramatic momentum in New Testament theology. We shall pay closer attention to it later on.

Now, of course, the ingenious researchers of fundamental motifs in modern theology would hardly come right out and say that Agape is unrealistic (a category of love not including the love of the truth). That would sound too negative indeed. It might be interpreted almost as if they were placing Agape deliberately on the side of empty romanticism and sheer human fancy, rather than on the side of stern human realities. So they do their best to look at this “irrationality” of Agape in a way as generous and positive as ever possible. In this they are not unlike some close associates in modern philosophy, namely certain ultra-modern existentialists. For those too have developed a veritable art of acrobacy by which they manage to see something eminently positive and basically good in the totally absurd, rather than in what is rational and objective. Only at the moment when man makes that acrobatic leap right into the absolutely irrational, only then is he supposed to have a fair chance of reaching the sublime pinnacles of “God’s reason.”

Anyway, the fact we have to face is this: Some serious men of great erudition and tremendous prestige in the world of historical theology today tell us bluntly: God’s Agape is unreasonable. It is even a downright anti-reason type of love. In other words, the ideal of Christian love is simply hostile to common-sense reasoning, as this reasoning is found in ordinary human creatures. One argument presented by theologians in favor of that theory is the following: The prototypical Christian concept of love is absolutely “free” from anything you might suggest in terms of intelligent motivation. God loves what is inherently unloveable. There is no trace of intelligent reason for the fact that He undertakes to love man, “the absolutely unlovable one.” Is this rumor about the deepest essence of Christ’s love true or false? If it is a simple falsehood, then I can hardly think of any case of humanistic slander, directed against the nature of God, that would be a match for it. It is concerning this crucial matter that I want to here present a series of facts which might shed some new light on the topic. There seems to be a constant reappearance of new aspects to the old incredible story about the Maligned God. Here then I must first show you something of how the fundamental motif I have called “Other-Centeredness” is related to the more well-known concept of “Agape.”

The Other-Centeredness Motif Is Duly Christened, Thus Receiving Its Historic Name: Agape

This is a name with the solemn hush of eternity in it. That does not mean, necessarily, that it has impressed all people in the same solemn way. Some could think of peaks of love quite different from this. Typical humanists definitely do. Of course, there is some agreement among most men on one point: The supreme value in life is love. You need not even be a Christian in order to make a value statement of that kind. You will be generally accepted if you make any number of sweeping assertions to the effect that love is supreme. But what kind of love is one speaking about? How does this supreme thing manifest itself in human life?

Here, too, there may appear to be some fair agreement among most people. Love is undeniably one of the great emotions. So you will hazards run across any somewhat ordinary person who does not admit that some degree of feeling, to be sure, is involved in that strange thing called love. And who will contend that they are wrong in their anticipations? We have not, with this, said that love is exclusively a matter of emotions. That would not sound too consistent with the demand for totality in human life. And without totality, how could love be the great thing in life which outdoes all other thing? How could it be a quality of true spiritual value? So love must be something even going beyond the realms of pure emotion. It must be something else, as well. But my point so far is quite modest. Feelings must not be spurned either. Some trends of the great interior secrets of human life, you see, may think feelings are hardly worthy of being mentioned at all in a company as solemn and serious as that of philosophy and religion. To them emotions appear as something adapted to the level of “low-brows” only; in other words, absolutely beneath the dignity of thinking men, the philosophizing elite of spiritual “high-brows.”

Summing Up Some Human Interest Essentials of My Work: The Part of the Story You Were Never Told–About Women

Before we go to deeper study of the surprising role Agape was destined to play as a sort of “divine emotion,” and the unprecedented drama it was destined to provoke in our peculiar world at large, it would seem desirable to get one thing clearly established, as regards our own tiny world, a most curious microcosmos. I am speaking of the incredible creature who distinguishes himself–or herself–as visibly liable to experience life in terms of emotions. In my book, ABOUT WOMEN, I have already given a fairly unambiguous answer to the question of differential psychology. The emotional ones above all others in our company are: the typical child and the typical women. Together, as it were, they form a type I have termed the “other-centered.” The opposite type is the “self-centered,” finding its most extreme representatives in the adult and the male.

It was the fundamental motif of other-centeredness (altercentricity) which formed the particular object of my investigation. So I there concentrated my attention around the pattern of behavior particularly observed in children and women. As everybody knows, the child’s mind is simply overflowing with emotions. And one thing never fails to verify itself in the lives of genuine children. Their emotions hardly ever tend to be something they are secretive about. Children just are not ashamed of their emotions. On the contrary, they express them with great freedom and frankness. This is, in fact, an integrating part of the “incurably” childlike one, irrespective of age or sex. Of course, individual men may have emotions too, and even abandon themselves to them quite openly, but we are not speaking about individuals, we are speaking about types. There is no denying that it is preeminently women and children who appear overwhelmed by this dynamic urge outward, which is the dramatic result of their openness and the visible outlet of their alterocentric souls.

And what connection have I found then between other-centeredness and totality, harmonious wholeness in human life? A main point in my thesis, as I have propounded it from the beginning, has been that this exuberant openness toward the surrounding world, the world of the “other ones,” simply constitutes the medium–the only medium–through which totality and inner harmony can realize themselves in personal life. Without this elan alterocentrique, this turning outward to the values around you, you just cannot experience the marvel of becoming whole. This is, of course, also bound to apply as a prerequisite for the particular wonder the Bible refers to when it speaks about men being made whole again. Whole here means safe and sound.

Now you have every right to expect that I myself should give evidence of some elementary “wholeness” and “harmony” in the way I deal with these various aspects composing human life at its best. I, in my turn, must be balanced and all-embracing in my presentation. Accordingly, on the one hand I must wholeheartedly accept the strong feelings as something which might be assumed to find room in the generous heart of Agape. At the same time I must watch myself lest I commit an act of sabotage against the values inherent in logical reason, that other side of a whole man’s mind. Only a consistent realism of that impartial kind can safeguard the interests of perfect integrity, basing itself on conscientious efforts of objectivity and firm principle–qualities so indispensable for genuine research.

I am speaking about an objectivity and a firmness of principle which never feel in duty bound to sacrifice everything that is most human in our lives, including personal emotion. No, this must be an attachment to principle which announces, simply and joyfully, that now the ring of totality has been harmoniously closed; everything is in its right place. Here we must not fear to go contrary to men’s opinions. We should know that the living depths of sensitive human hearts the philosophizing theorist does not usually for one moment expect any intelligently controlled current of stern realism to emerge. But he may be disruptedly one-sided in his judgment. Deep feelings and keen thoughts may find the possibility of a perfect co-existence after all.

What Has Love Got to Do With Duty and Sound Reason?

This is not a question more frequently asked by women, but rather by men. What so many men in love expect from their mistresses is a soft cloud of ecstasies from which all realism is gracefully absent. So the question above is the rather irritated one popping up in men as soon as women manifest the “whimsical behavior” of raising questions of durability and well-ordered social arrangements and responsible traditions right in the midst of matters of romance. The fellow may be seized by panic at the very word of “responsibility,” and at the suggestion that such things as deeds and duties do exist at all. In all ages such apprehensions have caused men to be seized by panic and flee for their lives, rather than have a realistic encounter with any rules and regulations demanding implicit obedience. Here realism adopts, what appears to many a playboy, its most forbidding form. For now it is no longer a mere question of unconditional faithfulness to the full truth in a non-moral world of “pure” science. No, even personal obligations and religious imperatives insist on entering the scene. Disagreeable voices are suddenly heard, speaking about matters of law–in fact, even the Law.

Here is evidently one of the things we Western heirs of a pagan environment have more difficulty in swallowing than anything else. Let me warn you that you must count with one thing as fairly inevitable: The romantic-humanistic spirit of our pagan Occidental culture has accomplished a master stroke. Our vainglorious pride in a false erudition has played an incredible trick upon our modern human minds. It has conjured up the disruptive notion in our minds that life itself, as it were, has provided some sharp and unsurpassable border-line between what theoretical research deals with, and–on the other side of the water-tight bulkheads– a realm of reality having to do with man’s practical life only. Stern logical reason, one seems to pretend, should be reserved for the world of theoretical science. In man’s personal life as a religious being we think we have a right to assume the accommodating philosophy claiming that capricious feelings and all kinds of subjective moods should be permitted to have their sway. “So, at any cost, let us keep the realms strictly apart,” says modern man. “No promiscuity please!” This philosophy of separate realms is in full accordance, as I shall later show, with the tradition of Eros idealism.

How Could Love Ever Be Reasonable? Or: What Does Other-Centeredness Have to Do With Reasonability?

Let us try to face unflinchingly the full reality of a full world. That simply means: We must resolutely and radically turn our gaze toward the Heart above all hearts, the Center above all centers, the Spirituality above all spiritualities in human existence–nay, in existence as a whole–namely, Agape. If Agape is not the clue to a way out from our predicament and the fulfillment of our hopes for true enlightenment, then I do not know where to look for it. But if Agape is the great light, then the way to gain true knowledge about it must be the one valid for all responsible research. The researcher must proceed humbly and intelligently, conscientiously laying down one stone at a time.

But in my case then, it seems reasonable that I base my further study on the foundation I have found to be most firm in my previous studies regarding the emotions of the human heart and regarding the emotion above all emotions–that of love. Quite briefly I must then sum up the findings of my original piece of investigation regarding other-centeredness versus self-centeredness in the daily lives of common human beings like you and me. For statistical evidence, and for any details, the reader would have to go back to the mentioned work on WOMEN.

Here I shall only make some general statements about the main results of my study. Males are seen to be noticeably more egocentric in their all-around attitudes in life. Females are significantly more alterocentric. I have endeavored to explain, naturally and intelligently, why this had to be expected. I have established without a shadow of ambiguity the following phenomenon of simple biology: The irresistible forces of simple MOTHERLINESS exert a transforming influence on all aspects of a woman’s love. This transformation then is not limited to her affection for her child. Such a limitation would be simply impracticable. The out-stretched arms of alterocentricity are bound to reach out much farther than that. Her love for her mate, as well, is seen to adopt an amazingly alterocentric form. The same applies to her love for any object in that curious world she knows as her own.

The transformation of sexual love I am here speaking about is nothing short of a triumphant victory– in the wider world of fundamental motifs, spiritually considered–over what is typically superficial and ephemeral in any domain of human existence. It means a decisive victory over any “laisser-aller” mentality that would turn out to be catastrophic if it were not held in check, on the arena of life, by the controlling forces of true alterocentric love. Any indulgence in self means, in the last analysis, a simple disaster, biologically as well as spiritually. The Christian Agape teachings penetrating the entire Bible, never tire of warning man against the cataclysmic downhill coasting inherent in all Eros trends.

Just Why Are Women Less Egocentric Than Men?

Now why, then, do women, more easily than men, manage to be other-centered, i.e., to place the center of their lives outside themselves? I have sought to present a plausible reason, which we may all accept as logical, for this fact. The commanding reality behind a woman’s greater alterocentricity is evident enough. Her biological assignment is to bear children, and to care for them in such a way that they may become fully developed human beings. Those maternal tasks so naturally assigned to her, help her–or in a way they constrain her–to be other-centered; that is, to find her main values outside herself–in “the others.” So alterocentricity has graciously enriched a woman’s life with an urgent desire to devote herself to the service of others, sometimes actually to sacrifice herself entirely for their benefit. That urge of devotion and sacrifice is, of course, bound to reveal itself as a mighty and most lucky check on all egocentricity, otherwise so natural to human beings in their present degraded state of mind and heart. Thus, it also happens that where special delicacy and careful insight is needed for the treatment of fellow creatures who are not so lucky, it is often women who are there, right on the spot, ready to help out.

Then we also better understand how it comes to pass that over-excitement, and the natural tendency to indulge in such excitement, which certainly is not a lesser temptation in women than in men, here suddenly find an efficient corrective. They find it in women, not so easily in men. Men have a demonstrably greater tendency to indulge in such excitements. Abandoning oneself to excitements is a phenomenon of passivity. It is a passion. The passive and the passionate are closely related. Even in quite linguistic respect that is evident. “Pati” is the Latin verb at the basis of both of them. That means to suffer; that is, to suffer things to be done to you, by others; in other words, refraining from activity yourself. The introvert, egocentric type of person has always had that tendency. Activity is a typically alterocentric characteristic, and therefore more a feminine than a masculine trend; the very opposite of what is commonly assumed!

But what I here particularly want to point out is the fact that the unfortunate effects of that supersensitivity to which women are more prone than men, mentally as well as physically, finds an efficient corrective in the very fact that they are so significantly more other-centered, and therefore tend to turn so easily outward, finding their natural outlet in activity. Thus they also have more of a natural protection against irrealism. That lack of well-balanced realism is always a greater temptation to the introvert than to the extrovert person. In fact, we are all, of course, more or less inclined sometimes toward ideas of illusionism during periods of inactivity and stagnation. And now, what would be the natural influence of exuberant emotions? Under otherwise equal circumstances, women’s definitely greater sensitivity ought to make it particularly difficult for them to be realistic. But what happens? Now that natural inclination is significantly held in check by something else–precisely that incredible degree of other-centeredness inherent in the feminine mind. Is this congenital gift of the “corrective” something important in the household of human minds? Yes, for the woman who is blessed with it, that “pilot,” or “homing instinct,” is not only important; it is an imperious need, a necessity. It gives her a moral balance she depends on desperately as a good mother. Eros, if he had his way, would destroy women’s ability to be good mothers, thus preventing them from having an immense share in the salvation of mankind.

From the general history of ideas, as well as from the lives of human individuals, we know only too well the dangers of introversion, the tendency to lose oneself in oneself. That unfortunate trend is an indwelling element in the classical Eros, Agape’s mortal enemy. Eros, you see, is the anti-life trend of shying away from all active endeavor and from every concrete sense of moral duty. Eros has a pronounced negative attitude toward everything that is really sober-minded and affirmative in life, everything that is realistic and truth-loving.

What Makes Man’s Contemplation of Beauty Erotic Instead of Agapeic?

I have described this particular deficiency in the ego-centric Eros as it manifests itself in the relations between the sexes and also in cultural life as a whole. There is, in Eros, an impulse carried off on a wave of esthetic passion, some sort of inward intoxication experienced in front of beauty, quite secularly speaking. True, all real beauty has been created by God. That is Christianity’s self-evident way of interpreting the esthetic. Yet, another truth also has to be admitted: A one-sidedly egocentric (self-centered) contemplation of that beauty (in terms of a spellbound fixation) leads into zones of serious danger. The danger consists precisely in the super-individualistic manner in which one may approach the beautiful. For what is it, actually, the beauty-admirer runs a heavy risk of being exposed to at the moment when he abandons himself, without any sound constraint, to a more or less passive and self-centered enjoyment of beauty-not for beauty’s sake even, but rather for the beauty-enjoyer’s sake? The imminent risk is that what is called love may turn out to be just an ephemeral incident in the lover’s life. This is the typical male’s particular temptation.

Matters are essentially different in the case of the prototypical female human being. She owes that difference, not to her own special accomplishments in forming her own character, no, she owes it to the fact of her being a woman; that is, a potential mother. So, of course, she has nothing to boast of, in terms of individual merit. But notice at the same time, the fact of her tremendous asset as a woman does not become less admirable for that matter. There something we can observe happening again and again in the case of maternal love, or any love flaring up in the heart of a typical woman. The pattern of behavior turns out to be different from what was expected. Love is not an ephemeral incident, a casual episode in that woman’s life. No, it gradually becomes woven, as it were, into the very web of her life as a whole. It becomes a profound and indissoluble human reality. It is the secret instinct of a purposeful motherliness that affords a constant protection for her life, a protection from having love disintegrate into the mere flight of a butterfly fluttering capriciously from flower to flower. Potential maternity is the inherent grace in her life that whispers to her, as it were, words of anti-playboy wisdom, words of carefulness and care, words of sound everyday reason.

Again I must remind you, there is no ground for boasting here. A woman would be foolish to become personally proud of that buoyant extrovert trend which comes to her rescue right in the midst of her natural super-sensitivity. Alterocentricity, with her, is an inborn endowment. She was created to be a mother. This biological fact is, in itself, capable of holding in check considerable drives of light-minded passion. It is not through sophisticated training in some super-academic institution of modern learning that women have acquired the wisdom of those anti-Eros attitudes. No, it is by inspiration and grace they have learnt to place the center of their lives outside themselves, thus riveting their values firmly in something greater than themselves.

Here is the great law of life for any person: He will experience wholeness and harmony, fulfillment and true felicity in the same degree as he is able to find his main values outside himself. That rule, by the way, holds good, regardless of sex or age. The only condition is that the person be willing to give up himself as the great center. He must submit to the great elan alterocentrique, the mysterious spirit of motherliness, or, as we might as well say, the great Spirit of Fatherliness! For true alterocentricity corresponds exactly to the heavenly Agape in every respect. We may, of course, distinguish here, saying: Other-centeredness is, on the biological plane, a faithful type of what Agape is on the religious plane. But what is Bios? Life is simply Jesus Christ. This applies to true life, wherever you turn. He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. There is no life outside of Him.

What criterion is there then, testifying with certainty that the Spirit of Agape is operative in a human being? The practical proof is to be found in the active outreach for the other ones; so the very opposite of sentimental introversion, passive rumination of mystic self-absorption. The elan alterocentrique means a dynamic launching out for new shores of exciting reality. And it is not merely the person’s literal arms that stretch themselves out. It is his (or her!) deepest being, the reasoning mind as well as the longing heart. It is man as an integrating whole who manifests, in deed and docility, his firm determination to orient his life in the direction of the “other ones.” Above all, his orientation will be toward the great OTHER ONE. That is God. Here is the Center above all centers. When Christ becomes the governing reality outside man, irresistibly, he is pulled toward that greatest of all outside realities. At the same time, the miracle above all miracles takes place. Disrupted man is made whole. How? By the very fact of turning outward; that is, by obtaining a new Center for his life. The great MAGNET of the uplifted cross (John 12:32) is what makes the ensuing movement, not only a movement outward, but also a movement upward.

This general pattern of behavior manifested in the alterocentric unfolding of love, just could not be limited to the potentials inherent in one single sex. It could not possibly be limited to the potentials inherent in a certain age either. Alterocentricity is bound to be a universal force. I am convinced that this is also the only force endowed with sufficient dynamic outburst to pull the arche-typical humanist away from the blind alley in which his onesidedness has too often left him. I am referring again to that onesided contemplation of “pure beauty,” in the typical Eros sense, disengaged and disrupted. I do not hesitate to call that a “blind alley.” It is the deadend street in which a human person tends to get stuck. For this infatuated contemplation of “pure” beauty is in reality nothing but a blind stare at utter vanity, a nonentity that is ten times worse than nothing, accurately speaking, because it boasts of being something. Here again is a manifestation of the fata morgana of spiritualism in its most insidious form. It is the mirage of an empty Oriental nirvana dream, appearing today in an Occidental disguise. It is a non-stop seance of “transcendental meditation,” establishing its present center in the Western World, after having filled Eastern hearts with nothingness for millennia.

I shall soon demonstrate, on a firm ground of conscientious research backing, what essential features TM has in common with Eros. But, so far, we must first have a firmer ground to stand on regarding the relationship between other-centeredness, as a biological core quality, and the New Testament Agape.

Does a Woman Love in a Way Men Do Not Know?

What, precisely, does Agape have in common with the spirit of motherliness? Of course, today, in our human world, maternal love can only provide a weak and most imperfect picture of Agape, the resplendent source of heavenly light, emanating from the glorious Love of the Eternal One. But the essential effect is always the same. In both cases there is a practical trend of thorough transformation taking place. Right into a woman’s love for her mate there is bound to enter a considerable element of her peculiar love for her child. The alterocentric pull–or rather pushing and lifting, since the trend is outwards and upwards–will always assert itself as a standard phenomenon in a woman’s affection for those to whom she devotes her life. The other-centered urge is unmistakable: With quite a particular ardor of self-forgetfulness, her yearning heart reaches out for the persons who need her most, or for whom she has already got into the process of sacrificing herself.

These outward-pressing qualities are of the greatest significance: for they guarantee the excellence of love in two respects. They assure that her love will be deep. They also assure that it will be lasting. Could you think of any more decisive qualities in love than those two–depth and durability? Notice, however, that usually those two qualities are the ones women are constantly accused of not having, for they are known to be dominated by a fluctuating sanguine temperament. The sanguine is, as a type, just superficial, lacking in both depth and endurance. Of course, some women may also tend to possess a rather melancholic temperament. That is looked down upon by men still more, if possible. They find it weak and “sissy-like.” Let us admit one thing: naturally women seem, a priori, doomed to lack qualities considered indispensable for strength of character.

But, my point is precisely this: whatever the deficiency in women, as a type, may be, the other-centered in their motherliness instinct will unfailingly be there, right on the spot, coming to their rescue, securing a wonderful balance, an indispensable correction. They just turn outward, and safety is suddenly secured. How does women’s natural urge outwards manifest itself? It must express itself in some kind of outward action. And what is the effect of action? What does that outward expression of the inward contents invariably imply? If you unfold your inward feelings, or anything that is in you, then that inward thing, in its turn, will only become more and more intense, more and more strong and lasting all the time. That is the unfailing law governing any inward state of mind at the moment when it is given a practical unfolding in the surrounding world. The feeling or thought, or whatever it may be, there in the deep interior will immediately grow only deeper and more durable through its own exercise.

Now, in the case of women’s love, we have to do with an outward act of strong devotion to the urgent needs of the other ones. That very act of self-sacrifice through which the love in their hearts expresses itself, or projects itself outwards, causes the inward sentiment to become profound and lasting. Every single act of love, by which that love is allowed to find its object, will prove to be a stabilizing and perpetuating factor. To “objectify” one’s love, in accordance with such an alterocentric pattern, is then certainly not an unworthy or despicable maneuver. Just drop all your fears and all your idealistic hesitations on that score. If you fancy that you are coming closer to the divine Agape in the same degree as you manage to abstract your love, making it “independent of any reality outside itself,” you are sadly mistaken. That is the tragic, age-old mistake of spiritualism, the great illusion of the Platonic Eros.

By the way, this has been the perilous tradition in both Western and Eastern philosophy. Philosophers, by and large, have had the unfortunate tendency to entertain a sort of “instinctive” depreciation of women. Why? Precisely because those “less philosophical creatures” were constantly observed to tend toward a materialization, in this external world of practical deeds, of values the philosopher only knows as something potential and theoretical, deep down in the hidden corners of his speculative mind. No greater sin, he thinks, could ever happen to realistic nature. For, according to the philosophizing theorist, all interior realities had better stay where they are, namely in that frozen state of theoretical possibilities–“in potentia,” not “in actu,” as the Aristotelian disciple would have put it. But remember, external inactivity kills the life of the internal as well. Nothing but death, external and internal, can be the result of self-centeredness.

What do those theorists imagine that they are going to achieve by reducing even their love life to a mere abstraction? Do they realize what is bound to happen if they succeed in disengaging even their love from all practical purposes and all external manifestations? Love will die out. It will suffer the death of simple suffocation. Of course it will never happen that modern alchemists of that lugubrious race will manage to keep Agape locked up in such a way; that is, cut off from all connections with an outside world. If it could happen, what a tragedy! What a meaningless world we would have! But the truth about Agape is the direct opposite of such metaphysical speculations. For in one thing exclusively can human beings find their rescue. They must base their love on virtues and values they can reach out for– outside themselves. They must build realistically on qualities having a sure existence in the object. Values based on mere sentimentality, a beautiful mirage in the subject’s fancy-ridden mind, and artificially worked up by fits of ecstasy, are bound to be of short duration and turn into disillusions of the most bitter kind. As soon as his passion has burnt itself out, the egocentric lover is left barren and destitute in his lonely ego chamber, behind the cross bars of his own narrow heart. His vision has proved to be an empty spook, the feverish dream of an oasis in the desert. But that oasis is without substance in reality.

Can a Woman Love a Man Whom She Does Not Admire, Or Does Not Deem Worthy of Any True Love?

How different from this unrealistic trend is not the response of the motherly heart! The typical woman surprises us by doing the very opposite of what an old myth accuses her of doing. As Signora Gina Lombroso says, she loves the man whom she is able to respect: A woman cannot love a man whom she does not esteem and admire. True, she may very well fall in love with a contemptible man. But that is simply because she sees in him a poor victim of unjust calumny or some kind of unfortunate circumstances. To save him from such injustice and misfortune, that is just the mission she feels called upon to perform. As soon as she becomes really convinced that he is worthy of contempt, she will cease to love him. To a man the very opposite may easily happen. Many men love women– even to the extreme of suicide and murder–women they despise or believe completely unworthy.

That was an outstandingly intelligent woman’s testimony. I go into captivating details in the argument here developed in my book, ABOUT WOMEN. I believe Signore Lombroso has thrown important light upon something strange and enigmatic here. For women do constitute an enigma to most men’s traditional thinking. They turn out to be a standing problem to the usual calculus an average man will traditionally tend to make in his love life. In his boundless desire for total “freedom” that man will make plans he thinks entirely acceptable. But what attitude does his little mistress take to those plans? She suddenly astonishes him by responding in ways cutting radically across all his planning and all his “reasonable” expectations. She surprises him–and frustrates him–by suddenly manifesting a “whim” he had never thought possible. She boldly declares that she is on the side of realism, to put it in the terms of the historian of ideas. She insists on having an intelligent foundation for her love. That is the sensational turn matters are taking in an unsuspecting lover’s love drama. The woman whom he had come to think of as the model of perfect irrationality, suddenly comes up with a claim for what she calls “rational principles in matters of love.” How could you blame him if he is somewhat non-plussed at the unexpected “new caprice” of this incredible female. She peremptorily declares that she is on the side of stern realism. In matters of love he himself is rather the born “idealist.” Ironically I might say: He loves for love’s sake, without any “petty regard” for things “beyond the realms of the love experience itself.” In other words, however much that typical male would otherwise insist on producing logical reasons for anything he does or thinks, here in the precious “kingdom of pure love,” he would almost consider it as a kind of “sacrilege” to apply the tenets of just simple everyday logic.

This is evidently quite different with the prototypical woman. She just does not have the ability– this she openly admits–to go on loving without any intelligent reason behind her love. She just cannot love at all without assuming some reasonable motivation for that love. Evidently she does not manage the ingenious feat of loving “spontaneously,” as the phrase goes among Agape researchers. It is, no doubt, this “inability” (“lack of genius”) that makes it practically unfeasible for her to love– really love–a man whom she just cannot contrive to mobilize any respect for. Before she can abandon herself to feelings of deep love for the man of her choice, she would at least have to find some means of rationalization. In other words, she would have to convince herself, in some way or other, that, after all, he does have qualities in his factual being which make him worthy of being loved. She has to appreciate him by virtue of his own inherent qualities, some kind of objective value.

What Makes Men and Women So Typologically Different in Matters of Love?

Now you may, of course, ask: Is this just a new form of sentimentality on the part of women? Is it, more deeply considered, a blank refusal to accept sound human sense? Hardly. It is rather men who here significantly come out as the irrational ones. That furiously ecstatic masculine lover–he and not at all his “beloved”–is virtually the one who here pushes all logic aside and bluntly refuses to accept the basic tenets of plain reasonability, face to face with a thing as practical as that of the man-woman relationship. Openly and categorically he rejects the claim that reason has any business to interfere in matters of love. Love and reason, to him, are absolutely incommensurable realms in life. They must be kept carefully apart. This is his saying. And he means what he says.

But what is it, then, that causes the typical woman to say and mean something entirely different? It cannot be an insignificant matter to find out about this. Frankly speaking, what can be the true spirit of the secret voice whispering so impressively into a woman’s ear: “Now, my dear lady, you must be consistent and reasonable right in the midst of your heart’s cascades of feelings.”? Who is the one that dares to take up a fight against so heavy odds, forcefully and incessantly suggesting a philosophy of life as “rustic” in its realism as that? Well, who should it be, if not just that future mother in her? We must remember one fact in order to understand this: choosing a lover means choosing a companion of life. And choosing that companion means choosing the man who is going to be her children’s father. Is it a serious business to choose a father for your child? Please do some elementary reasoning. If the child is that “other one” constituting the center in the future mother’s existence, would it be a farfetched idea that some reasonable planning will have a definite priority in her mind?

We understand, don’t we, that the CHILD is bound to constitute an important motive, and a reasonable motive, in the girl’s choices. But of course this does not necessarily mean that all girls, at all times, choose reasonably. They do not always realize, in practice, the ideal of placing their love where the true value is. The historical facts too often testify that they choose men who are not at all likely to become the best fathers. This is evident and undeniable. Even the typical woman, is not, eo ipso, necessarily the perfectly reasonable one in practical reality. But one thing can still safely be said about her: In an astonishing degree she has the honest willingness to realize that ideal of true reasonability in her choice and in her general pattern of behavior. She does not stubbornly go contrary to the voice whispering into her ear so insistingly, “Remember now, little girl, you cannot separate this serious event of your love choice from your life as a whole. For don’t forget–that life of yours is the life of a mother.” Those are words of plain reasonability. And it is essential to state that women have in them a profound respect for every element of the reasonable–even when they do not manage the wisdom to direct their lives accordingly.

Man–The Sentimental Sex–The Stubbornly Unreasonable Sex

And now, what about you and me, professional students of life and reality. Should not we, in our study, be reasonable as far as our much-lauded intelligence goes? Or do you think we should just go on speaking so irresponsibly and so unintelligently about the sentimental foolishness of women, the “typical irrationality” of the fair sex? Too long, indeed, have men now kept talking and talking about the “weak sex,” and I assume we hardly ever thought of the brain as an exception to that case of feminine weakness. A tradition of slander, through thousands of years, is responsible for that kind of talk. More careful investigation has revealed that weakness, in body as well as mind, is more likely to excel in quite another sex. Don’t let us speak so loud any longer about sentimentality as properly a feminine quality. Men are not only those who distinguish themselves as being more sentimental, but–worst of all–they insist on being that way.

I am thinking of the typical man whom the outstanding criminologist and most experienced psychologist, Gina Lombroso, describes so vividly: The fascinating beauty whom he chooses as the “mistress” of his life, may– for all he cares–just as often be a person of sheer emptiness. And, in that case, he even knows she is. He knows it with the certainty that belongs, as it were, to “another part” of his being; that is, the precious “discursive reason” he otherwise boasts of so emphatically, but obviously has now–temporarily–put aside, saving it for “other occasions.” In short, he does realize, with his cold intellect, that this girl of his momentary choice, soberly considered, is not worthy of any decent man’s lasting love. And still he insists on choosing precisely her, willfully and without a moment’s hesitation. There is even conclusive evidence in scientific research, today more than ever, that Gina Lombroso was right in her observations in these respects. It is men who, to a far greater extent than women, choose the patterns of behavior dominated by a passion which is completely irrational. I could hardly think of a more shaky foundation for a relationship that is supposed to last throughout life.

The “Vulgar” Eros and the “Heavenly” Eros–A Remarkable Distinction

What kind of love is it man has here permitted to enter upon the scene? Its totality-disturbing features are sufficient to show that this love has everything essential in common with the great Eros of pagan tradition in our world. Is it the “vulgar Eros” of the poor unphilosophical plebeian, or is it the “heavenly Eros” of the spiritualist elite? Here we must acquaint ourselves with certain concepts of pagan idealism; that is, in our Western World, Platonic spiritualism. Plato, the great Master Disrupter, as I shall soon describe him in more detail, and, I think, reasonably so, could not deny the deepest nature of his philosophy. He could not help tearing even Eros to pieces. He distinguishes between a “vulgar” Eros and a “celestial” one. Whereas he is fondly attached to the latter, he mostly looks down upon the former. He adores the heavenly Eros and despises the vulgar, and all the time for the wrong reasons. The “reasons” he has for despising the vulgar Eros are just as narrow-minded as those he has for admiring the celestial. Well, what does Plato mean by the “vulgar Eros” then? You have probably already guessed it. It is love in its “bodily aspects.” The frank modern word for it is sex.

Is Sex As Such An Eros Phenoμenon?

Most of my students, when we start a course of fundamental motifs in the Western World, immediately seem to assume, as a matter of course, that sex must be relegated to the realms of evident Eros. “Such a thing” certainly could not ever have any qualifications for being included in the fundamental motif of Agape, they think. That is a basic misunderstanding, and a symptomatic one. It shows how platonic we all tend to be in our fundamental outlook. Had we been thoroughly influenced by the Bible as a main source of our cultural heritage–and the Bible means both Testaments, harmoniously joined together–then we would never have wandered about, weighed down miserably, by misconceptions and rash conclusions of that sadly pagan kind. Be reasonable now, and remember what Agape stands for. It represents the total essence of God’s character, and accordingly His entire plan and counsel. Consequently everything–note it down: everything– that is basically good, basically in accordance with God’s plan for the world, is simply bound to find its place in Agape!

That, by the way, as we shall abundantly see later, also applies to justice, including absolutely every aspect involved in it, just to mention one matter which has been subjected to terrible doubt in the on-going Agape debate. Now then, what about sex? Was that according to God’s original plan? Of course it was. “Man and woman created He them.” To create a “spirituality” more spiritual than the Spirit of God, that has always been the machination of the pagan Eros. And the result is evident in spiritualism, the philosophical type as well as the vulgar type. Plato, like all the other spiritualities who have followed after him, did not want to have anything to do with creation as an essential part of God’s plan. Of course not. To Plato, matter, including all kinds of bodies, constitutes the great deplorable evil. So anything having to do with such bodies (including sex) must be looked upon as a most despicable and damnable thing. That is the fairly consistent pattern of thought in all spiritualism. I say fairly consistent. You shall soon see why. I do not want to exaggerate in the way I use my terms.

Spiritualism goes on manifesting some kind of consistency in its deep contempt for everything that is bodily, until the crucial moment when something fatal– and apparently inevitable–happens: Spiritualism develops into pantheism. Then suddenly the hitherto “unlawful” and “inadmissible” bodily things become lawful and admissible, even to the extreme of licentiousness. This is the remarkable trick of the “heavenly” Eros, shamelessly pushing forward his scabby head, this time as the “vulgar” one. Thus you will easily understand what I mean when I say that pagan idealism tends to despite what is original and good in human sex, and condone what is derivative and evil in it. Again you can see that there is a poor amount of true logical consistency in spiritualism, the Eros philosophy par excellence.

Perhaps now we are all better prepared to grasp the predicament of the self-centered lover as a candidate for marriage, and the reason for it. There is in his mind a willful determination not to curb his unreasonable passion, whatever the ethos of his environment, or the good sense of his own mind tries to bring home to his heart. He had rather abandon himself, thoughtlessly and playboy-like to the unbridled pleasures of his super-excited ego. This is Eros taking possession of the person who was from the beginning made for freedom, not for slavery. Some critics of stern Christian standards in the field of sex ethics ask with wonder how a Christian teacher can speak about the “beastly passion.” Does not this remind too much of the original platonic spiritualist’s unrealistic and rather pharisaic attitude toward natural bodies and natural sex? No, not necessarily, by no means! If a person created on the high level of a human being places himself on the lower level of a beast, just a radically self-centered male, not considering for one moment what the female’s good interest may happen to be, you do realize that “beastliness” in this case must adopt a bastard-like character, entirely different from that of a real beast behaving like a beast. A tom-cat behaving like a tom-cat may not be considered objectionable from the viewpoint of human sex ethics. But the case of a man behaving like a tom-cat would, of course, have to be relegated into quite a different category, ethically speaking. We are here speaking about the definitely vulgar Eros playboy’s reactions in terms of sex ethics.

Agape and Eros–Different Views About Esthetics As Well

And what about his esthetic reactions? If he has any at all, they limit themselves to the esthetics of pure humanism. Or how else would you account for that special type of high tension engendered in the typically masculine being’s palpitating heart at the casual contemplation of a rather superficial kind of beauty? This is not only a pretty, shallow type, but often also a most boisterous one. I mean boisterous in a vulgar sense; and vulgarity in a definitely derogatory sense. What is it, frankly speaking, this ecstatically indulgent lover really loves? Is it the alleged “object” of his love? By no means. To him the other one, as a person, hardly exists. What he loves, is not the other one, but first and foremost, his own amorous mood. Even his relation to beauty is a matter of pure vanity. For how was that ecstasy born in his heart? It was through a most subjective contemplation of the beautiful. And what kind of beauty, if you please? It is what the french language calls “une beaute a fleur de peau.” That would correspond fairly well to the English proverb: “Beauty is only skin deep.” Accordingly, something rather superficial and corruptible.

A person’s beauty, if it has totality, is something far different. It is deep and endurable. In order to know this, one does not need to be exceptionally religious, or in some elevated mood. Even a plain secular humanist would hardly be tempted to chant the praises of a beauty so vulgar that it has to cry out about its excellencies at every market place. “The emptier a barrel is, the more noise does it make,” says a Norwegian proverb (Tomme tonner ramler mest). Do not misunderstand me. I am not saying one single disparaging word about the natural beauty in a woman’s body. It certainly is not Eros who has had anything to do with creating that. The Creator’s name is Jesus Christ, and He is Agape. It is not Eros who has made sex a pleasant experience, any more than he has made strawberries taste delicious. It is God, and God only, who has prepared all things that are good–really good. It is He who has invented feminine beauty. Accordingly, there could be nothing whatsoever wrong with that beauty; that is–and here is the important point–as part and parcel of the woman possessing that beauty. And when I am speaking about a “woman,” I am again speaking about a totality, including an endless number of realities, such as her God-dependence as a creature, her rights and responsibilities as a person endowed with freedom of will, etc., etc.

In fact, there need not be anything wrong at all about that woman as the gorgeously beautiful one, in terms of a real object, reasonably seen. On the other hand, there may be something terribly wrong with the eyes that see. For an eye that stares its eyeballs out at torn-off (that is, bleedingly lacerated) particles of an original totality, or at sheer emptiness, that eye is bound to become torn and empty itself. That is where the tragedy comes in. The objectives facts, inherent in the loved one, as a person, mean next to nothing in such a lover’s evaluation. Hence, such qualities as true respect and admiration for the girl he “loves,” are realities unknown to him. His love is not the sum total of a reasonable evaluation of her as a human being.

In one way this may sound downright incredible. For otherwise in life’s practical business, that same man may have a wonderfully keen sense of evaluating things objectively. Look at him sitting at his office desk for instance. Or observe him as he makes his minute experiments in a laboratory, or as he prepares an inventory of his pieces of merchandise in a storage hall. There he is sober-minded enough. But then, suddenly, when he comes to matters of love, the greatest thing in the world, his sober-mindedness and his objectivity have vanished into thin air. Why do people cut up their lives in this way? Do we humans have, at the back of our minds, some kind of automatic disruption mania, driving us to such dichotomies in our lives? Is there some kind of distribution machine saying arbitrarily: “In this field here sober reason is still supposed to prevail; in that one over there, however, sentimentality and light-minded romanticism are entitled to have their sway.” What an incredible philosophy. And how can we find out about its secret “rationale?”

Evidently, in the obscure cabinets of romantic half-light there is no room for any sound esteem and admiration for the other one. In the Dionysian temple of ecstatic super-tension, no true rationality or serious concern for persons or things outside of oneself have any chance of survival. The Eros playboy’s leaning is naturally toward the spectacular and the romantic, to the dreamlike and illusory values. Our “values” are too often something we find exclusively in ourselves. We call them values, but what are they? They are the emptiness we tear out of our own breasts. And what valuable content could you ever expect from such a mega-zero? What durability could you expect from something whose main property consists in being nothing? We men may stand ever spellbound in front of that nothingness. But as soon as the fury of our passion (called love) is spent, the spell is broken. Our emptiness has realized its potentials to the full. And what has, by that time, really happened to the “lover’s” “love?” It has blown away with the chilling gust of the first morning breeze of sterner realities.

But the main project of our study has never been Eros. It has never been self-centeredness. The positive angles are so much more encouraging and also more promising. So, in the first place, what we must get better acquainted with is not the Eros “values” with all their spectacular display of sham glories. What we need to concentrate on is Agape. It is Agape, as unobtrusive other-centeredness, spurning all outward display. Right in a world of vainglorious splendor we must get sight of new aspects to those “more tedious” qualities we have found to survive at least in the potential mother. I have called it true respect and realistic esteem for the other one. It so happens–and this is a most significant historic fact, although it is almost never mentioned–that the word “Agape” in the Greek language of classical times had a sense corresponding fairly well to those “tedious ones.” It was not Love, the “many-splendored thing.” No, its splendor did not go one single step farther than to the modest concept of “respect” or “esteem.” So you see how inconspicuous and (considered from an Eros angle) downright tedious Agape is, even in its literal linguistic extraction. For a realistic understanding of Agape’s nature, it may be more to the point than most men might tend to believe to listen once more to the anxious cry of that human female, confronted with her “this-worldly” love: “I do not dare to skip realism in my choice of a love partner. I must choose, as an object for my great, great love experience in life, a person whom I can truly respect and realistically esteem. As a prospective mother I have moral obligations which I cannot betray. That is what forbids me to be unrealistic in the way I choose my loved one.” Now, is the God of the Bible heard to say something similar to this? Or would what He says, through the witness of His eternal Agape, be the diametrically opposite?

Agape’s Basic Characteristic: Intensive Personalism

If I were to express with one single world what I have found to be the fundamental quality characterizing Agape as opposed to Eros, I would say personalism. But for practical purposes I would then immediately have to add: I cannot get along with that one word at all in my present milieu. For here it is imperative to indicate precisely what I mean by “personalism.” And that takes many words. What does it imply, essentially, to be a person? I have a synonym or two for the concept of personalism. This may help to emphasize the peculiar aspects of the terms which I consider most neglected–and most fatal to neglect.

1. To be made a person is exactly the same as to be created on the tremendously high level peculiar to those creatures who have been granted the exceptional endowment of a free will (such as angels and men).

2. Second point to be held fast: The Bible describes that category of privileged beings as having been created in God’s image. This indicates that it is God, the Creator, who must be considered as the Person par excellence. Some theologians have had the erroneous viewpoint that it is a case of naive “anthropomorphism” that fools us into speaking about God as a Person. We think of God in human terms, as being one who has an “arm,” a “mouth,” an “eye,” etc., and even a personal mind, “just like men.” But in reality, the sophisticated scholar says, that is childish nonsense.

Fortunately Brunner puts them straight about this matter. He says it is they who suffer from a case of theo-morphism (or theo-pathism). God is the only original Person. When we human beings consider ourselves as the persons par excellence, then we are very much mistaken. We figure ourselves in the form of God, the only truly personal One. When we say that we are persons, that may be right, but only parabolically so. I am confident that we may go even farther than Brunner here. We may say that we are persons, and most realistically so. But this is a fact for which we must be just thankful. It is–again–nothing to be proud of; that would be nonsensical. It is in Him we have all our pride. But then it is a reasonable and legitimate pride. What I mainly wanted to arrive at here, however, is this realistic equation: PERSONALISM = WILL = FREEDOM = GOD’S IMAGE.

Now, what I further want to point out firmly and decisively is this: Personalism constitutes the essence and the sine qua non of the peculiar religion which bases itself on Agape. Here some will say: “That sound like a truism, something self-evident and therefore rather dull. Have you got nothing more important to say about Christianity and about Agape? Where do you find a philosophy or a religion in this world which would care to put up a serious fight with you on the basis of a statement as tedious and non-controversial as that? Do they not all admit tacitly that being a person is a tolerably good thing? Where would you expect to come across one single humanistic movement which would assume personalism to be something negative?” Is this right? Is humanism, whether Christian or pagan, consistently in favor of personalism?

For several years I have had the serious task of conveying basic truths regarding fundamental motifs in the Western history of ideas to my students of philosophy and religion. Unfailingly I have then always had to spend considerable time trying to bring home, to their hearts and to their heads, a momentous fact which spiritualistically-oriented teachers have always tended to cover up: Whereas the God of the Bible has never, in one single passage of His Word to man, intimated anything which might suggest that He gives prestige to impersonalism of any degree or any kind, it happens again and again that the wise ones of this world make it a capital point in their implicit teaching that there is some tremendous virtue in being a non-person. You would never believe it, but this weird gospel of “salvation and eternal bliss” through downright impersonalism has invariably asserted itself as a capital feature of every religious and philosophical movement through which the Eros motif has managed to propagate its ways and its views.

The wisdom-seeker who is bent on arriving at the full truth about Agape cannot today have any legitimate hope of reaching this goal without also having a look into the lugubrious abyss of that negative gospel which for so many thousands of years has spread its darkness over the continents of both Eastern and Western lands. The great sermon that is being preached openly and without shame to millions of attentively listening souls has one aim exclusively: It is to convince the world that the peak of all spirituality is simple impassivity Salvation must be found in perfect indifference and non-intervention. If there is any concept of God at all in this barren humanism, then it is the ideal of a God who has the “tactfulness” not to intervene in any way or at any time in the individual creature’s life. The distance between that “god” of all spiritualist philosophy and the Living God of the Bible is simply endless in all respects. You must get to know their respective attitudes toward both intelligent thought and living emotion.

Until we have given thorough study to these basic differences between the opposing motifs, we cannot flatter ourselves that we have a tenable outlook on life and on the world. It is our failure to practice that kind of thoroughness which has left us with a concept of Agape that is nonsensical and fatal to our Christian creed and the very source of our disarray today, our polarization crisis. The facts modern motif researchers have added to our knowledge about Agape are praiseworthy and indispensable achievements. But those which they have failed to reveal are equally indispensable. How can one account in a plausible way for that failure? I think the explanation is partly to be sought in one fact about Agape which is more easily overlooked than anything else. I do not know whether I shall call it unobtrusiveness, modesty, humility, or by some other name.

A Remarkable Modesty Apparent in the Very Term

This point is so salient for our inquiry into the nature of God that we are forced to dwell upon it at considerable length. A. P. Salom marvels–and with considerable reason– at the historical fact that Agape did establish itself as the consecrated term for Christian love. I want to take my point of departure from some of his reflections. But let me then first cite Moulton and Milligan: Vocabulary of the Greek Testament, 1930. The question dealt with is the following: To what extent may Agape be considered as a new word, a word of Christian manufacture, so to speak: Though it would be going too far to say this important word was born within the bosom of revealed religion, it is remarkable that there are only three supposed instances of its use in “profane” Greek, two of which are now read otherwise and the third is doubtful.

First then, why was it deemed necessary to introduce a special word at all? Here we do accept the linguist’s reason, the historian’s reason. Anyone would understand the hesitation of the Gospel writers to choose the word “Eros” as their favorite term for the purpose of expressing the peculiar qualities of Christian love. Greek literature, as well as colloquial speech through centuries, has done their utmost to give that word a rather pornographic connotation. It was natural, nay imperative, to look for a term less currently associated with the idea of sensual passion and self-love rather than love. A similar problem was also faced by the translators who created and improved the Vulgate version, the great edition of the Word of God throughout the Middle Ages. This is evidenced by the fact that whenever they saw their way free to avoid the word “amor,” they did so.

At the same time I think it should be admitted that the word “caritas” (a sort of “Latin Agape”) does have its deficiencies as well. For certainly “charity” does not quite convince us as being “love,” does it? Probably no modern human mind (for instance, an Anglo-Saxon preacher) would manage to substitute the word “charity” for the word “love” without suffering some considerable loss in human warmth and emotional richness. In fact, to any word there is bound to correspond some delicate internal substance. And who among us would be really satisfied, at the bottom of his heart, if he had to infer that the feelings his dear ones had for him were simple feelings of beneficence, that well-known dropping of “alms” into the bag of the poor by the wayside. We do not precisely think of Agape as a synonym to “Bakshish” of Middle-Eastern regions, so just some kind of charity which circles of affluence dole out to beggars and derelicts, do we? It is human to want something “more,” in terms of love, than “just sheer compassion” sometimes, isn’t it? What we all seem to be longing for is to be loved “for our own sake,” loved for the irresistible charms of our personality, or why not for the real lovableness there is–or should be–in us!

Now whether that insistent desire to be loved in a “realistic” way–for such “substantial” reasons–is always so entirely laudable or as realistic as it may appear, this is indeed another question, and, I would say, a very dubious one. For, in fact, who would dare to deny that there is, in man’s specific case today, the danger of downright self-centeredness (so precisely self-love) lurking at the bottom of such desire; I mean the desire to impose oneself, as it were, upon other people’s feelings of love or admiration. One significant thing, I believe, should be admitted in favor of the Latin “caritas.” (Which I choose to look at first, owing to its more familiar character, its greater proximity to our own words in our English and Romance language versions of the New Testament.) It does have a lot of active, sober-minded puritanism in it. (And here I use “puritanism” in a favorable sense, expressing the opposite of indulgence.) Some romanticists may here perhaps wrinkle up their noses, saying, “It has too much of that soberminded puritanism in it. Why does Christianity have to be so sober-minded, so tedious, so absolutely lacking in rapturous excitement and ravishing delights?

I shall not yet try to work out my most pointed answer to that question. Let us now rather concentrate our attention around other points regarding the peculiar concept of Agape as the supreme revelation to us in New Testament times of the nature of God and the nature of man. Let us draw out special aspects of that Agape, and preferably such that have hitherto received a rather stepmotherly treatment in modern research. One thing will be readily understood by anyone who has any true idea of Christian chastity versus Greek extravagance at the historical time particularly concerned. The word “Eros,” coming so naturally to Plato–and to all human philosophy in the Western World–whenever the endeavor was made to establish concepts of a summum bonum (the highest good) as anthropo-centric (man-centered) philosophers are bound to conceive of such things, this would never do as an adequate tool for the gospel writers. There is no consensus possible between outlooks on life so wide apart and mutually exclusive.

But what then about “Philia,” the most common word for love in classical Greek? What could you ever desire that would sound more spiritual than “Philia?” This question would appear the more reasonable in my case, as I have repeatedly dared to speak with the boldness of Biblical anthropomorphism about the “emotional God,” the “humanly warm and tenderhearted God.” Now let us note one semantic fact emphatically asserted about the corresponding verb “philein”: It means precisely to consider another person with feelings of the warmest imaginable human affection. So one might seriously inquire: Why then, was not “philein” regarded as fully worthy of expressing the highest concept of Christian Love, and of presenting it as the supreme New Testament revelation of God? Well, it would be very wrong indeed, to pretend that love in the gospel literature is not expressed by that word for it occurs some fifty times in the New Testament. For instance, when the most friendly affection of Jesus for a man like Lazarus is to be described, we know that “philein” is the word chosen (John 11:36). And the same word is used to express His attitude toward John–the “disciple whom Jesus loved.” Here it is the apostle John himself who finds that word adequate to express the wonderful emotion of warmth and tenderness binding him and the Saviour together (John 21:7).