Love: A Thomistic Analysis

Abstract

HRISTIANS ARE ENJOINED to love God above all things and their neighbors as themselves. The faithful of every generation must determine what it means for them to be bound by a law of love. To begin with, Christians need a good idea of what love is. They need a conception that is informed by the tradition and by the best and worst of their own experiences, which they reflect upon in light of broader humanistic and scientific inquiry. Without an adequate conception of love, one cannot meaningfully say that one is acting from obedience to the love command, choosing to act in light of love as an end, acting from love as a motive, or seeking to become a more loving person. CHRISTIAN ETHICS OF LOVE The language of love appears frequently in the history of Christian thought, but prior to the 20 th century few thinkers sought to define love or specify how it is best conceived by persons who identify as Christians. 1 Over the past century, more attention has been focused on clarifying what love is, sorting out its various forms, and arguing about which form best represents the Christian ideal. A striking feature of this recent literature is that it is oriented by the retrieval of classic philosophical and biblical terms for love, most notably the Greek eros, philia, and agape, and the Latin caritas. 2 The use of these 1 As Jules Toner writes, " It is a strange and striking fact that even those who write best about love devote very little space to considering what love is… After a few paragraphs on the nature of love, there are long discussions about the kinds of love, the power and effects of love, the stages of growth in love, the moral and psychological norms for love, the relation of love with knowledge, sex, justice, and so on. It is assumed that readers and writer know what love is and agree on what it is. " The Experience of Love