Scottish Catholic Observer

ADAM COATES: The modern view of romance is thoroughly unchristian. What, then, is the Christian view of love?

St Thomas Aquinas tells us that love is an act of the will, to ‘will the good of the other,’ he says quoting Aristotle (ST, I-II, 26, 4). The modern view of romance is not based around the will, but purely around the emotion. The Christian view, of course, does not exclude the emotional part, but, rather, makes it proper to man’s capacity as an intellectual being.

This is why the Christian message of ‘love your enemies: do good to them that hate you: and pray for them that persecute and calumniate you,’ (Matthew 5: 44) is so foreign to our pagan society. Their view of love is purely emotional, and if we tried to apply only emotions to those who are our enemies, it would quickly devolve into hate. However, the Christian view is to love them by willing their good, note how Our Lord says to ‘do good to them.’ To do so is to engage the will against what our passions, injured by concupiscence, would necessarily wish us to do.

Returning more specifically to romantic love, this is again why our society’s view of love is foreign to the Christian view. Wedding vows say ‘for richer, for poorer. In sickness, and in health.’ All too often marriages in our society break down because they are based upon emotional tenets, rather than the will. When a couple is poor, or a spouse is sick, it is the will, not merely the emotions, which engages the Faithful Christian to truly love their spouse, and carry their cross with dignity.

ANDREW McMANUS: I had a priest once tell me that our notion of romance stems from our longing for perfect unity with God. At the fundamental level, I take this idea in the context of not only desiring to BE loved, but TO love.

In the context of Christian love, we are taught that God created them male and female, for each other, to be a sign of God’s love for humanity. God’s preferential choice for humanity shows that the very nature of love is firmly rooted in choice, for what does God need from humanity?

Adam raises a good point when he says that a modern view of romance is that it is founded on base emotion. At least this is the view that I’ve consistently come across at university, among friends, and that I’ve had presented to me by modern culture.

I think that while the wonderful feelings associated with falling in love are something to cherish and thank God for, we owe it to God, our partner and ourselves not to use them as a basis for a relationship that has view to a marriage. If we do, that relationship can only be based in selfishness. However, when our emotions get caught up in our mutual choice, and not the other way around, selfishness dies and love flourishes.

Gaining a better understanding of Christian love

By Aidan Michael Cook

To better understand the Christian view of love and romance, it helps to distinguish two types of love: Eros and Charity. The first—Eros, a Greek word—is the ‘falling in love’ sort of love: romantic love. The second—Charity, or its Greek equivalent Agape—is in many ways a distinctively Christian love.

What most love stories have in common is that they are about Eros, and they all end either with a ‘happily ever after’ or with death. This brings out the main characteristic of Eros: basically, it’s all about the chase. It is searching and possessive, and thrives on obstacles.

It is the love that romantic comedies are built on, where falling in love is like a drug, a spiritual high that inevitably comes crashing down. That is why Eros needs obstacles: without them it cannot continue to be. And that is why the films always end when the obstacles are out of the way: not because everything afterwards is perfect bliss, but because it is the end of the love story. That’s where the myth of romantic love lies: on its own, it is unsustainable, unrewarding and in fact unattainable, because once attained it ceases to be.

Agape, in contrast, is a sacrificial love. It seeks the good of the other, and rather than being about emotions, it is an act of the will. As philosopher Peter Kreeft has put it: “Feelings come to us, passively; love comes from us, actively, by our free choice.”

So how does Eros relate to Agape? Is Eros bad and Agape good? That might seem like the obvious conclusion but it’s far from being the case. Eros is only bad when it is dis-ordered.

Just look at Romeo and Juliet and ask why they killed themselves. Did Romeo lay down his life for a friend, for his one true love? Not at all—he thought she was dead! Rather than dying for her he actually died for love itself. And it was not for Romeo that Juliet sacrificed herself but for her love of Romeo. They had turned Eros into an idol, a god.

Had they lived, how would this Eros have transferred to marriage? The answer, of course, is that it wouldn’t. Just as Eros leads to sacrifice for love itself rather than the beloved, so too does a marriage built on Eros last only until the death of the love, and not the death of the beloved. Or if you prefer, the beloved dies when Eros dies. And if the romance is dead, then why not chase someone else? Why remain married?

But at the heart of Christian love is Agape: the self-giving, sacrificial love that enables a marriage to truly be focused on new life. Of course, the good of the spouses is not to be forgotten, or no marriage would last, and Eros can play a great part.

Eros can bring new life to the marriage, gently encouraging the spouses to grow in love. Being concerned primarily

with new love, Eros can help spouses to love anew each day, and to continue in their efforts to attain the eternal bliss that God has prepared for those who love Him.

Christian love is grounded in the flesh and blood everyday realities of life, and involves the total, life-long, self-gift of one’s whole being. Christian love also involves passion, but it is a self-giving passion that leads into the sacrificial Passion of Christ.

 —Have your say on this and upcoming topics at http://www.facebook.com/scostronginfaith