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one body 8 c h a p t e r 2 Love and Its Forms This is my commandment, that you love [agapate] one another as I have loved [êgapêsa] you. Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. (John 15:12–13) 1. The New Testament and Agapê The central ethical concept in the New Testament is love. Usually, the Greek word is agapê or a related verb, which is typically taken by interpreters to indicate a selfless charity, while occasionally a version of philia is used, a word whose classical Greek meaning was the love in a friendship. The New Testament does not contrast agapê and philia, although typically when a command to love is given, the language of agapê is used. However, this difference in usage does not appear to mark a difference in meaning. Thus, at John 3:35 we read that “the Father loves [agapai] the Son, and has given all things into his hand,” while at 5:20 we are told that “the Father loves [philei] the Son, and shows him all that he himself is doing.” Similarly, at Luke 11:43 the accusation is made to the Pharisees: “you love [agapate] the best seat in the synagogues and salutations in market places,” while at 8 love and its forms 9 20:46 we are warned of the scribes “who … love [philountôn] salutations in the market places and the best seats in the synagogues and the places of honor at feasts.” There does not appear to be reason to translate the two words differently into English. What, then, are agapê and philia? The ethics of the New Testament is centered on the duty to love. This implies that agapê cannot indicate a loving feeling or emotion. For, first of all, feelings do not seem to be subject to direct control. While we can cause feelings in ourselves indirectly—say, rouse ourselves to feel indignation by dwelling on the wrongs someone has done—we cannot do so immediately and we cannot do so always, whereas we are always obliged to love. Secondly, feelings of affection are transitory. They disappear while one sleeps, and yet no one would say: “My wife does not love me, for she is asleep.” But more seriously, love according to the New Testament is best exhibited in situations of great distress, the paradigm being Christ’s passion. In these situations, one may be unable to feel anything other than suffering even as one is engaging in a paradigmatic act of love, as in the case of Christ’s cry of abandonment1 on the Cross (Mark 15:34, Matt. 27:46). As Kierkegaard notes, “Christ’s love was not intense feeling, a full heart, etc.; it was rather the work of love, which is his life.”2 Finally, feelings do not have the close connection to action that love has in the New Testament, indicated most clearly by the text at the head of this chapter. A feeling need not be acted on, but can be ignored by force of will. The basic claim of New Testament ethics is that love is sufficient for fulfilling the moral law.3 We are not told that what would be sufficient is love and an absence of any emotion that counters it or thwarts its expression. It is taken for granted that love expresses itself and is sufficient, in and of itself. As Augustine put it, “Love, and do what thou wilt.”4 This does not rule out the possibility that a love might be unsatisfactory and distorted, as in the case of the love of money, but if so, then this unsatisfactoriness will be due to a failure by love’s own standards, rather than due to the presence of something outside the love. We will examine such failures shortly. Neither do we want to say that agapê is a disposition or tendency to feel an emotion or an attitude. Such a dispositional account of love one body 10 would explain why the woman who is asleep can be said to love her husband, for she has a disposition to feel a particular emotion under appropriate circumstances. Likewise, such a view might handle the case of great distress, for the person who is suffering could still have a disposition to feel a more positive emotion under less distressing circumstances . However, dispositions and attitudes are even less under direct volitional control than feelings are...

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