God Is Love Is Very Different From Love is God

9/28/2020

I dipped into C.S. Lewis's The Four Loves the other day and came across a striking passage that reminded me of something important.

St. John's saying that God is love has long been balanced in my mind against the remark of a modern author (M. Denis de Rougemont) that "love ceases to be a demon only when he ceases to be a god"; which of course can be re-stated in the form "begins to be a demon the moment he begins to be a god." This balance seems to me an indispensable safeguard. If we ignore it, the truth that God is love may slyly come to mean for us the converse, that love is God.

The wisdom is simple and straightforward (as all great wisdom is) , but the "slyly come to mean" part was what really struck me.

We live in a world that has not only discarded Lewis's "indispensable safeguard", but has unceremoniously pissed all over it.

Our "loves" (if they can even be called "loves" anymore) truly have become our gods; and we have allowed these gods to eclipse the ultimate source of love - God.

Of course, there's nothing sly about any of what is happening now. It's all there, out in the open for those with eyes to see.

Love is not God, which is why the call for the creation of a kinder, gentler, more just world based on love, the call for an elusive "civilization of love" will do nothing more than enslave and possess us even more than we are currently enslaved and possessed.

Love is not God - at best it is a sly demon.

At this point, there's probably not much we can do for the world at large, but it's not too late to exorcise whatever personal "love-is-God" demons remain within us.

8 Comments

Epimetheus

9/28/2020 23:45:38

I sometimes wonder whether forcing a change from "Pride" to "Love" would exert a kind of powerful magic for good. The other side seems to be extremely cautious with the use of the L-word. It has a volatile nuclear energy. Perhaps I'm just naive, though...

Francis Berger

9/29/2020 08:01:12

@ Epimetheus - The supposedly religious that are on the other side have no problem using the word love every chance they get. As for the rest, I get your point - love is not explicitly expressed, but strongly implied in the form of altruism, faux self-sacrifice, being nice, etc. Regardless, Lewis's main point stands - when God is no longer recognized as love, love quickly becomes its own god - an idol with clear demonic implications.

William James Tychonievich link

9/29/2020 09:47:27

"Love is love" is already a popular "Pride" slogan.

Gianni Francis

9/29/2020 15:00:35

"Pride is Sin" would be a catchy counter slogan

bruce charlton

9/29/2020 08:44:08

I think there is a genuine problem for Christians in describing What Kind Of Thing real love is. Most can say Christian love is not the same as the emotion between people, but have considerable trouble in saying what it actually is.

It took me a long time after becoming a Christian, and quite a lot of thinking, before I eventually found a way of talking about the ideal Christian love that seemed to make sense of it for me.

This is a problem, because it makes it difficult to explain why and how we could love God *more* than (say) our mother, brother, or child. This can't really be the correct way of thinking about it - and indeed can be very antagonistically experienced as an attack on our feelings for those we love most.

It is more that we need to 'love God' *before* we can truly love anthing or anybody else - because without love of God our love of anything else is *merely* a Feeling, that might change to hate or be gone in five mintes/ years/ decades - and will be obliterated by death.

If we can understand that love is what *structures reality* for the Christian, then we can understand how personal love 'fits in' to this scheme. But this fundamental way of thinking is beyond most modern people. It could be expressed in a story (e.g. an allegory or a fantasy), but modern people have an aversion to that kind of fiction.

It seems, as usual, we are stuck - unless or until a given person himself chooses to seek understanding, he cannot have understanding forced upon him.

9/29/2020 14:30:31

@ Bruce - Good comment. What you say about Christian love as being beyond most modern people is spot on. Our modern conception of love is almost exclusively based on feelings and emotions. This primarily "sensuous" conception of love cannot conceive of a form of love that is non-sensuous ( I sometimes struggle myself) - more specifically, as love being a non-sensuous (dare I say non-rational) act of the spirit, which is the source from which Christian love emanates.

I like your point about Christian love structuring reality - really hits the nail on the head.

a kullervo

9/29/2020 21:49:39

Matthew 10:32-37 KJV

"Whosoever therefore shall confess me before men, him will I confess also before my Father which is in heaven. But whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father which is in heaven. Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law. And a man's foes shall be they of his own household. He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me."

Greetings,

Trying to change/enlighten others' hearts and minds seems to be the very definition of a Sisyphean task; then again, one must walk one's own path - no one can live outside the unavoidable.

Kind regards.

“For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

9/30/2020 08:00:26

@ a.k.- With the exception of the passage from Matthew you posted, I'm not quite sure what to make of your comment.

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God Is Love Is Very Different From Love is God

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