Conditional and Unconditonal Love
The sermon at church today was on unconditional love (agape) and what that really means. Defined by my pastor (and I think this definition is pretty satisfactory), this means doing what is best for the one we love. This can mean ending a marriage, withholding money, kicking someone out on the street, as long as it is done with a sense that this is in the person's best interest. Agreed, yes. Love is not thoughtless surrender to another person's whims. Love requires constant questioning of one's relationship and one's knowledge of the loved.
What I disagree with is the idea that all relationships should be unconditional love. Unconditional love is the ideal in the sense that it is what Christ lived and taught. But unconditional love is impossible to give to everyone without complete surrender. Complete surrender, is, I feel, not the obligation of any human being. It was not Christ's obligation, which makes his sacrifice so great. We are humans blessed with bodies, feelings, opinions, sex drives, and stubborn wills. I do not feel that we must give up all that makes us humans. Humans simply like people more when we have things in common with them, when we spend time with them, when we feel they like us. That's not going to go away.
I think the question that is more important and that the sermon didn't address is how we can use conditional love as an occasion for unconditional. The sermon discussed (in rather dismissive tones) the process of courtship, how the smallest insufficiency can be grounds for dumping someone's ass. What it didn't mention was the process by which this often catty pettiness transforms into real, unconditional love. How the person you almost dumped for sloppy kissing technique becomes the person you'd move heaven and earth for. At some point, you make a choice that this person has met the conditions for you to give unconditional love. Even then, the unconditional love is neither complete nor persistent. But the choice has been made to frame the relationship in terms of unconditional love.
Two questions are vital, I think. First, how is the choice made to frame a relationship in terms of unconditional love? And as a corollary how can that choice be renewed throughout the course of the relationship? Secondly, how can we learn from this experience and use it to understand God's love for us and make unconditional love easier in other relationships?
Conditional love is not going to go away. We have rights, as human beings, to want relationships that meet our needs, that provide us with pleasure. But the best human relationships are ones built on a foundation of conditional love that nonetheless let us practice unconditional love. A nuclear family is an artificial concept and I'll argue with anyone who says otherwise. Nonetheless, most nuclear families consist of genuine unconditional love, though they are based on artificial concepts like gene similarity and based in the 19th century response to the modern world. This love lets us practice our ability to love, and lets us imagine what it would be like if we really treated all of mankind as our siblings. Congregations are thrown together only by virtue of geographic closeness and some semblance of theological consensus. Yet they let us practice and imagine what it would be like to live this way with all Christians. Marriages work the same way.
Every human has a right to conditionally love, and being a Christian doesn't take that away. But every Christian has an obligation to practice unconditional love and think about what it means, though it's impossible (even psychologically) to do. We have several different models we can use to strengthen our ability to love unconditionally. As long as we keep in mind what it really is (and here I'm blatantly paraphrasing Martin Buber): a brief glimpse of what it means to be another person, and a brief glimpse of the love God has for us.
What I disagree with is the idea that all relationships should be unconditional love. Unconditional love is the ideal in the sense that it is what Christ lived and taught. But unconditional love is impossible to give to everyone without complete surrender. Complete surrender, is, I feel, not the obligation of any human being. It was not Christ's obligation, which makes his sacrifice so great. We are humans blessed with bodies, feelings, opinions, sex drives, and stubborn wills. I do not feel that we must give up all that makes us humans. Humans simply like people more when we have things in common with them, when we spend time with them, when we feel they like us. That's not going to go away.
I think the question that is more important and that the sermon didn't address is how we can use conditional love as an occasion for unconditional. The sermon discussed (in rather dismissive tones) the process of courtship, how the smallest insufficiency can be grounds for dumping someone's ass. What it didn't mention was the process by which this often catty pettiness transforms into real, unconditional love. How the person you almost dumped for sloppy kissing technique becomes the person you'd move heaven and earth for. At some point, you make a choice that this person has met the conditions for you to give unconditional love. Even then, the unconditional love is neither complete nor persistent. But the choice has been made to frame the relationship in terms of unconditional love.
Two questions are vital, I think. First, how is the choice made to frame a relationship in terms of unconditional love? And as a corollary how can that choice be renewed throughout the course of the relationship? Secondly, how can we learn from this experience and use it to understand God's love for us and make unconditional love easier in other relationships?
Conditional love is not going to go away. We have rights, as human beings, to want relationships that meet our needs, that provide us with pleasure. But the best human relationships are ones built on a foundation of conditional love that nonetheless let us practice unconditional love. A nuclear family is an artificial concept and I'll argue with anyone who says otherwise. Nonetheless, most nuclear families consist of genuine unconditional love, though they are based on artificial concepts like gene similarity and based in the 19th century response to the modern world. This love lets us practice our ability to love, and lets us imagine what it would be like if we really treated all of mankind as our siblings. Congregations are thrown together only by virtue of geographic closeness and some semblance of theological consensus. Yet they let us practice and imagine what it would be like to live this way with all Christians. Marriages work the same way.
Every human has a right to conditionally love, and being a Christian doesn't take that away. But every Christian has an obligation to practice unconditional love and think about what it means, though it's impossible (even psychologically) to do. We have several different models we can use to strengthen our ability to love unconditionally. As long as we keep in mind what it really is (and here I'm blatantly paraphrasing Martin Buber): a brief glimpse of what it means to be another person, and a brief glimpse of the love God has for us.