Love the Flame
Thoughts based on Brothers Karamazov, Fear and Trembling, theodicy, and suffering.
Reflecting on this book, and remembering having read Crime and Punishment, I have thought much lately of my own view of love. It is difficult to explain, and I ask the reader's patience in allowing me to sort this out.
The first unusual and pivotal tenet I hold to love is this: love without suffering is not to be trusted. What madness is this? We all hear said in our society, "Love is patient, love is kind... love is pure... love is like a flower... love is beautiful..." and the like. And I don't disagree. However, that is not the totality of my experience of love. Love can hardly be called true if it is not consumed in fire, if it is not immolated in flame, and yet survives. The term "acid test" comes from the use of strong acids such as nitric acid to test whether "gold" was truly gold or rather a cheap imitation metal. If it was gold, the acid would burn off impurities and leave the gold shining beautifully. If it was pewter or other rubbish stone, the acid would consume and corrode it.
And yet this image is no good. For true love is both the acid and the gold, both the clay and the flame. This is the second unusual tenet: that love is as completely external as it is internal. Our society is fond of possession of all sorts of things - what child doesn't learn to say "mine" shortly after "dada" and "mama"? And yet it is dangerous to take ownership wholly of love. That is like taking a nuclear bomb inside one's own body. In it there is great power, but also enough power to destroy a man (and many of those around him). Obsession, lust, pornography, all such sins of love commit the sin by taking ravenous possession of love that is not one's to have. David lusted after Bathsheba; yet this was not the love that he had for Michal. His love did not proceed from God's love for mankind. He horded this love, savored it, and it almost destroyed him (and did destroy Uriah). Therefore, we must be stewards of love. We must acknowledge its source far beyond us and continually send it to a destination beyond us.
Similarly, the third tenet is that love must be dynamic and moving. In the scene with the woman at the well, Jesus describes his love and salvation as "living water". This is a stock phrase that has become commonplace in Christianity, but the likely connotation of the phrase is "running water." It is not stagnant, it does not come from a tamed and controlled dam, but rather from a vibrant and nearly dangerous source. And indeed, the source of all streams comes from mountain snows, for it is written: "He spreads the snow like wool and scatters the frost like ashes. He hurls down his hail like pebbles. Who can withstand his icy blast? He sends his word and melts them; he stirs up his breezes, and the waters flow" (Psalm 147:16-18).
So building off these tenets, I would argue that any love that comes without suffering has yet to truly be love at all. Does that mean that those who are "in love" ought to seek out suffering that they may be forged into love? By no means! Seeking suffering is the foolish purview of youths who don't value their lives. Those who seek suffering either have a death wish or desire to become a hero in their own eyes by dint of having an enemy. Rather, those who seek pure love must be willing to suffer, and must look in the eyes of suffering as the eyes of a friend rather than an enemy. It is a test, but not a temptation, for that is given to those who lack faith; it is the necessary function of God's holiness, which, like fire, both destroys and refines.
"For we are God's fellow workers; you are God's field, God's building. According to the grace of God which was given to me, like a wise master builder I laid a foundation, and another is building on it. But each man must be careful how he builds on it. For no man can lay a foundation other than the one which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if any man builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw, each man's work will become evident; for the day will show it because it is to be revealed with fire, and the fire itself will test the quality of each man's work. If any man's work which he has built on it remains, he will receive a reward. If any man's work is burned up, he will suffer loss; but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire.
- 1 Cor. 3:9-15
Thus, in a bizarre way, theodicy comes to some resolution if suffering is seen as the necessary function of love in a broken world. For fire is both benign and malignant. Ray Bradbury's Farenheit 451 paints a beautiful contrast of this. For much of the novel, fire is an evil, insidious force conscripted by evil men to destroy knowledge and freedom. However, in the end, it is the benign fire of twigs and scrap that warm "book people." These two sides of fire hold true for love, but not in mutual exclusion. In order to be true love, love must consume and temper indisciplined love and evil so that the flame may burn on.
And that is all I can say. Let this be my blessing: let love come to and through you, embrace the suffering it brings insofar as it tempers your heart to the truth, and do not let yourself be drawn to evil for the sake of love.
- Jacob G.
Reflecting on this book, and remembering having read Crime and Punishment, I have thought much lately of my own view of love. It is difficult to explain, and I ask the reader's patience in allowing me to sort this out.
The first unusual and pivotal tenet I hold to love is this: love without suffering is not to be trusted. What madness is this? We all hear said in our society, "Love is patient, love is kind... love is pure... love is like a flower... love is beautiful..." and the like. And I don't disagree. However, that is not the totality of my experience of love. Love can hardly be called true if it is not consumed in fire, if it is not immolated in flame, and yet survives. The term "acid test" comes from the use of strong acids such as nitric acid to test whether "gold" was truly gold or rather a cheap imitation metal. If it was gold, the acid would burn off impurities and leave the gold shining beautifully. If it was pewter or other rubbish stone, the acid would consume and corrode it.
And yet this image is no good. For true love is both the acid and the gold, both the clay and the flame. This is the second unusual tenet: that love is as completely external as it is internal. Our society is fond of possession of all sorts of things - what child doesn't learn to say "mine" shortly after "dada" and "mama"? And yet it is dangerous to take ownership wholly of love. That is like taking a nuclear bomb inside one's own body. In it there is great power, but also enough power to destroy a man (and many of those around him). Obsession, lust, pornography, all such sins of love commit the sin by taking ravenous possession of love that is not one's to have. David lusted after Bathsheba; yet this was not the love that he had for Michal. His love did not proceed from God's love for mankind. He horded this love, savored it, and it almost destroyed him (and did destroy Uriah). Therefore, we must be stewards of love. We must acknowledge its source far beyond us and continually send it to a destination beyond us.
Similarly, the third tenet is that love must be dynamic and moving. In the scene with the woman at the well, Jesus describes his love and salvation as "living water". This is a stock phrase that has become commonplace in Christianity, but the likely connotation of the phrase is "running water." It is not stagnant, it does not come from a tamed and controlled dam, but rather from a vibrant and nearly dangerous source. And indeed, the source of all streams comes from mountain snows, for it is written: "He spreads the snow like wool and scatters the frost like ashes. He hurls down his hail like pebbles. Who can withstand his icy blast? He sends his word and melts them; he stirs up his breezes, and the waters flow" (Psalm 147:16-18).
So building off these tenets, I would argue that any love that comes without suffering has yet to truly be love at all. Does that mean that those who are "in love" ought to seek out suffering that they may be forged into love? By no means! Seeking suffering is the foolish purview of youths who don't value their lives. Those who seek suffering either have a death wish or desire to become a hero in their own eyes by dint of having an enemy. Rather, those who seek pure love must be willing to suffer, and must look in the eyes of suffering as the eyes of a friend rather than an enemy. It is a test, but not a temptation, for that is given to those who lack faith; it is the necessary function of God's holiness, which, like fire, both destroys and refines.
"For we are God's fellow workers; you are God's field, God's building. According to the grace of God which was given to me, like a wise master builder I laid a foundation, and another is building on it. But each man must be careful how he builds on it. For no man can lay a foundation other than the one which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if any man builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw, each man's work will become evident; for the day will show it because it is to be revealed with fire, and the fire itself will test the quality of each man's work. If any man's work which he has built on it remains, he will receive a reward. If any man's work is burned up, he will suffer loss; but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire.
- 1 Cor. 3:9-15
Thus, in a bizarre way, theodicy comes to some resolution if suffering is seen as the necessary function of love in a broken world. For fire is both benign and malignant. Ray Bradbury's Farenheit 451 paints a beautiful contrast of this. For much of the novel, fire is an evil, insidious force conscripted by evil men to destroy knowledge and freedom. However, in the end, it is the benign fire of twigs and scrap that warm "book people." These two sides of fire hold true for love, but not in mutual exclusion. In order to be true love, love must consume and temper indisciplined love and evil so that the flame may burn on.
And that is all I can say. Let this be my blessing: let love come to and through you, embrace the suffering it brings insofar as it tempers your heart to the truth, and do not let yourself be drawn to evil for the sake of love.
- Jacob G.