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State University of New York Press - James Kellenberger

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100 pages

English

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In The Asymptote of Love, James Kellenberger develops a theory of religious love that resists essentialist definitions of the term and brings into conversation historical debates on love in Western philosophy and Christian theology. He argues that if love can be likened to a mathematical asymptote, which is a straight line that infinitely approaches a curve but never quite reaches it, then the asymptote of love reaches toward the infinite endpoint of love at its uttermost, namely, God's love. Drawing upon a broad range of thinkers who have put forth classic debates on love—such as St. Augustine of Hippo, Anders Nygren, and St. Thomas Aquinas, as well as some lesser known figures in the debate, such as Leo Tolstoy and Albert Schweitzer—Kellenberger explains the profound connection between human agape and God's infinite love in its capacity to offer both directive guidance and to exist beyond human conception.
Acknowledgments
Introduction

1. The Varieties of Love

2. Love’s Relationships

3. Love of Others

4. Knowledge of God and Love of God

5. The Command to Love

6. Love of God

7. God’s Love

8. The Circle of Love

9. The Depth of Love

10. The Asymptote of Love

Bibliography
Index

Sujets

Philosophie

Philosophie de la religion

Philosophy

Theology

Philosophy of religion

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Publié par	State University of New York Press
Date de parution	16 octobre 2018
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781438471792
Langue	English

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The Asymptote of Love
The Asymptote of Love
From Mundane to Religious to God’s Love
James Kellenberger
Cover photo of the California desert taken by the author
Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright 1952 (2nd ed., 1971) by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Published by State University of New York Press, Albany
© 2018 State University of New York
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.
For information, contact State University of New York Press, Albany, NY
www.sunypress.edu
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Kellenberger, James, author.
Title: The asymptote of love : from mundane to religious to God’s love / James Kellenberger.
Description: Albany : State University of New York, 2018. | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017058362| ISBN 9781438471778 (hardcover : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781438471792 (e-book)
Subjects: LCSH: Love—Religious aspects. | Love. | God—Love. | God—Worship and love.
Classification: LCC BL626.4 .K45 2018 | DDC 205/.677—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017058362
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
TO ANNE
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Chapter One
The Varieties of Love
Chapter Two
Love’s Relationships
Chapter Three
Love of Others
Chapter Four
Knowledge of God and Love of God
Chapter Five
The Command to Love
Chapter Six
Love of God
Chapter Seven
God’s Love
Chapter Eight
The Circle of Love
Chapter Nine
The Depth of Love
Chapter Ten
The Asymptote of Love
Bibliography
Index
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I am grateful to my wife Anne for suggestions regarding the title of this book, to Christopher Ahn for his editorial advice and support, and to Diane Ganeles for her attentive care in guiding the book through production.
At several points I have used material from my Relationship Morality (Pennsylvania State University Press, 1995), which has been adapted to the discussion in this book and is used with permission.
Introduction
AFTER CONSIDERING SEVERAL ALTERNATIVES for this book’s title I settled first on The Asymptote of Love , and then with editorial encouragement on The Asymptote of Love: From Mundane to Religious to God’s Love . The title is descriptive. This book is indeed about the asymptote of love. An asymptote is a line that approaches a point, ever drawing nearer, but reaching its endpoint only at infinity. The asymptote of love reaches toward the infinite endpoint of love, love at its uttermost, the zenith of love, God’s love in theistic traditions. In writing the book I discovered that Leo Tolstoy had used the image of the asymptote in a related application in his The Kingdom of God Is Within You , where he said, “Divine perfection is the asymptote of the human life.” Tolstoy’s reflections on Christianity will come into our discussion, although what Tolstoy understands as an asymptote of the human life toward divine perfection differs from the asymptote of love. Still, his trope of the asymptote, which approaches its ideal in an infinite journey, ever drawing nearer as it approaches its ideal, serves well the premise of our discussion and coincides with the intended meaning of this book’s title. The asymptote of love ascends from quotidian and even mundane love to religious love and God’s love and approaches love at its infinite, its zenith, its uttermost, God’s love in a theistic understanding.
The idea of uttermost love owes much to religion, in particular to Christianity, in which God is love, but not to Christianity alone. We are called on to love or to have compassion in more than one religious tradition, and the traditions of several religions will be consulted as we seek an understanding of uttermost love. Also we will consult authors who speak from outside religion, some of whom are negatively disposed toward religion and some of whom are not. Their critical perspectives will augment the religious sources that we draw on and will help us to consider issues and possibilities relevant to the nature of uttermost love and the form of love that begins to approach it.
The nature of love as a general concept, along with the range of expressions of love, is a preliminary part of our subject. In pursuing it we will address what in a sense we already know. It is a paradox of intellectual or philosophical reflection going back to Plato and his teacher Socrates that in asking what the nature of love is (or knowledge or beauty), as Socrates did, we pose a question using a term that we are already familiar with and use with comparative ease. Moreover, if we proceed to proffer an analysis or account of, say, knowledge, we can test that analysis or account using our pretheoretical understanding. While there may be a point to complaining to someone “You don’t know what love is!” it remains that speakers of natural languages have love (or amour or Liebe , etc.) in their vocabularies.
So we may already have a grasp of the nature of love implicitly, without being able to articulate its nature, not fully. Yet knowing its nature in this way, and even being able to distinguish expressions of genuine love from expressions of false love, is not yet to know the zenith of love. It is not in itself being able to trace the asymptote of love in its approach to infinite uttermost love.
Uttermost love is love. But love, as we will remind ourselves in chapter 1 , can be of many different things and have many different emotional shadings. The form of love that is our subject will emerge over the extended course of our discussion. It can be said at this point, however, that uttermost love, in its concept, is rooted in religious sensibility and tradition. If we allow a religious grounding of uttermost love in the Jewish and Christian traditions, it would not be wrong to think of love of God and of neighbor as significant parts of uttermost love or of love that approaches uttermost love. Yet doing so is but an initial step, for the character and demands of that love are not disclosed thereby. Furthermore uttermost love has a possibly fuller range that is not captured in the Christian and Jewish commands.
As we pursue our discussion we will at various points encounter concerns and issues. Some will relate to love in its general concept; some will relate to religious love; some will relate to understanding God’s love as uttermost love; and some will relate to the nature and scope of love that begins to approach uttermost love. Some of these concerns, though not all, will be raised by religious writers and thinkers from within a religious tradition, especially Christianity. Some will be raised by those whose reflections are not religiously grounded.
IN CHAPTER 1 , as we have indicated, we will look at the range of love’s varieties and types; and we will see how love is a multifarious concept that resists an essentialist definition.
Love is relational, but it can be embodied in many different relationships. In chapter 2 , we will give attention to interpersonal forms of love, especially romantic love, and offer initial reflections on two forms of religious love that can seem problematic, proper self-love and love of God. The thesis that love bestows value, as opposed to responding to the one who is loved and that person’s value, will be examined; and two issues that relate to love in general and religious love in particular will be recognized and introduced—the issue of love’s rationality, grounded in modern thinking, and the older issue of the place in love of self-denial.
In chapter 3 , which is on the love of others, we will turn our attention to religious love of one’s neighbors, one of the book’s major themes. How one is to love one’s neighbors is, in the Christian tradition, contained in the teachings of the New Testament, and we will consult some of these, including the parable of the Good Samaritan, to bring into relief how religious love of one’s neighbors is at variance with the requirements of conventional morality. Also in this chapter, drawing on a particular religious sensibility, we will introduce the theme of loving God through loving others.
Some have posited a connection between knowing God and loving God that makes them identical: to know God is to love God. There are questions, though, about this thesis, including a question about the nature of the knowledge of God that is to be identical with love of God. An examination of this thesis and its issues is the subject of chapter 4 .
In the Jewish and Christian traditions there are two great commandments to love. One is to love God with all one’s heart and soul, and the other is to love one’s neighbors as oneself. Immanuel Kant, though, challenged the idea that there can be a command or duty to love, as opposed to a duty to do good for others. Even some more clearly within the Christian tradition have raised a question about the command to love if it commands us to have the feeling of love, as it arguably does. These concerns will be treated in chapter 5 .
The subject of chapter 6 is love of God, another major theme of this book. Here we will consider the question of whether love of God, or of neighbor, can be purely a response to a duty to follow a command, and we will note how medieval monastics thought it necessary to designate “signs” of genuine love of God. In this chapter we will also attend to the expressions of love of God identified by St. Bernard of Clairvaux and St. Francis de Sales. Some have spoken of lov