Post Edited (One Love) : 9/19/2010 7:22:31 PM (GMT-5)

Post Edited (One Love) : 9/19/2010 7:31:33 PM (GMT-5)

The thing that stands out about the biblical view of the golden rule is that it is rendered rational because of post-mortem consequences. Otherwise, it wouldn't be rational at all. But once you have post-mortem consequences, even radical actions, like giving your life for another, can, in certain circumstances, make sense in terms of the golden rule.

I'd say it like this: Given how things just relationally ARE, completely disinterested love to others is impossible.  We are one of another.  Given who God is and who we are, we ALWAYS "have a stake" in what happens with our neighbors and with God.

Post Edited (One Love) : 9/25/2010 5:19:18 PM (GMT-5)

Asher: 1) Men can love others more than themselves...altruism
2) Men can love themselves more than others...selfishness
3) Men can love others as they love themselves...?????

Tom: Just my 2 cents here.

I think (3) and not (1) is altruism, or the ‘love’ for which we ought to strive. I agree with you that (1) (if that's what taught philosophical altruism is) and (2) miss the mark, each in its own way, of true love. We are not to love others more than we love ourselves. I don’t think that’s even possible. Of course, that poses the question of what those who give their lives are doing when the sacrifice their lives for others. Aren’t they loving those for whom they die MORE than they love themselves? No. I don’t think so. I think they’re loving others AS they love themselves. But that’s another discussion.

Asher: If love does not seek its own. And we are to love our neighbor as we love ourselves...then we wouldn't seek our neighbor's own either.

Tom: I think by “seek its own” Paul had in mind a specific illegitimate focus upon self as primary. He’s thinking of the market-street (fallen, dysfunctional) version of “seeking one’s own.” He’s not thinking at all about a healthy view of one’s own value and affirming that value in ways the help others discover their own value. What love doesn’t do is seek one’s self at the expense of other selves, promote and value one’s self at the expense of other selves.

D: How about this?  Relating oneself to oneself, giving oneself to another, and receiving another's gift of self is our natural mode.  In other words, seeing one's "own" as being found in and through the "other's own" (and vice versa) should be a natural exercise for us as image...as it is for God as original.  God does this ad intra...and we are in God's image.  Your "I-Thou individualism" seems to me to be an expression of that image.

Tom: Exactly. This is why an absolute “selflessness” (the taught philosophical altruism that Asher is objecting to) is impossible for those who bear God's image.

D: If one's "own" is found in and through the "other's own" (and vice versa), then no, they don't conflict.

Tom: Yep. And that’s why we cannot love others “more” than we love ourselves OR be absolutely “selfless.” An entity without a ‘self’ cannot love others as selves. To give your life for another is to show the greatest love, for it is simultaneously to affirm the value of another IN the belief that your own ‘self’ does not consist is the ‘stuff’ of this world but in something transcendent.

Tom

Post Edited (Tom) : 9/26/2010 9:17:53 AM (GMT-5)

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Kierkegaard begins this chapter by emphasizing that the commandment of Christ is that we love our neighbor as ourselves—not more than ourselves, which would be idolatry. But who, then, Kierkegaard asks, is our neighbor?

Who, then, is one's neighbor? The word is clearly derived from neahgebur [near-dweller]; consequently your neighbor is he who dwells nearer than anyone else, yet not in the sense of partiality, for to love him who through favoritism is nearer to you than all others is self-love—"Do not the heathens also do the same?" [Matt. 5.46f.] ...The concept of neighbor really means a duplicating of one's own self (p. 37).

The Greek word for neighbor found in the New Testament, like the Danish and the English, also means "the one near you" (to plesion). When the Pharisee asked Jesus about who his neighbor was, Jesus turned the tables with the parable of the Good Samaritan, by stating what sort of neighbor one is to be.

However, the most striking element of Kierkegaard's argument, perhaps the most striking argument in the book, is that love is commanded by God, and solely by virtue of that fact liberated. How can love, which is typically thought to be organic and spontaneous, be commanded, and yet remain love?

"You shall love." Only when it is a duty to love, only then is love eternally secured against every change, eternally made free in blessed independence, eternally and happily secured against despair.

However joyous, however happy, however indescribably confident instinctive and inclinational love, spontaneous love, can be in itself, it still feels precisely in its most beautiful moment the need to establish itself, if possible, more securely. Therefore the two pledge; they pledge fidelity or friendship to one another. And when we talk most solemnly we do not say of the two: "they love another"; we say "They pledged fidelity" or "They pledge friendship to one another." By what, then, do they swear this love? We shall not confuse the issue and be distracted by calling to mind the great variety of invocations used by the poets, the spokesmen of this love—for in relation to erotic love it is the poet who makes the two promise, the poet who joins the two, the poet who prophecies an Eden for the two and lets them swear—in short, the poet is the priest. Does this love swear, then, by something which is higher than itself? No, this it does not do.... Yet it is easy to understand that if one really is to swear, he must swear by something higher; then God in heaven is the only one who is truly in a position to swear by himself. But the poet cannot understand this.... Therefore this spontaneous love has, according to the beautiful misunderstanding of the imagination, the eternal in itself, but it is not consciously grounded upon the eternal and consequently can be changed.... Consequently, only when it is a duty to love, only then is love eternally secure. This security of the eternal casts out all anxiety and makes the love perfect, perfectly secure. For in that love which has only existence, however confident it may be, there is still an anxiety, anxiety over the possibility of change. Such love does not itself understand any more than the poet that this is anxiety, for the anxiety is hidden; the only expression is a burning passion, whereby is merely hinted that anxiety is at the bottom. Otherwise why is it that spontaneous love is so inclined to—yes, so in love with—making a test of the love? This is just because love has not, by becoming a duty, in the deepest sense undergone the test.... Spontaneous love can be changed within itself; it can be changed to its opposite, to hate.... Spontaneous love can be changed within itself; by spontaneous combustion it can become jealousy; from the greatest happiness it can become the greatest torment.... In this way the "You shall" makes love free in blessed independence; such a love stands and does not fall with variations in the object of love; it stands and falls with eternity's law, but therefore it never falls (p. 44-49, 53).

Post Edited (One Love) : 9/26/2010 4:37:53 PM (GMT-5)

Post Edited (One Love) : 9/26/2010 4:09:01 PM (GMT-5)

"The ethical sphere of existence applies to those who sense the claims of duty to God, country, or mankind in general."

Post Edited (One Love) : 9/26/2010 4:36:56 PM (GMT-5)