What is love?

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KrazyKaiju

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Hello Catholic Answers Forums,

Recently, I’ve been thinking alot about what love is. Not the happy-feely-sunshine-and-rainbows love. I mean the kind the kind that God wants us to emulate. I’ve been trying to think about what it is, and the subject’s been bothering me. I don’t quite know where to begin, so I’ll pose a few questions.
  1. What is love? For me, some words that seem to come to mind are “service”, “critiquing”, “honest”, “inquisitiveness/thirst for knowledge”, etc. I feel like I might have some vague imagery without any concise definitions.
  2. How much of God’s love can we emulate, being that His nature is far greater than our own?
  3. What are some general guidelines for loving? (This is a REALLY vague question. There might be different answers for different social situations - like family, friends, and strangers)
I can’t think of any way to elaborate my thoughts now, so I’ll just open the floor to replies. Thanks in advance!
 
Hard Question to answer ( for me anyway); but i have found that the closer my realtionship is with God then the deeper my love for others is, even strangers. The Love i’m talking about is not a Boyfriend-girlfriend love but a deep love for the individual as i really know that God desires us all to be united with him becasue we are his children and we are ALL made in his image and likeness. It’s hard to explain; for me it’s like a deep, firey love and desire for that person to Have the love and grace of God. What follows after this is deep respect and desire for Human unity and personal closeness with people.

I hope this might give you an idea. But of course this is just my little thought and idea. I’m sure you will get great answers on this forum.

God Bless :signofcross:
 
KrazyKaiju said:
  1. What are some general guidelines for loving? (This is a REALLY vague question. There might be different answers for different social situations - like family, friends, and strangers)
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Jesus mentioned some of these – consider the Sermon on the Mount, especially Matthew 5.

My thought: Seek out whatever is best for a person, and that is (agape) love. In order to find out what is best, you need reason and revelation – that is, knowledge.

If you’re interested in the topic, I would recommend reading “The Four Loves” by C.S. Lewis.
 
Hi KrazyKaiju,

You’ve certainly hit on a very difficult thing to answer directly. I’ll do what I can to explain, from my own (limited) understanding.

First off, the obligatory reference to 1 Corinthians 13 (the Love chapter that you often hear at weddings). Try to think about this in terms of your relationships with people that are not family. I’ve been given numerous plaques with this chapter by my wife and other family after we got engaged, but there is so much more to it than romantic love. These are qualities that we are to show in our interactions with all people. If you’re looking for a list of the properties of love, it is a good place to start.

As far as how much we can emulate God in his love for us, it is literally unfathomable. If you want a starting point, I would suggest thinking of someone you care about very much. You don’t want them to hurt themselves and you truly desire that they become as happy as they can possibly be (note that this does not mean getting things that they think will make them happy). Then, imagine that you know everything about them, every hurtful thing they’ve said, done, or thought of doing, and imagine that you still want them to taste true joy. Now apply this over everyone, all time and all people. Even those who spit in your face, you truly want the best for them, so much so that you’re willing to risk other ridicule by sharing with them again and again what joy they could have. God never tires of telling us that he loves us and (thankfully) he is ready to welcome us back at any time, without mention of all those times we disobeyed or mocked him.

I’m not entirely sure I follow what you mean by “guidelines for loving.” I would go back to 1 Corinthians 13. I would note that, because of our fallen nature, none of us are going to be able to practice all of these perfectly at all times, but we should attempt to anyway. Work on each of them over time, with everyone whom you interact with, and see how those relationships grow. Most of all, do not let any one of the characteristics of love to crowd out the others. For instance, do not let your desire to be kind drive out truth, or attempts to be patient allow evils to persist. True love for a person will desire that they turn away from evils (as all lead to self-destruction).

This is a very incomplete description. The truth of love and of God’s love for us is a great mystery, but one that we may one day experience in the fullness of the Kingdom. God bless!
 
Chemical reactions in the brain possibly. Nothing more than that. Why is this a moral question? My objection to God remains because I find the moral base revealed in the OT of “Love” to be very objectionable. Is this what you are feeling too?
 
StrawberryJam said:
Chemical reactions in the brain possibly. Nothing more than that. Why is this a moral question? My objection to God remains because I find the moral base revealed in the OT of “Love” to be very objectionable. Is this what you are feeling too?
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I’m not quite sure. For one, I’ve never been satisfied with the happy-feely-rainbows imagery for love. You know, where love is simply a feeling. Without any substance to it, it just seems superfluous and dismissable.

I think I see what you’re saying. If the Christian God exists, then there’s this “love” that we should be striving for. If you deny the consequent (that we should be aiming for this love), then the premise is denied (Christian God). For now, I’m going on the supposition that the Christian God exists, and then trying to discern what this love is. I’m trying to find ways I ought to conduct myself.

So far, I’m getting vague answers like “tough love”, “desiring truth/knowledge”, and “seeking truth/knowledge”. It’s not that I find certain ones objectionable. Rather, I’m just a seeker of truth. I may stumble across certain objectionable things along the way, but that’s half of the challenge and half of the fun.😉

I’m just trying to set my life straight.

What have you found in the OT?
 
KrazyKaiju said:
Hello Catholic Answers Forums,

Recently, I’ve been thinking alot about what love is. Not the happy-feely-sunshine-and-rainbows love. I mean the kind the kind that God wants us to emulate. I’ve been trying to think about what it is, and the subject’s been bothering me. I don’t quite know where to begin, so I’ll pose a few questions.
  1. What is love? For me, some words that seem to come to mind are “service”, “critiquing”, “honest”, “inquisitiveness/thirst for knowledge”, etc. I feel like I might have some vague imagery without any concise definitions.
  2. How much of God’s love can we emulate, being that His nature is far greater than our own?
  3. What are some general guidelines for loving? (This is a REALLY vague question. There might be different answers for different social situations - like family, friends, and strangers)
I can’t think of any way to elaborate my thoughts now, so I’ll just open the floor to replies. Thanks in advance!
Click to expand...
Why are you attracted to love in the first place?
 
I think this is the best thread I ever saw here. It makes me think of the question of is God good? What is good?
Is that “Love”? What is Love if it is indeed “good”?
 
(1 Corinthians 13:1 RSV) If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.
(1 Corinthians 13:2 RSV) And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.
(1 Corinthians 13:3 RSV) If I give away all I have, and if I deliver my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.
(1 Corinthians 13:4 RSV) Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful;
(1 Corinthians 13:5 RSV) it is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;
(1 Corinthians 13:6 RSV) it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right.
(1 Corinthians 13:7 RSV) Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
(1 Corinthians 13:8 RSV) Love never ends; as for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away.
(1 Corinthians 13:9 RSV) For our knowledge is imperfect and our prophecy is imperfect;
(1 Corinthians 13:10 RSV) but when the perfect comes, the imperfect will pass away.
(1 Corinthians 13:11 RSV) When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became a man, I gave up childish ways.
(1 Corinthians 13:12 RSV) For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall understand fully, even as I have been fully understood.
(1 Corinthians 13:13 RSV) So faith, hope, love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.
 
No where in those passages in Corinthians do we get a definition of love. We are told to have it. That is not the same thing as defining it.
 
Love is **doing **what is for the good of another person – above all what is for their eternal good.
 
It’s difficult to define or describe. It’s the willingness to sacrifice oneself for another- the concern or burden one has for anothers’ welfare. And to experience receiving love is the most awesome thing in the universe. To merely be in Gods’ presence is to know this love –and to be made undeniably aware of loves’ reality and in comparability. Integral to this experience is the knowledge of-the full engulfment in- such things as expressed in 1Cor 13: peace and joy beyond human understanding, absolute and unconditional acceptance, kindness, patience, goodness, etc. This is the nature of God and what He desires for us to know and to be.
 
Well I’ve got two (actually three) good answers for you. The first is about love as in eros and the state of love in modern America. Perhaps no better description can be found in a 1980’s short story by Ray Carver called “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love.” On a list of 75 short stories all men should read by Esquire Magazine – I’m sure they allow women as well.

For a Catholic view of love, may I recommend Fr. Robert Barron in these essays about scripture:

payingattentiontothesky.com/2009/05/21/the-hymn-to-love/ which Holly quoted above

and Jesus’ on the “greatest” commandment: “Rabbi, which is the greatest commandment?” He gives his famous answer: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and first commandment. The second is like it: you shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

payingattentiontothesky.com/2009/05/10/rose-hawthorne-and-the-entwined-love-of-god-and-neighbor/

Regards

dj
 
The house recommends:

CS Lewis’ The Four Loves
Josef Pieper’s Love, one of the main influences on Pope Benedict’s Deus Caritas Est

Both these works deal a lot with “human” loves rather than tackling the theological virtue of Love, the Love that is God, at great length. There are probably some spiritual (mystical?) classics somewhere out there if you’re looking for material on the very highest possible definition of Love.
 
Love is self sacrifice for the benefit of another. It expects nothing in return.
 
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