Some say we need to experience love for ourselves before we can love others. We are like channels. Unless there is some love input, there cannot be any love output. I am not sure what to think about that because I want love to come naturally.
Bonhoeffer belongs to that group. He tells us we don’t know how to love unless someone teaches it to us. In fact, it is not just anyone who teaches us love, he says. It is God. In his words: “When God won our hearts by God’s own love, our instruction in Christian love began at the same time.” (Life Together, 33.)
Reading a statement like this is somewhat confusing. Because it does not mention the love we develop for others in natural ways. It excludes the experience of spontaneous love that has nothing to do with God. Plus, it makes love contingent upon having an experience of God winning your heart by love.
So, it seems like we have two kinds of love going on here. And it looks like they are in competition with one another. They are:
1: The divine love of God.
2: The natural love of humans.
With those in mind, I ask you this simple question: Do you love others because God has loved you first, or because, well… you just do? Or to put it a little differently: Why do you love?
This is the first of three questions on: LOVE. Two more will be coming over the next days. (Photo: Toni Blay on flickr.)
Get distracted: What If There Is No Romance in Heaven? and Why Do So Few Women Commit Rape?
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Love is one thing, in my opinion. When we try to describe it as either coming from God or coming from humans, we become too theoretical. I think love flows through the universe. It does not only live in gods or humans. It is cosmic.
I’ve always been a little puzzled by the idea of a cosmic principle of love. Not because it’s unattractive or unconvincing, but because it’s hard to connect with it. For love to be real, it seems like it also needs to be tangible - as in coming to me through another human being. No?