Religion & Law

Rob quotes Josef Pieper (criticizing Anders Nygren) that "[t]he call for an utterly disinterested, unmotivated, sovereign agape love that wishes to receive nothing, that is purged of all selfish desire, simply rests upon a misunderstanding of man as he really is," and that agape is a form (the highest form I imagine) of self-love, "properly understood as 'desire for fullness of being.'"  I think there's an important point there, that Christian love needs to have a connection to how human beings really are.  But I also worry that if this is the sole description, it loses an essential element in Christianity, namely the element of tension: that is, that the consummation of human existence in Christ would not just fulfill more deeply what we are or desire now, but radically transform what we are or desire now.  I worry that statements like the quotes of Pieper's can smooth over the strangeness of Jesus's demands, such as "love your enemies" and "resist not evil," in finding too much or too simple a commonality between our loves and distinctively Christian love.

Although I don't know Pieper's work, this quote also suggests that Pieper gets Nygren wrong in reading him to say that it's "our love" that gives people value, as opposed to God's love.  Whatever one thinks of the idea that value comes solely from God, that's quite different from saying that it comes from us, no?

Thoughts, Rob or others?