[From Part I Chapter II.B, "You Shall Love Your Neighbor"]
If you really fulfil the royal law according to the Scripture, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” you are doing well. But if you show partiality, you are committing sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors. ~ James 2:8-9 (ESV)
[From Part I Chapter II.B, "You Shall Love Your Neighbor"]
If you really fulfil the royal law according to the Scripture, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” you are doing well. But if you show partiality, you are committing sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors. ~ James 2:8-9 (ESV)
In this section (Chapter 2 part
B, to be precise) Kierkegaard discusses the object
of love—that is, who a person loves.
Here he distinguishes between erotic (romantic) love and friendship on one side
and Christian love on the other in terms of who they love and why:
“…Christianity has misgivings about erotic [romantic] love and friendship because preference in passion or passionate preference is really another form of self-love. Paganism had never dreamed of this. Because paganism never had an inkling of self-renunciation's love of one's neighbor whom one shall love, it therefore reckoned thus: self-love is abhorrent because it is love of self, but erotic love and friendship which are passionate preferences for other people, are genuine love. But Christianity, which was made manifest what love is, reckons otherwise. To love the beloved, asks Christianity—‘Do not the pagans do likewise?’”[i]
Pause. Here’s what he’s saying:
Christianity is not willing to call romantic love and friendship the highest
forms of love because, in a way, they are really self-love. We might think that
romantic love and friendship are unselfish because we are choosing to love
another person instead of ourselves. However, in both romantic love and
friendship we are loving the people we also like.
We choose our friends and spouses carefully based on the kinds of people we
want to be around. Romantic love and friendship cannot be totally selfless,
then, because who I love is largely determined by my own desires. Unpause.
“If because of this someone thinks that the difference between Christianity and paganism is that in Christianity the beloved and the friend are loved with an entirely different tenderness and fidelity than in paganism. He misunderstands. Does not paganism also offer examples of love and friendship so perfect that the poet instinctively goes back to them? But no one in paganism loved his neighbor—no one suspected that there was such a being. Therefore what paganism called love, in contrast to self-love, was preference. But if passionate preference is essentially another form of self-love, one again sees the truth in the saying of the worthy father [St. Augustine], ‘The virtues of paganism are glittering vices.’”[ii]
People might make the mistake of
thinking that Christian love is just a better form of normal, earthly love.
They might think, for example, that Christian love means that Christians truly
love their spouses, their children, etc., while non-Christians cannot love at
that level. But this is a misunderstanding. After all, there are countless
examples in pagan history, and in our world today, of non-Christians showing
dramatic, inspiring levels of love for their family and friends. Deep romantic
love and friendship are certainly appealing to us; we view them as admirable,
enviable traits. And yet Kierkegaard writes that if we choose only to love our so-called “loved ones”
we are not showing Christian love, but being seduced by “glittering vices.”
Who, then, is the proper object
of Christian love? My neighbor. But who is my neighbor? Kierkegaard writes,
“One’s neighbor is one’s equal. One’s neighbor is not the beloved, for whom you have a passionate preference. Nor is your neighbor, if you are well-educated, the well-educated person with whom you have cultural equality—for with your neighbor you have before God the equality of humanity. Nor is your neighbor one who is of higher social status than you… for to love him because he is of higher status than you can very easily be preference and to that extent self-love. Nor is your neighbor one who is inferior to you… for to love one because he is inferior to you can very easily be partiality’s condescension and to that extent self-love. No, to love one’s neighbor means equality. It is encouraging in your relationship to people of distinction that you shall love your neighbor. In relation to those inferior it is humbling that in them you are not to love the inferior but shall love your neighbor. If you do this there is salvation, for you shall do it. Your neighbor is every man, for on the basis of distinctions he is not your neighbor, nor on their basis of likeness to you as being different from other men. He is your neighbor on be basis of equality before God; but this equality absolutely every man has, and he has it absolutely.”[iii]
Every person is my neighbor,
regardless of who they are or where they come from. And as my neighbor, every
person is my equal, as well. When we show love to the “less-fortunate,” it can
often be a kind of condescension—“these people sure are lucky that I’m around
to help them!” we might say to ourselves—and in that way we are really thinking
of ourselves. When we love the “more-fortunate” it can be a kind of worship—we
want to be like those who are more wealthy, more talented, more respected, etc.
and so we love them because they have what we want—and in that way we are
really thinking of ourselves. But as Christians we love all as neighbors, not
because they have earned our love or because it makes us feel better, but
because they are our neighbor, sharing equally in the image and love of God.
Dear Father,
It is so hard to love my
neighbor. It is so hard to love without preference, to love people regardless
of whether I like them. I don’t want to love people that I don’t like. I don’t
want to love people who don’t like me. And yet you command me to love my
neighbor. Grant me the strength to do that. Give me eyes that see your image in
every face, and give me a heart that loves all of your children.
In the name of Jesus Christ,
Amen
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