Love is not "Love"

This post is a sequel to "What is love?" and could be understood as the "why and how" of love.

In our day, love is often reduced to good, comfortable feelings i.e. affection. In the main cultural stream at present, "love" is so confused with sexual relations that people feel inclined to contradict the meaning of marriage and somatic structure in pursuit of what they believe to be love structure. Love cannot be only these things, even though affection and sexuality are good in their proper place and order. This confusion comes to justify sin and make life only about us. However, this is contrary to God's plan insofar as it is contrary to our actual good. Ipso facto, the idea of love is to be guarded and upheld or thus profaned to the point that it hardly be recognized, much like how Christ Himself was beaten, tortured, and rent to the point He was almost impossible to look at with the slightest purity/justice of heart. If we do not do so contrary to real love is willing God’s creation actual and not just theoretical ill, directly and indirectly, intentional or not. Since we are all called to love truly, a failure at that is sin(). Yet, the difficulty remains that we are both finite and fallen. Sin (like the Spanish word for without) is acts that fall short of love. Often and even when giving our best, we can misunderstand exactly how the principle of love may be applied to a specific circumstance, and in all things we will do this especially with imperfection. We will fall short of the means, magnitude, and ends of love, so why not give it our best by understanding what love really is. Love is willing for the good of the other intrinsically and extrinsically, but with a final preference to the external, with minimal reference to self. On the contrary, Love is willing the good of God’s creation, when it is easy, is difficult, brings us gain, or brings us loss. One ought does not undermine the other.

Firstly, subjective good is someone’s immediate, particular needs, and it is subjective in that it pertains to the current circumstances and state of their being, thought, and struggle. Without subjective love, objective love remains abstract, bitter, and is never truly willed in a recognizable way. Inadequate means taken (which results from a lack of objective consideration) are the first thing to pollute love because anger can get mistaken for good intent, conflict ceases to truly will the good of a relationship and interprets it rather as an immediate threat to peace, and the “love” really is an I-know-better-than-you-what-is-good-for-you sort of love which may have its place but should be used as a last resort as in the case of choosing to not bail out a relative from jail. Nevertheless, subjective good is an essential part of love because if we do not care about what those we are called to love are struggling with, we can never understand them and we fail at compassion. As was mentioned in the post on judgment, if someone is committing sin, we need not first conclude someone is a bad person and seek to cast them out, but we must first recognize the presence of pain. It should be noted that no pain or prior sin ever makes the next sin right, after all the law is for our good, act contrary to that even with diminished culpability does not make it ordered to goodness, and two rights do not make a wrong. Still and just as important to be noted, when God sees our sin He sees our pain with them and knows the struggle we face. Therefore, the subjective good is willed through mercy, compassion, listening/understanding, tender care, affection, and fraternity/sorority i.e. unity and vulnerability (1 Corinthians 13).[1] The good feeling of love (that which is affection) does not have a moral character per se, it is what we do with that feeling that is morally significant. As such the affection that may assist in our love, is not incumbent upon love itself, but may be considered a minor aspect of subjective love. This allows for the fact if we have a disordered movement of affection that connects improperly to expressions of love that are not in the subjective or objective good of the other, it is true love that resists this temptation in adherence to the true good of the other. Moreover, even when this affection pushes us away from willing proper goods, we can still use the ambition it affords us by orienting ourselves to the proper goods, and so turn the affection into love through proper actions.[2] This is the true sense in which love is not "love" contrary to the culture's claim nor are we slaves of affection/emotion that we must follow our temptations in our fleeting passions to truly give and receive love in the way we truly need. This confusion makes it possible to call sin "love", and there is no worse use of reason than this because it justifies abuse and other evils by calling them "good". Therefore, one ought to be relatively scrupulous about what they perceive to be the immediate good of the other. Further, subjective does not mean ambivalence, it is only more personal and immediate than objective/ultimate goods. “Spread love everywhere you go. Let no one ever come to you without leaving happier.” St. Teresa of Calcutta

Second, objective good is the purpose, ordination, and final end of subjective love. Without objective good in consideration, subjective love is not truly ordered to the fullest and highest good and is not a truly willed good. In the same way, one can confuse the good of human life with gang affiliation, subjective love can lose its proper bearing very quickly if the true good of the person is not considered. An incorrect mode of expression in the context, an unintended consequence, or a misintention are immediate derivatives of a purely subjective love, which is reductive of love’s maxima, often to the point of it being a feeling, which is dangerous in committed relationships. Objective love is the context of subjective love, and it wills irascible good and the concupiscible. It is the sort of love that recognizes the end to which we are called and assists the other along this path. Therefore, objective love is expressed in charitable conflict, fraternal correction, disagreement, and prayer for others, and is willed properly via the subjective love/good that the important truths be well received and therefore the highest and eschatological goods are truly willed. "God willeth that we endlessly hate the sin and endlessly love the soul, as God loveth it." Attributed to Julian of Norwich.

Thirdly, knowledge of the good, in either case, is required and only obtained through a real relationship where unity/harmony and actual dialogue of persons happens through vulnerability/trust, time, and effort. Moreover, response to this accrual of knowledge through accepting the true invitation/opportunity which the willing another's good may show itself to truly be. This is to say if you gain knowledge of someone, especially of an intimate sort, where you know exactly how to hurt them, you should be moved to love as it is what we were made for. At this point, one is free to love well, and for one aspiring for heaven, this should be a precious and sacred opportunity to love Christ suffering or consoled, simple or complex, easy or arduous. It must be said that, as the above suggests, that doesn't only mean blind affirmation or the affectionate rubbing of erogenous zones. It should also be noted this knowledge should not be presumed, change/growth is possible in people and there is more than only one's original perspective which should be employed in understanding. It should be noted that without knowledge of the good subjective and/or objective, the lover cannot know what to will and so either wills blindly/abstractly or wills wrongly. This is how our love for God is relevant in every relationship (1 John 4:20; John 13:35). Therefore, one cannot love what they do not know.


Fourthly, To truly will a good is to choose it absolutely, it does not leave the good in potency/abstraction but seeks to actualize it, preventing it from being only abstract and general and without true existence in reality, but makes it concrete, tangible, changing the content of reality to hold it in actual memory where it forms a bond which is nurtured by more of the same willful intention and genuine conformity to the real good of the other. "The human person is ordered to beatitude by his deliberate acts: the passions or feelings he experiences can dispose him to it and contribute to it."[3] This act is simply becoming an efficient cause of the goodness of reality by the grace of the Good, Loving Source of Reality in loving i.e. willing the good.[4] This is where man often finds himself tested, and often chooses against love well, and instead loves according to convenience. Sometimes love demands everything of us, and who are we told it back when God's own Son was murdered and He never ceased in loving us. More to that point returned and forgave those who aspired to love Him and failed (John 20-21). Sometimes love looks like folding socks on a Tuesday. St. Ignatius of Loyola “Love is shown more in deeds than in words” (Spiritual Exercises, 230).


Fifth, the other party whose good is willed must be recognized. Who is this? This should remind us of the question to which Jesus replied with the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:29–37). Perhaps a more meaningful wording of the question is, who can we love? If you ever see an opportunity where put more of your heart is possible into a relationship the answer is almost always, “Yes you should”. Considerations that may contradict this include whether the potency of objective good can be actualized for them, for you, and for those who experience that relationship extrinsically. An example would be a certain family member who struggles with narcissistic personality disorder or is incapable of seeing you as a person they can love where your love is not a gift but an expectation or it is rejected. In these cases, whatever you will for the person is not capable of bringing an effect of the goodness love brings because that love is never truly received. We are called love not only as we wish to be but as Christ does. Moreover the "other" is Christ, and they should be treated as Sons/Daughters of God who partake in His image even if not quite the likeness (in the case of sin or lack of holiness) (Matthew 25:31-46).[5] “God loves each of us as if there were only one of us.” St. Augustine.

In conclusion, if love is that which we shall be judged on in the consummation of the ages, then we ought to consider making serious efforts to understand how to do it as best we can, what it means to truly do it, and to not let the culture try to redefine it out of convenience. Moreover, it is the one thing Christ asks of us personally verbatim and implicitly when He gives any command since they are all encapsulated with love. We are not always free to love others, but let that be because of their choice, not ours. Indeed, love is composed of goodwill and real will, real knowledge of the subjective and objective good of the other. It is not a feeling, it is not only a good habit but is the whole meaning of our existence, the content of justice, the order which God intended from the beginning, and is the only thing that makes the Christian life possible, intelligible, and worthwhile. Indeed, it is our life and every virtue.[6] Let us therefore seek freedom to love perfectly, without holding back in the proper order, and receive it from Him who first loved/loves us. There is a reality to the goodness of the other person and it is very possible to mistake it or only see it in light of one's good here is where the society in which we live is making great strides at tempting us to only concerned ourselves with our own lives, to not care much about those whose good requires something of us uncomfortable, and in reducing the height of moral obligation to a matter of convenience. Physical affection is a good thing and may be used in love, and in a unique way with spousal love, but if this is the height of one's love, it is no love at all. Love is a choice/action toward the mutual, abiding, dialogical state of communion between persons (final cause) which results from the unity of both parties willing the good of the other through vulnerability (the action/efficient cause), love of God is its force/energy/source/matter (material cause), peace is its precipitate, and goodness, truth, and beauty are its form (formal cause). If love is only a feeling, then Christ died for nothing and was indeed no God, because this would remove the glory of His suffering completely and thereby undoes the sanctity of our experience.
John of the Cross: "The least act of pure love is of more value than all the other works put together." 

"St Teresa Benedicta of the Cross was able to understand that the love of Christ and human freedom are intertwined, because love and truth have an intrinsic relationship. The quest for truth and its expression in love did not seem at odds to her; on the contrary she realized that they call for one another.

In our time, truth is often mistaken for the opinion of the majority. In addition, there is a widespread belief that one should use the truth even against love or vice versa. But truth and love need each other. St Teresa Benedicta is a witness to this. The “martyr for love”, who gave her life for her friends, let no one surpass her in love. At the same time, with her whole being she sought the truth, of which she wrote: “No spiritual work comes into the world without great suffering. It always challenges the whole person”.

St Teresa Benedicta of the Cross says to us all: Do not accept anything as the truth if it lacks love. And do not accept anything as love which lacks truth! One without the other becomes a destructive lie." - St. John Paul II at the Canonization of St Teresa Benedicta of the Cross

FN:

1. Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, I-II, q. 26, a. 2, at New Advent, www.newadvent.org.
2. Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1763-1766.
3. Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1762.
4. ST, I-II, q. 109, a. 2
5. Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1699-1715.
6. ST, I-II, q. 65, a. 2; ST, II-II, q. 23, a. 1-8.