Eros and Agape Revisited.

 The Swedish theologian Anders Nygren wrote some 90 years ago his groundbreaking study Den kristna kärlekstanken genom tiderna (Engl. "Eros and Agape"). The basic idea of Nygren is simple: There are two main forms - or motives - of love. The first is eros, that means human desire for fulfillment. Love as eros is aimed at the person/thing that I am wanting, that satisfies my longing and fills the empty space in my heart. The second form of love is agape, that does not seek for its own, but is generously giving itself to the other. This, precisely, is the Christian love promoted by St Paul in 1 Corinthians 13. The cross of Christ unfolded the meaning of agape: self-surrender until death. "In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the expiation for our sins." (1 Jn 4,10)

In Nygren's view, eros appears as the selfish kind of love, whereas agape has a more divine and disinterested aura. Nygren, the Lutheran bishop, finds the epitome of Christian love in Luther's Heidelberg Disputation (thesis 28): "The love of God does not find, but creates, that which is pleasing to it. The love of man comes into being through that which is pleasing to it." 

Nygren's dichotomy has considerable heuristic value and it has become a commonplace in theological studies about love. However, it has shortcomings that Nygrén's countrywoman Elisabeth Gerle has pointed out in her study Sinnlighetens närvaro (Engl. "Passionate Embrace"). At a closer scrutiny, the disjointing of God and eros is fatal. It results to God being above human misery in his disinterested agape, the endlessly giving God that does not need anything from humans - God that has ultimately nothing in common with the humanity! This view compromises the basic doctrine of Christianity, God becoming human. As a matter of fact, pure agape would be a weak form of love indeed:

"Nygren’s emphasis on agape and divine love has not only resulted in humanity being described as without value. It also has consequences for ethics. No one but God can love in the right way. And when God loves human beings, it is not because the latter is valuable but in spite of the fact that they are not. This attitude risks making ethics, and relations between people, more passive. If love cannot find nourishment in desire, longing, and feeling for the other, it risks becoming weak and spiritually impoverished. In this event love will not be seen in relation to friendship, in which one looks for the other as such and acts on the other’s behalf." (Passionate Embrace, 170)

To challenge Nygren's view, Gerle delineates eros theology - in discussion with feminist theologies - that understands eros as a driving force towards union an reciprocity between God and humans, as well as between human persons. In this view we may see God as desiring, longing and being passionate for the Creation. This is not an alien view to the Bible: The Old Testament is full with expressions of God's wrath, pity, and affection. In the New Testament, St James declares "that God jealously longs for the spirit he has caused to dwell in us" (Jas 4,5) The idea of detached divine agape is more indebted to Greek philosophy than to Biblical authors.

Nygren's doctrine of love attempts to distinguish the exclusively Christian way of thinking, in contrast to non-Christian philosophies. The approach is similar to the Barthian etwas ganz Anderes: there is a deep and insuperable break between the human and the divine. Human and divine love have virtually nothing in common but the name. Yet there has always been another option for Christian theology: looking for the point of connection. Gerle opts for her another countryman, Gustaf Wingren, who follows Irenaeus in claiming that human beings, merely by breathing, live in a relation to God.

Of course human eros may lead astray. Sexual desire and urge for intimacy may result to abuse of another person and loveless sexual conquests. In that regard, however, agape has no advantage. It may turn out to be a way of domination and suppression. Neither of the two is the privileged form of love that can live without the other. Perhaps we need a new word for love that would involve playfulness and passion. Here Gerle makes a pun that is hard to translate: the Swedish word for love is kärlek that one might read as dear (kär) play (lek). One-sided attention to agape has been at least partly responsible for the subordinate view of body, sexuality, and women in Christianity.

The Protestant theology has vehemently condemned every human activity that is understood as a merit in front of God. This is the main reason why human desire for God has not been properly appreciated: The justification occurs as a sovereign act of God, not motivated by anything human. Unfortunately, this emphasis gives the impression that God's love does not consider humans at all. That God's love is eros for humankind that in turn entices eros from the side of humans, perhaps improves our understanding of justification as a gift.

"The embrace of bride and groom, the union with God, is not the result of effort. It is a gift to be received in faith. Human beings do not need to first distance themselves from their sinful nature, something often interpreted as their physical aspect. They will be united with God as they are, as  whole people, possessed of spirit, soul, and body. There is thus room here for a healthy autonomy that does not require victims to be a part of love. That a loving relationship can include suffering, because one party suffers with the other, is something different from the relationship itself creating or glorifying suffering." (ibid. 276)

The idea of divine eros allows us to perceive the world and ourselves as God's partners of love, not as objects of forensic justification, but as subjects that God asks for response and responsibility.