A
Short Theological Exposition on Love
Written
for my beautiful wife’s 35th birthday
Many people, including the infamous DC Talk, have
stated that “Love is a Verb”. This point
is made so often that it has almost been accepted as a truism, especially in
Christian circles. While I can
appreciate the sentiment—that Love is a choice we make that requires action,
this is a dangerously foolish thing to say, especially for a Christian. For, to
state that Love is a verb takes the concept of Love solely into the realm of
action, distancing it from where it belongs:
in the realm of being. To say it another way, for Love to be simply
an action makes it something that we do,
rather than something that is. Love must be conceptualized, not as an
action, but as a thing. To use a
Platonic model, Love has an existence in the spiritual world of the Forms. And, the love that we express, receive and
feel is like a shadow of that perfect form of Love which is above and is cast
down onto our existence.
Christian theology takes it a step further by
professing that not only does Love have an existence independent of human
action or emotion, but that Love is actually a Person. St. John explicitly states that “God is Love”
(1 John 4:16). Not only does Love exist is a realm higher than that of human
action, but that Love is a part of God’s very being. God is
Love. When the emphasis is placed on the
“is”, we see that the truth of the sentence is based on existence, not action.
Therefore, when we love, we are participating in the
Love that God is and the Love which God has for us. That is what makes Love so powerful: when we love each other it is a participation
in the life of God. St. John follows his
famous “God is Love” statement by showing that when we love, it is a partaking
of the Love of God: “Whoever lives in love lives in
God, and God in them.”
This, Lauren, is the only way that I can understand
the depth of my love for you.
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