Author | Anders Nygren |
---|---|
Translator | Philip S. Watson |
Language | Swedish |
Subject | Love: Religious aspects, Christianity |
Publisher | S.P.C.K., Westminster Press, Harper & Row |
Publication date | 1930, 1936 |
Published in English | 1953 (complete) |
Pages | 764 pp. |
OCLC | 77003058 |
231.6 | |
LC Class | BV4639.N813 |
Agape and Eros (Swedish : Eros och Agape) is the shorthand English name given to the treatise written by the Swedish Protestant theologian Anders Nygren, which was first published in Swedish in two parts in 1930 and 1936. It's complete title in the English language was Agape and Eros - a study of the Christian idea of love.
Nygren was one of the theologians who had formed the so-called Lundensian School of Theology, in which other important figures were Gustaf Aulén and Ragnar Bring. They all shared a keen interest in rediscovering major motifs of Luther's Reformation theology, and examining how such motifs had been employed in different ways throughout history. In this context, Nygren was examining the motif of love. [1]
The book analyses the connotations of two ancient Greek words for love, eros and agape (unconditional love).
Nygren argues that eros is an egocentric and acquisitive kind of love, needs-based and desire-based. When we love out of eros - whether we love a god or another human being -, we love out of self-interest and in order to acquire and possess the object of our love. This form of love received its classic expression in the philosophy of Plato, particularly in his dialogue The Symposium.
Agape, by contrast, is a self-giving and self-sacrificial kind of love. It is based on God's unconditional love for all creatures. When we love out of agape we reject all self-gain and interest, and surrender ourselves to the other and love them purely for themselves.
For Nygren, agape is the properly Christian understanding of love, as is evident from New Testament texts such as the Synoptic Gospels, Paul's theology of the cross, and the identification of God and agape in the First Letter of John. Nygren therefore argues that agape is the only truly Christian kind of love, and that eros turns us away from God. Either we love others and God in the manner of eros, purely for ourselves, in which case we do not really love them at all; or we love them in the manner of agape, for themselves, with a true love, in which case we act against our own self-interest and happiness. [2]
Nygren also traces the historical roots of what he perceives to be the loss of this concept of agape. He argues that from St. Augustine onward, the focus on agape became diluted by an attempt to synthesize the concept with that of eros, in a development centered on the Latin word caritas. Nygren argues that most medieval theology of love was based around this attempt at a caritas-synthesis. However, he argues, this is not a truly Christian synthesis, given the origins and nature of eros. The Reformation, therefore, was hugely important because it inspired Martin Luther to expose the fallacy of the caritas synthesis, and made clear again the properly Christian conception of love, namely pure agape. [2]
The Original Swedish title is: Den kristna kärlekstanken genom tiderna: Eros och Agape (which translates as, The Christian idea of love through the ages: Eros and Agape). It appeared initially in two parts, the first volume in 1930 and the second in 1936. A later reprint reduced the title: Eros och Agape, (Stockholm, 1966).
The title of the English translation is Agape and Eros, not Eros and Agape. This seems to stem from the first (slightly abridged) translation of the first part: Agape and Eros, translated by A.G. Hebert (London: SPCK, 1932). The second part was first translated by Philip S. Watson and published in two volumes in 1938-9.
The first translation of the full work was by Philip S. Watson (London: SPCK, 1953, one volume). A revised edition by the same translator appeared in 1982 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, and London: SPCK).
Volume one contains two parts:
Volume two consists of a single part:
Nygren's work has been described as 'probably the most influential Protestant account of love in the twentieth century'. [2] For example, Martin Luther King Jr. shows clear influence by Nygren's categories in a sermon where he discussed Jesus' command to love one's enemies:
When Jesus bids us to love our enemies, he is speaking neither of eros not philia, he is speaking of agape, understanding and creative, redemptive goodwill for all men. Only by following this way and responding with this type of love are we able to be children of our Father who is in heaven." [3]
A generation later, however, with the work of Paul Tillich and Karl Rahner, Christian theology has turned away from Nygren's stark dualism of agape and eros and back towards a more unified conception of love. [4] For example, Pope Benedict XVI in his encyclical, Deus caritas est (2005), concluded that both eros and agape are aspects of divine love.
Love encompasses a range of strong and positive emotional and mental states, from the most sublime virtue or good habit, the deepest interpersonal affection, to the simplest pleasure. An example of this range of meanings is that the love of a mother differs from the love of a spouse, which differs from the love for food. Most commonly, love refers to a feeling of strong attraction and emotional attachment.
Justificatio sola fide, meaning justification by faith alone, is a soteriological doctrine in Christian theology commonly held to distinguish the Lutheran and Reformed traditions of Protestantism, among others, from the Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Assyrian and Anabaptist churches. The doctrine asserts that it is on the basis of faith alone that believers are made right of sin ; and not on the basis of what Paul the Apostle calls "works of the law", which sola fide proponents interpret as including not only moral, legal or ceremonial requirements but any good works or "works of charity."
Agape is "the highest form of love, charity" and "the love of God for [human beings] and of [human beings] for God". This is in contrast to philia, brotherly love, or philautia, self-love, as it embraces a profound sacrificial love that transcends and persists regardless of circumstance.
In Christian theology, charity is considered one of the seven virtues and was understood by Thomas Aquinas as "the friendship of man for God", which "unites us to God". He holds it as "the most excellent of the virtues". Aquinas further holds that "the habit of charity extends not only to the love of God, but also to the love of our neighbor".
Miroslav Volf is a Croatian Protestant theologian and public intellectual and Henry B. Wright Professor of Theology and director of the Yale Center for Faith and Culture at Yale University. He previously taught at the Evangelical Theological Seminary in his native Osijek, Croatia and Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, California (1990–1998).
Ancient Greek philosophy differentiates main conceptual forms and distinct words for the Modern English word love: agápē, érōs, philía, philautía, storgē, and xenía.
Eros is a concept in ancient Greek philosophy referring to sensual or passionate love, from which the term erotic is derived. Eros has also been used in philosophy and psychology in a much wider sense, almost as an equivalent to "life energy". The Protestant philosopher C. S. Lewis posits it as one of the four ancient Greek words for love in Christianity, alongside storge, philia, and agape.
The Four Loves is a 1960 book by C. S. Lewis which explores the nature of love from a Christian and philosophical perspective through thought experiments. The book was based on a set of radio talks from 1958 which had been criticised in the U.S. at the time for their frankness about sex.
Theology of the Body is the topic of a series of 129 lectures given by Pope John Paul II during his Wednesday audiences in St. Peter's Square and the Paul VI Audience Hall between September 5, 1979, and November 28, 1984. It constitutes an analysis on human sexuality. The complete addresses were later compiled and expanded upon in many of John Paul's encyclicals, letters, and exhortations.
The theology of Pope Benedict XVI, as promulgated during his pontificate, consists mainly of three encyclical letters on love (2005), hope (2007), and "charity in truth" (2009), as well as apostolic documents and various speeches and interviews. Pope Benedict XVI's theology underwent developments over the years, many of which were characterized by his leadership position in the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which is entrusted with preserving the Catholic faith in its entirety.
Gustaf Emanuel Hildebrand Aulén was the Bishop of Strängnäs in the Church of Sweden, a Lutheran theologian, and the author of Christus Victor, a work which still exerts considerable influence on contemporary theological thinking on the atonement.
Deus caritas est, subtitled De Christiano Amore, is a 2005 encyclical, the first written by Pope Benedict XVI, in large part derived from writings by his late predecessor, Pope John Paul II. Its subject is love, as seen from a Christian perspective, and God's place within all love. Charity is one of the three theological virtues; and the other two were treated in two successive encyclicals, one signed by Benedict and one written substantially by him but signed by his successor Pope Francis . This text begins with a reflection on the forms of love known in Greek philosophy—eros, agape, philia (friendship)—and their relationship with the teachings of Jesus.
Anders Theodor Samuel Nygren was a Swedish Lutheran theologian. He was professor of systematic theology at Lund University from 1924 and was elected Bishop of Lund in 1948. He is best known for his two-volume work Agape and Eros.
Religious views on love vary widely between different religions.
Interior life is a life which seeks God in everything, a life of prayer and the practice of living in the presence of God. It connotes intimate, friendly conversation with Him, and a determined focus on internal prayer versus external actions, while these latter are transformed into means of prayer.
Agape is commonly used by Christians to describe God's love, defining it as unconditional love.
The theology on the body is a broad term for Catholic teachings on the human body.
Arthur Gabriel Hebert (1886–1963) was an English monk of Kelham, Nottinghamshire, and a proponent within Anglicanism of the ideas of the Liturgical Movement.
Love and Will (1969) is a book by American existential psychologist Rollo May, in which he articulates the principle that an awareness of death is essential to life, rather than being opposed to life.
Lynn de Silva's theology began at an early stage in Lynn de Silva's ministry, when his interest in Buddhism and its culture began to increase. He believed that the credibility of Christianity depended on its ability to relate to Buddhism, which was the faith of the majority of the Sri Lankan population. His objective was to develop a richer appreciation of the similarities between Buddhism and Christianity, in particular, to communicate the Christian message in a manner that the Sri Lankan culture understood, and to construct a theology that is focused towards the Buddhist cultural environment. To this end, he used Buddhist concepts to communicate Christian beliefs in a language understood from the Buddhist context, and he aimed at extending Christian theology with Buddhist concepts in order to gain a more thorough understanding of Christianity. In his book The Problem of the Self in Buddhism and Christianity, de Silva states the following:
There is a growing body of opinion within Christianity that its theology is shop-soiled and needs drastic revision in order first, to re-root it in the basic biblical teaching, secondly, to bring it into harmony with new insights and modes of thought coming from other faiths, ideologies and modern science and thirdly, to relate it to social realities... What I have attempted is to help this process of transformation in Christian thinking. However, theological thinking in order to be meaningful and relevant must be contextual. The context of this book is Buddhism.