"LOVE AND RELATIONSHIPS"

Charity (Agape)

Questions for Reflection and Discussion

As we have seen, all of the natural loves (that is, all of the loves except agape) are capable of producing great evil. Only true, divine gift-love has the power the restrain the potentially corrupting influences of the other loves. So, with that in mind, what can agape specifically do (i.e., itemize!) to strengthen and enforce the natural loves and to mediate or eliminate the risks, myths, and dangers of the natural loves:

Affection (storge)

• The expectation of affection, even over rude or brutish behavior
• The cultivation of rudeness or harmful "teasing" as a weird form of affection
• The resistance to change in the other, because it weakens the familiarity required for affection
• Oppressive affection, such as the doting mother or the suffocating friend

Friendship (phileo)

• A basis arising in shared grievance, or hatred, or prejudice, rather than anything praiseworthy
• Wholesale indifference or deafness to the opinions of outsiders
• A spirit of (or even pleasure in) exclusiveness

Romantic Love (eros)

• Love is something we "fall into"
• Sex is part of romance
• For every man there is one woman who was "meant for him," or vice versa
• The total commitment to eros; "anything for love"

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6/1/97 (From materials, 3/18/94)