The end result of self-serving love

You’ve probably seen the slogan “love is love” (or a variation of it) on a t-shirt, bumper sticker, or poster, or in an advertisement or social media post by a corporate giant like Facebook, Coke, Vans, or Nordstrom. On its face, it sounds to many like an undeniable axiom. Who would be so backward as to try to put limitations on love? Corporations who remind us of this maxim take on the air of moral teachers. How could we feel comfortable purchasing a product unless we know that its maker is on the right side of history?

But since “love is love” is so prevalent and so well captures some of the wrongheadedness of our culture, I want to examine what this slogan means and some of its implications and contrast it with the Christian view of love that is much richer and deeper and leads to human flourishing rather than detriment.

Although anyone who is culturally aware likely knows what “love is love” intends to convey, the following is a typical elaboration: “The phrase ‘love is love’ is often used to express the belief that love is a universal human experience and that all forms of love are valid and equal. The phrase also implies that love should not be restricted or judged based on factors such as gender, sexual orientation ... or any other social category.” ^[1]

What is love?

Our culture is awash in ideas about “love.” Popular songs of all musical genres are devoted to it and it’s the theme of innumerable TV shows, movies, articles, and books. The outlook on love of most people in the West has been shaped by understandings of human nature that arose out of the Enlightenment that hae come to be called expressive individualism and the autonomous self. As a result, most in the West now view the goal of their lives as personal self-expression and the fulfillment of their unique identity. Unlike in previous eras when identity was primarily defined by one’s community and faith, identity today focuses on individual desires and self-expression. [2]

Right at the start, the kind of love being envisioned in “love is love” is primarily romantic feelings and a delight in what another person can contribute to our personal desires, goals, and tastes. Think of almost every popular love song for the past several decades, almost every rom-com, most every romance novel, and this is the implicit view of love. As we’ll see, compared to the biblical view of love, this is a thin and hollowed-out version focused on self-actualization.^[3]

As the late Timothy Keller insightfully observed, drawing on Søren Kierkegaard, this modern understanding of love is the one that comes naturally to what Kierkegaard called the aesthete (which all of us naturally are, apart from rebirth in Christ). Keller explains,

The aesthete doesn’t really ask whether something is good or bad but only whether it is interesting. Everything is judged as to whether it is fascinating, thrilling, exciting, and entertaining ... An aesthete often claims to be a free individual. Life should be thrilling, full of “beauty and sparkle,” he says. And that means often casting off the shackles of society’s expectations and community ties. But Kierkegaard says that this is a very mistaken idea of what freedom is. The person living the aesthetic life is not master of himself at all; in fact, he is leading an accidental life. His temperament, tastes, feelings, and impulses completely drive him. ^[4]

The tragedy of this approach to love is that “if a wife loses her beautiful skin and countenance or a husband puts on the pounds, the aesthete begins to look around for someone more beautiful. If a spouse develops a debilitating illness, the aesthete begins to feel that life is pointless.” This is because the “aesthete does not really love the person; he or she loves the feelings, thrills, ego rush, and experiences that the other person brings. The proof of that is that when those things are gone, the aesthete has no abiding care or concern for the other.” ^[5]

‘Love’ without boundaries?

Even apart from a diminished view of love, should we accept the proposition that “all forms of [romantic or sexual] love are valid and equal”? ^[6] Even committed secularists will balk at some of the implications of this purported principle. What about love between a father and a daughter? Or love between an adult and a minor? Is love between humans and animals okay? What about multiple wives or husbands (polygamy)? What if causing or experiencing physical pain is part of one’s love life? What if a man or woman prefers to love an AI avatar rather than a real human being? Are we really prepared to say that each of these forms of “love” is just as valid as a traditional husband-wife relationship? Even if the individuals in these kinds of relationships consent, are we ready to normalize and celebrate them?

A better story

Clearly, not all “love” is acceptable love, even when strong feelings and desires are involved. Humans across all cultures, past and present, have recognized and established boundaries when it comes to sexual relationships. Sexuality has never been unconstrained. This stems from the moral law God has written on the hearts of all human beings (Romans 2:14-15). Given the naturalism that pervades the West, it’s not surprising that issues like love and sexuality are viewed as personal choices that have no moral consequence.^[7] Yet, the God who made us and knows what helps and harms us has revealed his will concerning relationships and sexuality in his Word. Consequently, as Glynn Harrison points out,

“[W]e flourish as human beings when we work in harmony with God’s reality. When we [do this], we are on the road to becoming fully human. And so, the road to human flourishing ... is to work with the grain of God’s reality, not to try to manufacture a reality of our own.^[8]

While we may chafe at what seem like restrictions on our freedom, God has established marriage between a natal man and a natal woman as the only appropriate relationship for sexual expression because this is the way He designed us to function and flourish.^[9]

This also means embracing the kind of love God displays and commands in Scripture. Rather than the self-centered love that comes naturally to the aesthete, biblical love is other-centered. As one scholar relates, this love “is based neither on a felt need in the loving person nor on a desire called forth by some attractive feature(s) in the one loved ... It rather proceeds from a heart of love and is directed to the other person to bless him or her and to seek that person’s highest good.” ^[10]

This divine love the apostle Paul describes as patient, kind, not boastful, not proud, not self-seeking, not easily angered, and forgiving. “It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres” (1 Corinthians 13:7, NIV). It’s a sacrificial love. Keller observes that our culture “makes individual freedom, autonomy, and fulfillment the very highest values”; yet “thoughtful people know deep down that any love relationship at all means the loss of all three.” ^[11]

C. S. Lewis acknowledged that if we desire to keep our heart safe from the vulnerability divine love might bring, we can lock it up “in the casket or coffin” of our selfishness. “But in that casket — safe, dark, motionless, airless — it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.” ^[12] This is the end result of the self-serving love of the world. The love of God, on the other hand, is glorious, bountiful, and life-giving.

Notes

1. James Thiel, “What Does ‘Love Is Love’ Mean?,” Quora, https://www.quora.com/What-does-love-is-love-mean.
2. Carl R. Trueman, The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self: Cultural Amnesia, Expressive Individualism, and the Road to Sexual Revolution (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2020).
3. Self-actualization is “a person’s desire to use all their abilities to achieve and be everything that they possibly can.” https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/self-actualization. I don’t believe it’s wrong to pursue our individual interests or to try to achieve as much as we can, but the problem comes when we do this in rebellion against appropriate moral and social constraints.
4. Timothy Keller and Kathy Keller, The Meaning of Marriage: Facing the Complexities of Commitment with the Wisdom of God (New York: Dutton, 2011), 96-97. Italics in original.
5. Ibid., 97.
6. Romantic or sexual love is always the context in which “Love is love” is used.
7. For an explanation of why naturalism is unable to provide a foundation for morality, see my article “Isn’t Morality Relative?”
8. Glynn Harrison, A Better Story: God, Sex and Human Flourishing (Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 2017), 127, 129.
9. For a defense of the Christian view of marriage and a critique of gender ideology, see my articles “The Christian View of Marriage: A Defense” and “Understanding Gender Ideology and Transgenderism.”
10. J. P. Baker, “Love,” in New Dictionary of Theology, ed. Sinclair B. Ferguson and J. I. Packer (Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 2000), 399.
11. Keller and Keller, 36.
12. C. S. Lewis, The Four Loves (New York: Harcourt, 1960), 123, cited in Keller and Keller, 36.

Originally published at the Worldview Bulletin Newsletter.