1. Love
EuNC – Netherlands
Thomas Jay Oord

2. What is love? How is it understood or defined?

3. Without an understanding of love, we will have little idea about what an ethics of love entails.
Without an understanding of love, we will have little idea of what it means to act in love, becoming loving people, consider what loving groups and societies might look like, assess whether animals and other creatures can love, and make good sense of biblical statements about God’s love.

4. Love is… Relationship Desire Well-Being Feeling Choice
Love is desire to possess what one believes is good. – Plato
“Love, but see to it what you love.”
-- Augustine
Feeling
Love is a “feeling of elation.” – Fisher
“An intense feeling of deep affection.” – Standard Dictionary
Choice
“Love is a decision, it is a judgment.”
– Erich Fromm
Relationship
Love is “life sharing,” or “the realiz-ation in oneself the desires and experiences of others.” – Hartshorne
“a reciprocal relation” – Brummer
Well-Being
“Love does good.”
shalom, eudaimonia, flourishing, positivity, happiness, blessedness, abundant life, healing, salvation
Somehow Connected to God
“We love, because he first loved us.”

5. The definition of love I propose:
To love is to act intentionally,
in sympathetic/empathetic response
to others (including God),
to promote overall well-being.

6. To act intentionally Purposive, not accidental motives matter
limited freedom
seen and unseen actions

7. in sympathetic/empathetic response to others (including God)
relationality
sympathy vs. empathy
emotions
requires divine action

8. to promote overall well-being.
common good, not utilitarian
affirms self-love
includes (distributive) justice

9. Forms of Love Altruism Compassion Romance and Sex Forgiveness
Positivity
Self-affirmation
In-group/Out-group
Cosmological

10. is a form of love that promotes overall well-being
when responding to activity that generates ill-being.
“in spite of” love
when appreciating or seeking to enhance beauty or value.
“because of” love
by seeking to develop cooperation, friendship, or solidarity.
“alongside of” love
Agape…
Eros…
Philia…

11. Loving Persons/Virtuous Character
Loving Communities
Loving Societies
A Loving God

12. A Loving God Is not the source of evil.
God does not predestine us but gives us freedom to respond.
God engages in giving and receiving (is relational/passible).
God’s loving nature is unchanging (immutable)…
but God’s loving experience changes (mutable).
God loves all creation.
Does not condemn anyone to an eternal hell.
Question: Does a loving God allow/permit evil?

13. Love
EuNC – Netherlands
Thomas Jay Oord