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own being is accompanied by frui�on. God not him. Because of this divine love, every true
only communicates his being; he takes delight lover wills the good of the beloved (Aquinas,
in doing so and, moreover, desires that the SCG, bk. 3, c. 90 [no. 2657]). In light of the cir-
other par�cipate in both the giving and the de- cularity between gi� and love we can suggest
light of loving and being loved by the other. now that gi� is the mystery of the communica-
There is no love without the delight of being �on of love whose unity is also one of ever-gre-
loved and sharing this delight with the other. ater differen�a�on.
The love that is at the origin of crea�on ex nihi-
lo [out of nothing] is not an ornamental cloak To express the mystery of unity and difference
over an exercise of power. When we say that in a third specific to love [the Triune God], and
God loves the world into existence we mean so to be�er understand the gratuity proper to
that he communicates his own goodness and the giving and the receiving of the gi�, we need
being to what he is not [finite being]. to look briefly at the two indissociable terms
that come together in the name love, that is,
While love unveils these three dimensions of eros and agape. Love has an obla�ve, agapic di-
the nature of the Good and so gives rise to a mension and a desirous, ero�c dimension.
reading of the summum bonum [greatest good] Eros, a god for the Greeks, has an ambiguous
as summa caritas [greatest love], love is also a nature. The offspring of poros (wealth) and pe-
gi� given (in God and from God). There is a cir- nia (poverty), eros, so Plato recounts, indicates
cularity between love and gi� that prevents us need and precariousness and, at the same
from reading love simply as a faculty of the will, �me, impetuousness, the desire for wisdom
and gi� as an object of that love. Love is gi�, (Symposium, 201a–204d). Eros is not a self-mo-
and gi�, in its highest expression, is love. Love �vated impulse. It is awakened by beauty. This
is not just one gi� given among others. Love is beauty is first the corporeal beauty, which
what makes gi�s be gi�s and not mere exchan- a�racts and en�ces the lover out of himself be-
ges of property. It is love that ensures the purity cause it is the overflowing of the eternal beauty
of the giver's and the receiver's inten�ons. in a concrete form. We thus find the first con-
Alexander of Hales, describing the proper�es of nota�on of eros: the beginning of desire lies in
the Holy Spirit, writes that love is what is given a certain given par�cipa�on in beauty. Eros is
in whatever is given. Love, says Aquinas, "has moved by something else, in which it seeks the
the nature of the first gi�, and through it all gra- fullness of what it has foretasted. Receiving the
tuitous gi�s are given” (ST I, q. 38, a.2). What form of beauty, eros engages the whole of the
love gives is itself, that is, it gives being with all person, including the body, and drives the per-
the incomprehensible ever-greater unity of its son to transcend himself. Desire tears him away
transcendentals. It gives it so that the other can from his own limita�ons. This, then, is the se-
be. Crea�on ex nihilo is God’s absolute affirma- cond connota�on: eros not only indicates the
�on that generates another, one that is iden�- need to receive; it also draws the person to
cal to the origin (the Son), and another that is seek unity with what he s�ll does not possess.
what he is not [created, finite being]. This com- Seeking unity with love itself, eros moves the
munica�on is an expression of his love for the lover upwards to the root of beings. Love
world, and it is given so that the concrete singu- “thirsts,” so to speak, for the beauty that comes
lar may experience from within, taste, and take to it first. This is why eros has been described as
delight in his love. the ascending dimension of love.
Human love has its roots in the crea�ve affir- We can say further, and apart from the Neopla-
ma�on of the [creature], according to which tonic tradi�on, that, anthropologically spea-
God says: it is good for you to be (Gen 1:31). king, eros as the desire of unity with the other,
Willing man's ul�mate good, God wishes the includes physical conjugal union. Yet, the union
creature to par�cipate in his life, to dwell in that desire seeks is be�er perceived in its hig-
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