Page 79 - EMCAPP-Journal No. 21
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loved and sharing this delight with the other. To express the mystery of unity and difference
The love that is at the origin of crea�on ex nihi- in a third specific to love [the Triune God], and
lo [out of nothing] is not an ornamental cloak so to be�er understand the gratuity proper to
over an exercise of power. When we say that the giving and the receiving of the gi�, we need
God loves the world into existence we mean to look briefly at the two indissociable terms
that he communicates his own goodness and that come together in the name love, that is,
being to what he is not [finite being]. eros and agape. Love has an obla�ve, agapic di-
mension and a desirous, ero�c dimension.
While love unveils these three dimensions of Eros, a god for the Greeks, has an ambiguous
the nature of the Good and so gives rise to a nature. The offspring of poros (wealth) and pe-
reading of the summum bonum [greatest good] nia (poverty), eros, so Plato recounts, indicates
as summa caritas [greatest love], love is also a need and precariousness and, at the same
gi� given (in God and from God). There is a cir- �me, impetuousness, the desire for wisdom
cularity between love and gi� that prevents us (Symposium, 201a–204d). Eros is not a self-mo-
from reading love simply as a faculty of the will, �vated impulse. It is awakened by beauty. This
and gi� as an object of that love. Love is gi�, beauty is first the corporeal beauty, which
and gi�, in its highest expression, is love. Love a�racts and en�ces the lover out of himself be-
is not just one gi� given among others. Love is cause it is the overflowing of the eternal beauty
what makes gi�s be gi�s and not mere exchan- in a concrete form. We thus find the first con-
ges of property. It is love that ensures the purity nota�on of eros: the beginning of desire lies in
of the giver's and the receiver's inten�ons. a certain given par�cipa�on in beauty. Eros is
Alexander of Hales, describing the proper�es of moved by something else, in which it seeks the
the Holy Spirit, writes that love is what is given fullness of what it has foretasted. Receiving the
in whatever is given. Love, says Aquinas, "has form of beauty, eros engages the whole of the
the nature of the first gi�, and through it all gra- person, including the body, and drives the per-
tuitous gi�s are given” (ST I, q. 38, a.2). What son to transcend himself. Desire tears him away
love gives is itself, that is, it gives being with all from his own limita�ons. This, then, is the se-
the incomprehensible ever-greater unity of its cond connota�on: eros not only indicates the
transcendentals. It gives it so that the other can need to receive; it also draws the person to
be. Crea�on ex nihilo is God’s absolute affirma- seek unity with what he s�ll does not possess.
�on that generates another, one that is iden�- Seeking unity with love itself, eros moves the
cal to the origin (the Son), and another that is lover upwards to the root of beings. Love
what he is not [created, finite being]. This com- “thirsts,” so to speak, for the beauty that comes
munica�on is an expression of his love for the to it first. This is why eros has been described as
world, and it is given so that the concrete singu- the ascending dimension of love.
lar may experience from within, taste, and take
delight in his love. We can say further, and apart from the Neopla-
tonic tradi�on, that, anthropologically spea-
Human love has its roots in the crea�ve affir- king, eros as the desire of unity with the other,
ma�on of the [creature], according to which includes physical conjugal union. Yet, the union
God says: it is good for you to be (Gen 1:31). that desire seeks is be�er perceived in its hig-
Willing man's ul�mate good, God wishes the hest degree: spiritual indwelling. Eros, again, is
creature to par�cipate in his life, to dwell in the desiring dimension of love that seeks unity
him. Because of this divine love, every true with the other. Undoubtedly, eros tends to be
lover wills the good of the beloved (Aquinas, burdened by its own ambiguity, which, as Be-
SCG, bk. 3, c. 90 [no. 2657]). In light of the circu- nedict XVI says, is that the ero�c force can over-
larity between gi� and love we can suggest power reason. Eros, separated from logos
now that gi� is the mystery of the communica- (truth, reason), can become a sort of "divine
�on of love whose unity is also one of ever-gre- madness” (Deus caritas est, no. 4) which results
ater differen�a�on. in self-destruc�ve excesses. If united to truth
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