From: exukjb@exu.ericsson.se (ken bell)
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.meta
Subject: Re: WHAT IS LOVE?
Date: 4 Sep 92 21:58:31 GMT
Organization: Ericsson Network Systems, Inc.

In article <lafcf7INNhcm@appserv.Eng.Sun.COM> danoc@earlybird.Eng.Sun.COM (Dan O'Connell [CONTRACTOR]) writes:
>From: danoc@earlybird.Eng.Sun.COM (Dan O'Connell [CONTRACTOR])
>Subject: Re: WHAT IS LOVE?
>Date: 4 Sep 92 18:58:47 GMT

>(Randall Holmes) writes:

> [theistic mode ON]
> 
> Certainly God "loves" the world (and notice that this "love" is
> disinterested and not an emotion; God does not have emotions!); He
> "takes care of it" (not necessarily for _our_ sake).  But God is not
> the attribute of "loving"; God is the attribute of "being".  If God is
> to be identified with a relation rather than a predicate, I would
> think that the appropriate one is the universal relation (the one
> which everything has to everything else); this is not love.
> 
>If god "loves" the world, god must have an interest in the 
>world, and so could not be disinterested.

>I agree with god = being, god != love

> [theistic mode OFF]
> 
> The notion of God introduced in the bracketed text should be
> understood to be a philosophical notion.

>Dano 

MISCELLANY OF THOUGHTS - 

I wonder how the passionless [I think the technical word for it is
"impassible"] god of orthodox christianity could truly love, since it 
seems to be essential to our use of 'love' and its cognates that one have 
the capacity to relate emotionally to other minds.  And what, come to 
think of it, would it mean to ascribe love to God, much less to say that God 
*is* love, before creation, before the existence of other personal minds?  
Someone who talks like this surely owes us a word of explanation.

What do I mean by "relate emotionally"?  I suppose I mean, at the very 
least, that there be some kind of responsiveness or sensitivity to or 
feeling of closeness or even kinship with another mind; or the taking of an
"interest" in that other, and preferring the other's well-being.  Could 
we speak of loving without implying the presence of [some of] these mental 
states or dispositions?  If not, then the notion of god, whether the 
philosophical or theoligical one is intended [and they often coincide in 
in the christian tradition] is an impossible one.  

Possible objection: Does preferring someone's well-being imply the capacity 
for emotional experience?  Is this implication part of the depth grammer of 
'love'?

Also, imagine your parents, girlfriend or just friend, saying that he/
she loves you 'disinterestedly.' Not a very warm, personal thing, is it?  If 
that is how god loves humanity, I would feel rather slighted and alienated, 
instead of loved.

[I know you were using the 'philosophical notion of god', so please don't 
think I am attributing to you a belief in traditional theism. But I would 
welcome responses from avowed theists to this query. -- Heck, anyone who 
wants to take a stab at it is welcome, really.] 
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