From: holmes@opal.idbsu.edu (Randall Holmes)
Subject: Re: WHAT IS LOVE?
Organization: Boise State University Math Dept.
Date: Mon, 7 Sep 1992 06:04:06 GMT

In article <exukjb.119.715643911@exu.ericsson.se> exukjb@exu.ericsson.se (ken bell) writes:
>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.

This is not essential to the use that I am promoting, as I have
already observed.  Christianity is not relevant; the concept is
classical Greek, "stolen" subsequently by Judaism and its progeny.

  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.

I said that God is _not_ love, so I don't need to answer this!

>
>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.

Taking an interest does not require emotion.

  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.

[theistic mode ON]

This is how God loves everything.  It _isn't_ very satisfying.

[theistic mode OFF]

>
>[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.]

Of course, I am not a "theist"; I do not believe in a person who is
God.  But I will avail myself of the term "God" in its philosophical
sense from time to time.
 
>------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>Kenny Bell                          *        Welcome to Mind Wars
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-- 
The opinions expressed		|     --Sincerely,
above are not the "official"	|     M. Randall Holmes
opinions of any person		|     Math. Dept., Boise State Univ.
or institution.			|     holmes@opal.idbsu.edu
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.meta