Religion and Individualism

inked · 01-24-2005, 10:49 AM

All, IR makes good points on the broadness and levels of usage of the word "love" in English. This is a defect in the language. The Greek uses 4 different words for which love may be a translation.

THE FOUR LOVES by CS Lewis addresses this difficulty at some length. For clarification I note the Greek words and the differentiations they allow. (There are quite possibly more as in there being in Eskimo cultures some 32 words for which "snow" could be inadequately used as a translation, for instance.)

storge - affection or love of family or the familiar as in persons and objects

eros - the passions, not limited to sexuality, but including it

philia - the love between individuals based on identity of interests and
concerns, freely chosen; friendship

agape - disinterested love which desires the best for the object and flows
from the Lover to the Beloved as gift; the King James Version
used "charity" for this distinction and it is most eloquently known
in I Corinthians 13

The point of this is that we use love in English to cover these concepts which are clearly differentiated. So we often add modifiers to attempt the distinction we mean to employ. No couple in the throws of infatuation really means by "we are in love" what a married couple of 20 years duration means, nor what the child means when saying "I love hot dogs and pizza" nor what the artist means by "I love this piece". So, we have to exercise care in the use of the word in English.

01-24-2005, 10:49 AM	#11
inked Elf Lord Join Date: Oct 2004 Location: sikeston, MO, usa, earth, sol Posts: 3,114	All, IR makes good points on the broadness and levels of usage of the word "love" in English. This is a defect in the language. The Greek uses 4 different words for which love may be a translation. THE FOUR LOVES by CS Lewis addresses this difficulty at some length. For clarification I note the Greek words and the differentiations they allow. (There are quite possibly more as in there being in Eskimo cultures some 32 words for which "snow" could be inadequately used as a translation, for instance.) storge - affection or love of family or the familiar as in persons and objects eros - the passions, not limited to sexuality, but including it philia - the love between individuals based on identity of interests and concerns, freely chosen; friendship agape - disinterested love which desires the best for the object and flows from the Lover to the Beloved as gift; the King James Version used "charity" for this distinction and it is most eloquently known in I Corinthians 13 The point of this is that we use love in English to cover these concepts which are clearly differentiated. So we often add modifiers to attempt the distinction we mean to employ. No couple in the throws of infatuation really means by "we are in love" what a married couple of 20 years duration means, nor what the child means when saying "I love hot dogs and pizza" nor what the artist means by "I love this piece". So, we have to exercise care in the use of the word in English. __________________ Inked "Aslan is not a tame lion." CSL/LWW "The new school [acts] as if it required...courage to say a blasphemy. There is only one thing that requires real courage to say, and that is a truism." GK Chesterton "And there is always the danger of allowing people to suppose that our modern times are so wholly unlike any other times that the fundamental facts about man's nature have wholly changed with changing circumstances." Dorothy L. Sayers, 1 Sept. 1941 Last edited by inked : 01-24-2005 at 10:50 AM.