What Do You Love?

Love must have an object, the one that is loved. Three possibilities for love exist. The first potential object of love is something that is not a person. Strictly speaking, only persons are proper objects of the love spoken of in the Bible, especially the New Testament. Strictly speaking, only humans, angels, and the divine Persons of the Trinity are persons. Flowers, dogs, cats, diamonds, food, ideas, music, and so forth are not persons. Pets and other animals might seem to be persons. We can say that they have their own personalities. Each species will have its own temperaments and dispositions, and there will be variations in these traits among members of the same species. Fido and Rex might be the same breed, even sharing the same mother and father, but each will have qualities that make them unique. But dogs can’t be cats nor can cats be kangaroos. No animal is a human even though humans are animals. In fact, we are rational animals, meaning that we have intellect and will, while all other physical beings are irrational, lacking a full intellect and full free-will.

Now, if someone loves a non-living thing, this is truly disordered. They might really like diamonds or ice cream, but Biblical love of a non-living thing is idolatry. Referencing back to St Paul’s description of love from First Corinthians chapter 13 makes this clear. How can we be unkind to a thing? Or impatient with a thing? Can we be prideful, jealous, or rude toward a thing? Things might make us mad or otherwise challenge us, but they are still mere things.

Secondly, we ourselves are often the object of our love. Self-love comes naturally to mankind. Too naturally. Our fallen nature is largely to blame. We forget what we really are. While we are not mere things, we think we are something when we really are more akin to nothing. Of course we are not nothing, but Ash Wednesday puts things into a proper perspective: ‘Remember, man, that you are dust and unto dust you shall return.’ Indeed, the ash placed on our foreheads is something, enough of a something to mar our appearance and perhaps to make a mess of our clothes, but it is not much of a something. Ashes have virtually no practical uses. Ash used to be something but fire has rendered that something into virtual nothingness. Nevertheless, there is substance enough for ashes to be blessed. Like ashes, we are virtually nothing but we can be blessed and raised up to be something. Self-love does not achieve our elevation – instead it presumes a lofty status – but it is God’s love that lifts us up.

Self-love is a true and honorable thing when it is properly understood. If we understand that we are mere finite and frail creatures before an infinite and almighty God, if we understand that we have dignity because we were created in God’s image and likeness, and if we understand that we all have betrayed our God-given dignity through sin, then we can begin to love ourselves appropriately. True self-love ought to bring us to seeking God, desiring to be right before Him, serving Him, and wanting to be with Him forever in heaven.

True self-love brings us to the third object of love, the proper object. True love has an object that is a person outside of ourselves. None of the qualities of love mentioned in First Corinthians 13 is inwardly directed. They are all in reference to someone besides ourselves, they are all outwardly focused. One way to look at loving our neighbors is to want and strive for them to desire, seek, serve, and obtain union with God. We should love our fellow man by assisting him to obtain what our appropriate self-love wants for us. This is what Jesus means when He says “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Mt 22:39). Love of neighbor is not just being kind or polite, but wanting what is best for them, especially regarding their salvation. Another way to understand our love for our neighbor lies in respecting the fact that they are made in the image and likeness of God and that God loves them unconditionally. If God loves them so, how can we fail to follow suit? Given that the greatest commandment is “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind” (Mt 22:37), this should lead us to love our neighbor as ourselves, that we love our neighbor because we love God above all else. Starting with love of God above all else and appropriately loving ourselves both should lead to same place, that being love of our neighbor.

—Fr Booth