Ravi Zacharias once said (probably more than once) that every human goes through 4 struggles: origin, meaning, morality, and destiny. Or, as I like to say, “where am I from, why am I here, what do I do now, and where am I going?” Not one human being in history has not thought about, and struggled with, all 4 of those questions. No matter how intellectually proficient we may be, no matter what our faith system or lack thereof, we’ve all struggled with those questions and concepts. Its a fact of human nature. One might say the very fact we struggle with those questions is evidence enough that we’re not simply formed from random chance. Only a Creator could adequately explain all 4 of those struggles.
So we look at love. The Bible explains it like this:
4 Love (A)is patient, love is kind and (B)is not jealous; love does not brag and is not (C)arrogant, 5 does not act unbecomingly; it (D)does not seek its own, is not provoked, (E)does not take into account a wrong suffered, 6 (F)does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but (G)rejoices with the truth; 7 [a](H)bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. (1 Corinthians 13:4-7)
What’s funny is that people from all faiths and no faiths love to use this verse in their wedding ceremonies, yet the divorce rate is over 50%. But when a human actually looks at this description of love and he/she are honest with themselves, they’ll see that what is being described is entirely beyond our human nature. While atheists like to point to an inherited sense of obligation humans have toward one another in a tribal sense, the above definition of love doesn’t even enter the equation. Even in marriage, where this verse is used and abused over and over again in ceremonies, love only goes so far. Everyone has a line that once its crossed, they end the marriage. This is the exact opposite of how God intended marriage to be however. The Bible repeatedly even refers to the relationship between Jesus and His Church as a “marriage”. Have we humans not repeatedly crossed the line? Yet does God “divorce” us? Just the opposite.
So why is it that in society today, love is seen as some emotion? You hear it all the time, its about feelings, warm fuzzy feelings. Problem is, no matter how “in love” with someone you may feel at the time, those feelings are here one day and gone the next. Then what? Love is a choice. We have to choose to make a conscious decision to love someone in the way being described here. Its the only way love makes sense. If we simply adhere to our human nature every time, those “feelings”, that’s how you get a divorce rate over 50%. That is how you get broken relationship after broken relationship, because every relationship is based on how someone feels at the time. That isn’t love, that is pure selfishness. Yet love exists. In an amoral, meaningless universe formed from a random event of time, matter, and chance, love has no place and cannot exist. But in a Creation, where beings were formed with a design, a purpose, and are born with longing for meaning, worth, and acceptance, love not only makes sense, but its required.
most excellent…too bad libs never seek answers to these existential questions…..have a blessed week my friend!!
I am a new and HUGE admirer of Ravi Zacharias and highly recommend his autobiography……it’s life changing. This is such a good post; yes, Love is a decision…. feelings trip us up, even though they have a part in love, let’s face it. If we go only on FEELINGS, we can’t stay faithful in the hardest of times, we can’t stay in love with the one we love,……
excellent post. I hope you’re back for good
I’m trying to be z. And yes, I try to read anything Ravi.
“In an amoral, meaningless universe formed from a random event of time, matter, and chance, love has no place and cannot exist.”
Why not?
Because the concept of love couldn’t have just randomly created itself, nor is it needed biologically or in evolutionary terms for human survival.
Why does love have to be ‘created’ and why does the fact that something is ‘not needed’ imply that it cannot exist?
Abazigal: your comments have all shown up since your first comment was moderated. Are they not showing up for you? I’ve been busy and haven’t gotten a chance to respond but your comments have been showing up. Only your first has to be moderated. Let me know if you keep having problems.
As to your question, its not a matter of love not being beneficial as an evolutionary trait. But the concept of love as its described isn’t an evolutionary trait and goes completely against humanity’s selfish nature. Its not an emotion. Love isn’t needed in purely evolutionary terms in order for humanity to benefit either.
Hmmm…I had a comment waiting for moderation here; now it’s gone…
Anyway; are you REALLY SURE there is absolutely nothing beneficial about love as an evolutionary trait?
Are my comments being deleted or is WordPress devouring them?
thought you had stopped posting–so glad you have not—
Carol-CS
My thought on love is that all people are full of love all the time but each person puts up walls or defenses that block out a certain amount of love. We are taught throughout our childhood to do this and its such a normal thing now that people don’t recognize it. I don’t believe there are special love relationships. That feeling people usually have for the opposite sex (or same sex) isn’t love but rather an addictive clinging and grasping for something that will complete you. If it was love why don’t we feel it toward our family and friends who we say we love? People are taught by society to search outside themselves for love but you can never find true happiness this way. Everything you think you need can be found inside yourself. Maybe I’m wrong.
Eric, the “feelings” you describe are exactly my point. If love were just a “feeling” or an “emotion”, it would be completely unreliable. Those feelings are here one minute and gone the next. True love is the act of making the choice to love someone. For example, I’m married, and if my wife said to me “I love you I just can’t help myself. Its the way I feel”, it would mean nothing to me. Hollywood, music, and society tell us that’s love but its not. Now if my wife says “out of everyone on this planet, I choose you to spend the rest of my life with, accepting all of your flaws and enjoying all of your charms, no matter what trials or tribulations come our way”, than that is love. But I disagree with your last comment. Not everything I need can be found inside me. I’m nothing without God. Luckily for you, the guy you see on the PE at work is someone completely different than the one you would have met about 10 years ago.
Just wondering: if your wife ‘chooses’ you, on what basis does she make this choice?
This is where it might get a little weird but I don’t believe in any outside God. I believe we are all God as one. This includes anything from people, plants, the earth, and anything else in the universe. Therefore I would also say we are all Love. I just think that we are all God experiencing itself in this way.
Yup, it got weird Eric I’ll give you that. Do you have any particular reason for believing that? See my issue is that I believe in the Christian God because no matter how physical reality is sliced down, you’re always left with a physical quantity that has no explanation for itself that can be found within itself. You have to look outside to find that beginning, its just a scientific reality. Now the question is, which God? I couple the above revelation with the fact that the Bible with 66 different books and 44 different authors spanning a few thousand years yet operating in perfect coherency and you have the answer.
Well, of course the concept of love as you describe it is not an evolutionary trait because concepts are the result of human thinking, not biological evolution. Yet, that doesn’t mean that that there isn’t an evolutionary trait at the source of it. Compare it with, say, singing. You can make a beautiful description about the power of song and the emotions it can evoke, and how it isn’t necessary for human survival, but at the source of it still is an evolutionary trait: speech. No god needed to explain the existence of singing.
And the same goes for love, actually. Contrary to what you claim, humans do indeed benefit from love as an evolutionary trait. Due to the human species’ high intelligence and the larger brain that comes with it, human babies have to be born far longer before they are self-reliant than other species, before they grow too large to be squeezed through the bipedal pelvis. A human child, therefore, takes much more and longer care to become self-sufficient and be able to survive. As such, it stands to reason that a mother who loves her child and cares for it has an edge in giving it the chance to survive and produce offspring of its own, thus ensuring passing on the genes. And that’s why love DOES have a place in an amoral universe: because it helps humans survive in that very universe.
Come to think of it: what of the concept of love as described in your article does NOT apply to the mother love that helps children (and thus the human species) survive?
As to the comment issue; not sure what happened. If I logged in, sometimes one comment was in moderation, sometimes two, sometimes none. Probably some glitch, I wouldn’t worry too much about it…
You raise some good points, I’ll try to address them. Humans benefit from love but if its an evolutionary trait, how is it a choice and not just instinct? It can’t be both, and history shows love, at least the way its described in the Bible, is not instinctive. Humans constantly choose themselves over others even to the detriment of overs. Humans don’t need love to act morally toward one another. In an amoral universe, morality is just a meaningless mechanism for us to coexist. There is no obligation.
As for my wife and what she based her choice on, you’d have to ask her that. She probably asks herself the same question every day. lol.
You talk about love being ‘choice’, but I’m puzzled as to what this choice actually means. You say that love is ‘the act of making the choice to love someone’, but -as you probably know yourself- this doesn’t clarify anything (it would mean that love is the act of making the choice to making the choice to making the choice, etc…).
Choice, by definition, is the conscious selection of one of multiple possibilities. But what drives the selection? What makes someone choose a certain person out of thousands of others to love? Hence my question as to what’s the basis of your wife’s choice for you. There has to be a factor that makes the selection, otherwise it’s just randomly picking. What is it?
Also, you say: “morality is just a meaningless mechanism for us to coexist”. But if it helps us to co-exist, how can it be meaningless?
As for what drives the selection, that’s up to the individuals. But a choice is involved and needs to keep being made. I tell all newly weds that they have to be aware that at some point, more than once, they are not going to want to be married to their spouse any more. Its simply human nature. My wife may like certain qualities about me and find them attractive, and of course feelings are a factor in the choice, but only a factor. When you rely totally on love as an emotion, that is how you get broken relationships.
As for morality being meaningless, I’m talking in an amoral universe. Just because it helps us coexist doesn’t give it meaning, at least not anything conclusive. Because the next question is: why is coexistence a moral issue? For coexistence to be a matter of right and wrong than existence itself has to be a matter of right and wrong first, otherwise why is coexistence any more morally right or wrong than just existing? But in a universe created entirely by random chance, an amoral universe, there is no “right” or “wrong” to our existence, we just are.
Also, are you planning on doing something with your blog? If so let me know and I’ll add you to my blog roll. Dig the name too by the way. I was always a Dragon Lance guy myself.
Heh, I don’t think I have any ideas that are worth sharing with the world via a blog. And even if I had, I wouldn’t have the time for it.
As to the name: hate to disappoint you but I got it from an old computer game I played years ago called Baldur’s Gate. No particular reason as to why I chose the name; I think I just felt it had a nice ring to it.
Very profound. There are so many levels of “love” and it is misused word. However, at least. for some of us, we know the truest and purest form of love and that is through Jesus Christ, there is no comparison.
“But in a universe created entirely by random chance, an amoral universe, there is no “right” or “wrong” to our existence, we just are”
Morality is always meaningful to those to whom it applies.
Happy Thanksgiving and God bless you!