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Agape

If we follow the heart's desire, we seek to move closer to the magic that we glimpse in love. Henri Bergson (1935, p. 168) wrote: "Magic is then innate in man, being but the outward projection of a desire which fills the heart."

Besides the turning inward -- away from the world -- of Romantic Love, there is another strategy of loving which has characterized our cultural traditions. This is the Christian love: the neighborly love which has been termed ''agape." It originates from the Scripture of "Love your neighbor as yourself" and the golden rule of "do unto others as you would have them do unto you."

This love seeks to move outward into the world and trying there to shape it and change it through love. This concern for the world, and moving into the world because of love, is the very basis of the distinction between Western and Eastern thought.

Agape also provides an interesting contrast to the romantic love of Eros. Agape and Eros have been used as a basic distinction for styles of loving by a sufficient number of writers to warrant specific attention in any serious discussion towards a definition of love (Singer, 1966; De Rougemont, 156; Lewis, 1960; Williams, 1973).

Whereas romantic love is "particularistic," focusing on one person and taking a journey inside, away from the world; the love of Agape is "universalistic" and attempts to move outward into the world toward all people. The romantic love confronts the world on the shoreline of one type of boundary: one cannot retreat completely from the world. It is confronted in our economic exchanges for survival if nothing else. The universal love of Agape confronts another boundary: the extent to which we can love and touch humanity and the extent any love of humanity must be mediated by some type of facilitating structure: a moral code, an organization, a social movement.

Many writers have concluded that ultimately, though Agape and Eros confront different boundaries and embrace different strategies, they dove-tail into one another: that if either path is reached fully, they become the same Love (D'Arcy, 1957; Harper, 1966). Other writers have argued for the supremacy of one type of love over the other (Lewis, 1960; De Rougemont, 1956). Yet, if we sociologically seek one definition or understanding of the nature and process of love, we must search for common strains which are present in each. What allows us to speak of both romantic love and the Christian love as love?

Surely the fire and the zeal of the Christian mystics equals that of any romantic knight. We find Christianity giving love a central place in the universe an the calling of man. "rod is Love" proclaims the New Testament. Lewis (1960) makes the important distinction that there is a difference between saying that "God is Love'' and saying that "Love is God." The correct interpretation, he claims, of Scripture is that God is perfect Love and all human loves are much smaller approximations and glimpses.

It is moving with the grain and purpose of this perfect love -- "on earth as it is in heaven" -- which gives meaning and relatedness to life. The mystics and various branches of Christian theology give different renditions of how this path is to be approached, yet they all agree that God's Love is the center. As St. Augustine (Ortega y Gasset, 1957, p. 491 wrote: "My love is my weight: because of it I move."

Christian theology goes even further: not only is love the central basis for meaning and life, but it is living amongst us. It is our direct link with God. According to Christian theology, as Christ prepared to ascend into heaven, He told his followers that a Holy Spirit would appear; that "whenever two or more are gathered in My Name," there he would be also. This Holy Ghost would dwell whenever two or more came together to share a higher purpose. As Thomas Aquinas wrote, "Love . . . is the proper name for the Holy Ghost" (Singer, 1966, p. 298).

The love of Agape is this outpouring of faith in a way of living in which the Holy Spirit (Love) can dwell. It is here that we find the strength for altruism and charity: a connectedness with all human beings. There is a faith that behind our human masks we participate in a larger spirit.

According to Christian theology, this love is a gift of grace. It is love given out of abundance, not reciprocity. The emphasis is upon giving, not on exchange: "Love is a phenomenon of abundance; its premise is the strength of the individual who can give" (Fromm, 1947, p. 131).

In some theology, man and life are but a dream in the mind of God. Love is not contained by man, but experienced as something outside man's parameters that calls one to something larger than self. As the poet wrote: "When you love you should not say, 'God is in my heart,' but

rather, I am in the heart of God'." . . . think not you can direct the course of love, for love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course (Gibran, 1923, p. 13).

Love is thus not a human phenomenon subject to the normal laws of sociology and psychology. It is not a phenomenon of reciprocity and subject to the fair exchange of distributive justice. It is closer to the qualification in reciprocity which Gouldner (1970) made: what he termed these as ''norms of benevolence". It is clear that these spring from a different source than reciprocity. They are an aspiration to an ideal and an intimation of something higher: a contribution to the spirit of man. It is a free gift made because of belief in something higher.

Love as a Spirit

Love is also not merely a feeling. In early Christian Europe, the tarot deck was used by Gnostic sects, who found exceptions to the organized theology, sought to smuggle their secrets across Europe. The "Lovers" card in the tarot deck is most instructive. It is only the woman in the card -- the intuitive, feeling side -- which looks up at the archangel. The rational, masculine side can only look to the woman. It is only through "feelings" -- the intuitive -- that we can glimpse the secret. Love is a spirit which cannot be grasped by the intellect alone.

Yet, when we speak of love as related to feelings and the intuitive side, we must clarify. Love strictly speaking is not a feeling and subject to psychological analysis. It is just that feelings are capable of taking us to love. As Bergson (1935) noted, when we assign a supremacy to feelings, there is really only one feeling that we have in mind: that is love -- the rest is simply excess baggage. This path of feelings to love is why we reify "feelings." Feelings and the intuitive are but a door. Unless we realize this, we become lost in a reification of anger, jealousy, and personal greed.

As Buber (1957) argued, love stems not from the social or the psychological: it demands study of a different realm which he termed the "interhuman" -- the space between individuals: between the psychological world of the individual and the social realm of the group.

The fundamental fact of human existence is neither the individual as such nor the aggregate as such. Each, considered by itself, is a mighty abstraction . . . . The fundamental fact of human existence is man with man. 'hat is peculiarly characteristic of the human world is above all that something takes place between one being and another the like of which can be found nowhere in nature. . . . All achievement of the spirit has been incited by it. Man is made man by it . . . . It is rooted in one being turning to another as another . . . I call this sphere, which is established with the existence of man as man but which is conceptually still uncomprehended, the sphere of 'between' (Buber, 1947, p. 244).

This is further reason why the subject of love has been so problematical for sociology and psychology: because love is neither a group phenomena or an individual phenomena. It belongs to the realm of "between." There is little room for spirits in traditional psychological and sociological circles. Sociological analysis focuses on group phenomena: the reciprocity of social exchange and the presentation of the experience of love to the social drama. It does not focus on the "in-between" space of person with person because that space is precisely the discipline boundary between psychology and sociology.

The idea that love is a spirit that plays between individuals becomes a most satisfactory way of speaking of love. It does not fit our discipline boundaries for psychology and sociology, and yet it clarifies a lot of problems. Buber (1970) was most insistent that love is not a feeling:

Feelings accompany the metaphysical and metaphysical fact of love, but they do not constitute it; and the feelings that accompany it can be very different...but the love is one. Feelings one 'has'; love occurs. Feelings dwell in man, but man dwells in his love. This is no metaphor but actuality: love does not cling to an 1, as if the You were merely its 'content' or object; it is between I and You. Whoever does not know this, know this with his being, does not know love, even if he should ascribe to it the feelings that he lives through, experiences, enjoys, and expresses (p. 66).

Love is not an attribute of the psyche. It is beyond the individual and while we may develop a mind-set and way of being which enhances the possibility of our participation in love, love is not personally owned. "Feelings dwell in man, but man dwells in his love.'' This is consistent with the conception of love as the Holy Spirit. Love is outside of man; one participates in love, becomes "larger." Love is not the property of an individual but is experienced in the interplay of Self with Other. 'either is love a social force. It occurs between Self and Other. If we are theological, it occurs when the boundary between I and You blurs: whenever two or more are gathered in a higher purpose that allows the Spirit to enter. If we wish to be secular, then love is a magical creation of interaction which can be reduced to neither individual nor group phenomena. Love is not Me and it is not You. It is not even Ours in the sense that it can be attributed to our relationship. It happens when we allow the nature of our relation to be such that love can play between us. This is the nature of love: that we dwell in love foregoing other ways of relating. "Whoever does not know this . . . does not know love." The nature of love is a sharing outside of ourselves and is not attributable to either the power of our personalities or to social forces.

Love is a "small bird" which only "shows up" when it is safe; when the other possible social games (power, status, exchange) are dropped and when ego needs have been safely managed in such a way as to allow the sharp boundaries of ego to give way to openness. It is only then

can love comes to play. There must be room and opportunity for the Spirit to come into play transforming our selves and the nature of our interaction. Love is found on this boundary between self and society: when we have somehow stepped out of the social drama and out of the narrowness of self.

The Christian idea of Agape in many ways approaches an understanding of this process. The writings of theologians and mystics give us a feeling for this process. The mystics speak of the "dark night of the soul" -- the light that comes in after we have surrendered all effort. God is encountered after we have dropped all social games and ego attempts, and realized that life is caused by neither social forces or by ego. After we have dropped cultural renditions, social games and ego attempts, we come to realize that life does not go away. It remains as a miracle: uncaused in any normal and explainable sense. Life is not accountable in terms of the psyche or the social, yet it continues to pulsate. It is much larger than either our individual renditions or our social dramas.

Agape as Inclusion

The vision of Agape rests upon the premise of "opening one's heart." In this opening, one participates in a greater spirit of life to which all have access. ??? 80th the mystics and the Christian theologians speak of such a path. In following one's heart, one is related to God and the greater Love which is the heart of the universe. Agape expands outward opening to hopefully embrace all of mankind in a vision of ''peace on earth, goodwill" towards all. Through charity and altruism we seek to transcend the narrowness of ego boundaries and participate in a common spirit. The neighborly love of Agape represents an attitude towards the world: a stance which greets all people in a loving manner.

It is not exclusive. While romantic love is particularistic focusing on one person in particular, Christian love is universal and non-particularistic, embracing all people. In romantic love, a couple desires to withdraw from the world and focus upon each other. The world thus remains only as a theater or a stage for the exploits of their romance. In the Christian love, all people are part of the vision. In Agape, love is both the principle and the ethos for relation of Self to all Others. ''If you have done it in the least of men, you have done it unto me.'' Love becomes a way of moving in the world cognizant of our common humanity. The heart seeks to expand outward leaving none out of a shared vision.

Romantic love, as we have discussed, functions about the social process of exclusion and limited focus. The Christian love functions by a social process of inclusion. It is the love of all mankind. To embrace such a stance requires that we develop a certain sophistication concerning the social dynamics of inclusion. Bergson (1935) was most helpful here. In The Two Sources of Morality and Religion, he differentiated between the closed society based on social pressure and social obligation, and the expansive or open society. In the closed society, one obeys out of force: "You must because you must." In the open society, the basis of social integration is "aspiration": people follow because they have been swept away by enthusiasm -- the "impetus to love." This impetus to love is the second basis or source of society.

In Bergson's views, we find a way of dealing with the Christian love adequately. He wrote that:

Social obligation always has in view . . . a closed society. . . . . It is not concerned with humanity . . . . Who can help seeing that social cohesion is largely due to the necessity for a community to protect itself against others, and that it is primarily as against all other men that we love the men with whom we live? . . . We love naturally and directly our parents and our fellow countrymen, whereas love of mankind is indirect and acquired . . . , We come only by roundabout ways, for it is only through God, in God, that religion bids man love mankind . . . (Bergson, 1935, p. 32).

Bergson (1935, p. 35) said that "it is not by widening the bounds of the city that you reach humanity; . . . the difference is not one of degree but of kind." The difference in kind is between the closed soul and the open soul. On the one hand, we have the "attitude . . . of an individual and a community concentrated on themselves. At once individual and social, the soul here moves round in a circle. It is closed.'' "The other attitude is that of the open soul . . . if we say that it embraces all humanity; we should not be going too far, we should hardly be going far enough, since its love may extend to animals, to plants, to all nature" (Bergson, 1935, p. 38).

. . . it is not by process of expansion of the self that we can pass from the first state to the second. A psychology which is purely intellectual, following the indications of speech, will doubtless define feelings by the things with which they are associated; love of one's family, love of one's country, love of mankind; it will see in these three inclinations one single feeling, growing larger to embrace an increasing number of persons . . . . The first two imply a choice, therefore an exclusion. . . . the latter is all love. The former light directly on an object which attracts them. The latter does not yield to the attraction of its object; it has not aimed at this object; it has shot beyond and reached humanity only by passing through humanity (Bergson, 1935, pp. 38-39) .

The desire of the open soul is simply to open to love. It is thus a different principle than the more familiar loves. It has no object other than love. This leap of faith cannot be justified by strictly experiential grounds. The love of particular people -- even larger numbers of people -- is subject to a different dynamic than all-embracing love. In some ways this Christian love has everything to do with people in general and little to do with particular persons. It is an attitude or a way of approaching life: a fundamental way in which we are outside ourselves.

Others have noted this inclusive-exclusive nature of love and how much social dynamics differ from ideal of Agape. In the classical sociological concept of the "in-group and the out-group," people develop feelings of love and inclusion by excluding from the group (Sumner, 1906, p. 12). A "we" which is intimate and loving is formed in reaction to a "they" which is non-intimate and threatening. We know who we love by excluding those we do not love. Becker (1968, . 379) followed Whitehead in noting that one of the basic sources of evil is that "alternatives exclude." The choice of one direction in some ways deprives us of time and energy for exploration in other directions.

In the last chapter of The Ways and Power of Love, Sorokin (1951) also saw this exclusion dynamic as the fundamental problem that must be dealt with by any humanitarian effort. If there is no leap beyond the natural process of exclusion-inclusion, then we will love those close to us and dislike those foreign.

Agape seeks to embrace all in a collective vision of humanity. Yet as Carpenter (1970) noted, sometimes the last thing we want to do is love and touch everyone. This would dissipate our energy and destroy the very content of our love. We give ourselves very intensely to a few, but to try to love every person in this way would destroy us. We have only so much time and energy. The number of intimate, intense relationships that any one person can have is finite in number and quite probably small. e cannot love everybody in d direct, personal manner

than we could attempt to make love with everyone in the world. There is

not enough time or energy . . . but this also misses the point.

As Johnson (1972) argued, e desire not a full merger with each and every being, but a feeling of relatedness and integration, i.e., a feeling of participation in humanity. Then, we are content just to be part of this humanity. This need not take the form or pattern of our other intimate relations. The neighborly love is a friendliness: a way of approaching the world.

As Bergson (1935) argued so successfully, the love of humanity is a direct leap of intuition, but o live this love requires some type of intervening and mediating structure. We cannot simply reach out and touch each person directly in face-to-face interaction. There must be some type of buffer or intervening way to map the self to all of humanity. To love all of humanity requires a social form: a code, an organization . . . some type of structural component to relate self to all.

In many ways, Christianity is often a set of attitudes and codes for dealing with others. This is why organized religion is often so dogmatic: it is not concerned with people per se, but with one's approach toward them.

Agape requires that we immediately find ways of opening to love. These are usually quickly translated and reified into moral codes. The successful moral code becomes a way which others imitate: it allows them to feel further related to humanity and the heart of life; we enter in and participate, readily following aspiration:

This is what occurs in musical emotion, for example . . . . In point of fact, it does not introduce these feelings into us; it introduces us into them, as passersby are forced into a street dance. Thus do pioneers in morality proceed (Bergson, 1935, P. 40)

Bergson portrayed a sweeping vision of love across human history. He felt evolutionary theories were wrong in that they did not go far enough: they did not explain why a man -- the product of evolution -- could theorize the theory of evolution: they did not explain consciousness. Bergson saw the force behind evolution as the desire for consciousness and greater awareness: an "impetus to love" which is the primary force behind society. Great moral leaders who from time to have shown us practical ways of opening our heart and loving. We have willingly followed hoping to feel related and at home with life.

Religion and morality have both an open dynamic form which is new

and fresh, and a static form which loses the original aspiration and must then rely upon social pressure. The static form is what Ortega y Gasset (1957) referred to as social usage. Usage's lag behind the creative impetus and tend to be outmoded at the very time they conventions. Yet there is the tension between the old and the new.

The force of human evolution and the desire of the human heart is toward the open, toward relatedness, toward an aspiration:

In all times there have arisen exceptional men, incarnating this morality. Before the saints of Christianity, mankind had known the sages of Greece, the prophets of Israel, and Arahants of Buddhism, and others besides. It is to them that men have always turned for that complete morality which we had best call absolute morality . . . (Bergson, 1935, p. 34).

....exceptional souls have appeared who sensed their kinship with the soul of Everyman . . . . The appearance of each one of them was like the creation of a new species . . . . Each of these souls marked a certain point . . . of a love which seems to be the very essence of the creative effort (Bergson, 1935,p.95).

"It is these men who draw us toward an ideal society, while we yield to the pressure of the real one" (Bergson, 1935, p. 68). This impetus to love is the dynamic of social movements: to include more and more in the dream. It is a synthesizing process of opening and closing, and trying to become more open. The love of Agape rushes in and transforms us. It is a dialectic as we try to learn how to love. But we must remember that it represents a fundamentally different form of loving.

Never shall we pass from the closed society to the open society, from the city to humanity, by any mere broadening out. The two things are not of the same essence. The open society is the society which is deemed in principle to embrace all humanity. A dream dreamt, now and again, by chosen souls, it embodies on every occasion something of itself in creations, each of which . . . conquers difficulties hitherto unconquerable. But after each occasion the circle that has momentarily opened closes again. Part of the new has flowed into the mold of the old... (Bergson, 1935, p. 267).

The force of Agape is a dream -- a dream of God according to Christian theology -- it is a dream of gradually growing to heaven on earth. In our lifetimes, we will not achieve it. But that is the direction in which we desire to move . . . . ''Between the closed soul and the open soul there is the soul in process of opening. Between the immobility of a man seated and the motion of the same man running there is the act of getting up" (Bergson, 1935, p. 63).

In the Jewish version of the Old Testament, we must remember that when Moses asked God what His name is, He replied "I am becoming that which I am becoming" (Fromm, 1956, p. 18).