Deus Caritas Est - God is Love

Crucifixion, El Greco

Pope Benedict XVI surprised the world when he decided to write his first encyclical on the subject of love. In Deus Caritas Est (DCE), Pope Benedict XVI hopes “to clarify some essential facts concerning the love which God mysteriously and gratuitously offers to man” (DCE #1). He does this by comparing and contrasting the relationship between two types of love: eros and agape. Pope Benedict XVI sets this analysis forth as the foundation for explaining the loving relationship between God and man. At the heart of this discussion is God’s love for humanity and how He calls everyone personally to be grafted into His love. Ultimately, the Holy Father sets forth a template for teaching humanity how to be drawn into God’s love. The primary approach is charity through corporate and spiritual acts of mercy.

Pope Benedict XVI begins the encyclical by distinguishing the difference between the two loves, eros and agape. First, he makes it clear Christianity has not destroyed eros, but rather sought to root out the its distorted form. Pope Benedict XVI describes eros as a love based on a need to fill a want, a desire. Kaczor (2007) calls it a “getting love” exemplified in stories like Romeo and Juliet or more recently Titanic. The Holy Father asserts this love is rooted in human nature; it is the “love between man and woman which is neither planned nor willed, but somehow imposes itself upon human beings” (DCE #3). Since God has etched this desire in our very being it is necessarily good. It is only through selfish sin that eros can become distorted.

This potential for distortion is precisely why Pope Benedict juxtaposes the Christian concept of eros with that of the ancient Greeks who believed eros was a kind of Dionysian ecstasy. The Greeks, and other cultures, elevated eros to a religious experience based on a self-absorbed pursuit of pleasure for its own sake.. This approach diminishes man’s nature. According to Kaczor this kind of “erotic desire marks imperfection, punishment, and ongoing rebellion against the divine ordinance.” Instead of inspiring man to seek the divine, the Holy Father explains this experience leads to “a fall, a degradation of man” (DCE #4). Eros was intended to draw us to something greater – God’s love. When eros is relegated to simply a physical act then it separates man from God.

According to Pope Benedict XVI, “eros needs to be disciplined and purified if it is to provide not just fleeting pleasure, but a certain foretaste of the pinnacle of our existence, of that beatitude for which our whole being yearns” (DCE #4). Properly formed and purified eros should draw us into God’s love, upward and outward, not inward. This divine love is called agape and it begins in fullness, in an abundance freely and completely poured out from the Father. Thus, the primary characteristic of agape is found in sacrifice and service.

Tomorrow, I will continue to discuss the distinction the Holy Father makes between agape and eros.