"To love is to will the good of the other."
For years now, I have heard
the above formula offered as the correct definition of love. In my experience, it has become more or less the standard definition
in the Catholic world—I hear it from the pulpit, in the classroom, and in all
kinds of Catholic Media. And this popularity is not without reason—one can
find the definition in the Catechism of
the Catholic Church, quoting St. Thomas Aquinas (CCC 1766). When I first encountered this definition of love I was
not interested in the Christian faith at all, and in fact quite skeptical about
the Church's teachings regarding human love, relationships, and sexuality.
Having this mindset, I immediately perceived the glaring contrast between what
the Church taught about love and what society embraced and promoted. This
contrast struck me in a positive way, for the Catholic understanding of love
seemed much richer, more beautiful, and more desirable. Having been left disappointed
and empty by the world’s take on love, I was open to the Catholic vision. The
curiosity ignited in me at that time has grown steadily ever since. I find it
unfortunate and even strange that, despite the fact that love is clearly the
most motivating and powerful force in human history, relatively few people
today are actually willing to think critically about what love is. Perhaps this lack of critical thinking is itself a sign that we have embraced the idea that love is an emotion or
feeling, and therefore something only to be felt or experienced rather than
analyzed or philosophized about. As the existence and title of this post indicates, I
disagree.
Love as an Emotion
The prevailing understanding
of love today is indeed that it is an emotion or feeling. Many people are quick
to qualify is as the most noble, powerful, or important of human emotions. And
yet, however wonderful and important, love is still regarded as an emotion, that is, something
that happens to a person rather than something one chooses. This is reflected in popular expressions such as “falling in love”.
The consequences of a society adopting this definition of love-as-emotion are
easily observable today: The promotion
of contraception and "casual" sex partners, the epidemic of
pornography addiction, the breakdown of the definition and institution of
marriage, the decay of family life, and the millennial generation's near total
fear of commitment. All of these phenomena can be traced back, more or less
directly, to an understanding of love as an emotion. Because, of course, if love
is primarily or even exclusively something that one feels, then it only makes sense to seek out whatever relationship
or activity best produces the feeling, and to pursue other options if and when the feeling
stops. In the same way, when two people stop loving each other, no one can judge it to
be either person's "fault" when
infidelity occurs, because after all, “people change” and “love runs out”. Many other examples
could be offered. The point is, given all this turmoil in the realm of human
relationships, it makes complete sense that those seeking to correct the
prevailing definition of love-as-emotion would do so by focusing instead on the
will. Unlike an emotion, which is
mostly beyond one’s conscious control, a willed decision or action is completely conscious. Hence, we have the
definition: “To love is to will the good of the other.” However, while this
definition is very effective in correcting certain common errors, I believe it
is a kind of over-correction that can lead to different errors. Let me explain.
The Theological Problem
I first sensed a problem
with this definition in my own spiritual life a few years ago. At the time, I
had fully embraced the idea that “To love is to will the good of the other,” because
it made sense to me. The problem arose when I tried to apply this definition of
love to my love for God. After all, I reasoned, surely a valid definition of
love must apply to one's love for God, as this is our most important
relationship of all. However, I realized that my love for God couldn't possibly
be understood as my willing the good of the other, when the "Other" in
this case was God Himself: How can one "will the good" of Goodness
Himself? How can one do anything to improve the circumstances of the
unchangeable One? It is impossible. The normal response to this difficulty is
to say that one wills the good of God by glorifying
Him. However, this doesn't actually resolve the problem, but dodges it by using
a different term to describe what remains a contradictory concept. This is not
to say that we cannot glorify God by our lives. However, if God had a “good”
that consisted in the glory He received from human beings, then to increase His glory would still be to increase His good., which is impossible. Therefore,
to love God cannot mean "to will His
good"—it must consist in something else.
“Willing the Good” in Human Relationships
Along with the theological
problem of our love for God, there is also an issue with this definition of
love as it applies to human relationships. The issue is that, by making the
will the exclusive defining element of love, one fails to account for the
reality of love as we experience it in human relationships. For if the measure of one’s love is
the engagement of one’s will, then it logically follows that the more difficult
it is to love someone—in terms of the will-power required—the greater one’s
love is for that person. Of course, we all rightly recognize that authentic
love must be capable of enduring intense trials and obstacles, and that these
circumstances do in some sense serve as a kind of "litmus test" or
evaluation of the quality and strength of one's love. St. Paul speaks beautifully
of this in the famous passage from his first letter to the Corinthians (1 Cor
13:4-13, “Love is patient, love is kind…”). This “enduring” quality of love is
also acknowledged in traditional wedding vows, when each person promises to
love the other "for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness
and health, until death do us part." Without a doubt, we must also admit
that times of challenge and suffering, if embraced by both persons in fidelity and
hope, serve as a kind of forge that strengthens the love in the relationship.
However, while every married person can attest to these truths from experience,
we do not therefore want to say that
the measure of love consists in the
difficulty of loving. If this were the case, then the most tumultuous
relationships would be the gold standard for love rather than the happiest and
healthiest ones. For example, the love in a marriage that barely survived after
affairs and every other kind of transgression and tragedy would by that very
fact have to be considered stronger than the love found in a crisis-free marriage. Likewise, we would have to say that couples of
incompatible people, who surely have to exert more willpower than their more
compatible counterparts, must therefore love each other more.
The “Ease” of Love
While endurance through
trials is an essential mark of true love, we surely don't want to say that love has to be extremely difficult in order to be authentic or strong. The reality is
exactly the opposite. As one loves another person more and more, it becomes easier
to love him or her, not harder. Two people who have been close friends for many
years do not find it more difficult
to love each other (unless some tragedy occurs in their relationship).
Love tends to become more "second-nature" or instinctive as it grows, and the
more one loves, the less one counts the cost and sacrifice of loving. If to
love someone meant simply “to will his or her good,” then to do anything
whatsoever for a person whom one despised would be much more praiseworthy and
meritorious than a greater act of love made for a friend or loved one (not that love is quantifiable in a mathematical sense). Put
differently, if one “loves to love” someone or finds it relatively easy to make
sacrifices for that person, then by that
very fact his love would have to be considered lesser. But who
actually thinks about love this way in practice? It's absurd! This is the same
problem that plagues the ethical theory of Immanuel Kant, which is focused
completely on the will. For Kant, one’s moral merit decreases as one becomes
more habituated to act morally (i.e. more virtuous). Surely this completely
misses the meaning and beauty of morality—to become and to act as a
moral person—not simply to exercise one’s willpower properly and to the maximum
extent possible.
The Contribution of Dietrich von Hildebrand
Recognizing these problems,
the great 20th century Catholic philosopher Dietrich von Hildebrand developed
a more refined understanding of love. He went beyond defining love as “willing
the good of the other” and taught that love is “a free response to the value of
the other.” For Hildebrand, love is not simply an act of the will, that is, a
completely disinterested, rational, and free choice to love someone just
because to do so would serve his or her good. Rather, love is the recognition
of the objective value of a person, and the free response of the will to act in
a way that conforms to this value. When one perceives the intrinsic and unique
beauty, preciousness, and lovability of another person, one is moved or
motivated to freely respond to this reality in love and reverence. This definition
of love conforms more closely to human experience and avoids the problems that
arise from defining love as simply “to will the good of the other.” Indeed, the
latter definition begs the question: Why? Why should I will the good of the
other? Hildebrand's definition of love, by contrast, contains within it the
motivation or reason for loving. Love is
a value response—this response is desirable and even obligatory because
the beloved person is recognized as objectively valuable and therefore objectively
worthy of one's love.
Loving God as the Correct Response to Reality
This definition is particularly
effective at resolving the theological question concerning love of God. If God
is the Highest Good or Value, as well as the source of all other (created) goodness and
value, then He is most worthy of our response. His infinite beauty, goodness,
truth, justice, etc. deserve a total response of love. It is a fundamental
question of justice. There is a kind of cosmic law, an absolute rationale
underlying every other explanation or reason for doing anything. This law is to
live in conformity to reality, to live in the truth, to respond or act towards
things in a way that corresponds to their objective value and importance. If we
choose to live in conformity with reality, we will acknowledge God as the
source of everything, including ourselves, and therefore as worthy of our absolute
response, the dedication of our entire lives. This should be reflected, among
other things, in the way we worship Him.
The Motivation for Love
Hildebrand’s definition of
love also resolves the question of motivation in love. What motivates someone
to love another person? The most popular answer is perhaps that loving others makes
one happier, at least in the long run. While this is certainly true, it cannot
be the primary motivation for love. If one loves another person in order to obtain
happiness for oneself, then that person has become a means to an end. This is use, not love. While it may be a more “noble” form of use, it is use all the same. To love someone
necessarily means that one does not see that person as a means but as an end in him or herself. This is why one of my favorite
quotes from Hildebrand’s work is: “Happiness is love’s outcome, never its
motive.” If you love someone for who he or she is, then yes, you will
undoubtedly be happier as a result—it’s a basic fact of human nature. We are
built to love, we thrive on loving, and we deeply desire to pour ourselves
out in love, despite the fact that, from a purely biological or evolutionary
perspective, to do so often makes no sense; it offers no advantage. As soon as I treat another person as
a means to my happiness, I
immediately cease loving and begin using him or her. The happiness that is the
fruit of love can only be achieved when one does not treat love as a means to
happiness. In real love we must forget ourselves in self-gift, and this is what
makes us happy; it is rather paradoxical. As soon as my own happiness becomes
the primary motivation or theme for my love, authentic love becomes impossible and its
resulting happiness unattainable. This must have been (at least in part) what Jesus
meant when he said, “For whoever would save his life will lose it; and
whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it” (Mk 8:35),
and “Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his
friends” (Jn 15:13). This mystery is what Saint John Paul II referred to as
“the law of the gift”. He loved to quote a passage from the Second Vatican
Council document Gaudium et spes,
which states that “man…cannot fully find himself except through a sincere gift
of himself” (GS 24). A “sincere gift
of self” implies that one is not seeking one’s own happiness, even though,
because of the way God created us, to sincerely give of oneself will lead inevitably
to one’s happiness.
Love and the Desire for Reciprocity
There is one final difficulty that must be resolved. The
definition of love as “willing the good of the other” often leads to the
erroneous idea that true or pure love excludes the desire that one be loved in
return. In other words, the desire for reciprocity in love is a form of
selfishness, an imperfection. That this idea is false may seem obvious to some
people, since it is so clearly at odds with lived experience. This bizarre
ideal of love demands that the person who loves be indifferent to whether or not
the beloved person responds in love. The reason for this error is the failure
to distinguish between love of neighbor and love of enemies on the one hand,
and the love of family, friendship, and romance on the other. Our awareness of
the tremendous value of every human being, including the poorest, most
destitute, and most difficult to love, as well as our Lord’s command to love
his “least brothers” (Mt 25:40,45), does indeed obligate us to love such people
regardless of whether or not they love us in return. Further, as our Lord taught in the
Sermon on the Mount and modeled perfectly in his own death, we are called as his
disciples to love even our enemies. This being said, the love that our Lord
commands us to extend to the poor and our enemies is categorically different
from the love that should exist between family members, friends, and lovers. In
these latter forms of love, it makes no sense whatsoever to say that one should
simply love without desiring to be loved in return. On the contrary, such a "one-way" love
should not be considered purer or stronger, but defective or disordered in some
way. Imagine: What would a woman think if her boyfriend of several years, upon
asking her to marry him, told her, “I love you so much that I don’t even care if
you love me back.” This would indicate not a pure or heroic love, but
immaturity at best and a personality disorder at worst! The desire that love be
reciprocated does not taint love but rather indicates that the lover longs for intimacy with the beloved, for intimacy can
only be reached through mutual love. There is no such thing as one-way or unreciprocated intimacy. This
is how failing to distinguish between different types of love can lead one to
pursue unhealthy and even inhuman ideals in relationships.
Conclusion
In summary, the definition
of love as “to will the good of the other” can effectively correct many
misunderstandings about love that prevail in popular culture today, a culture that regards
love as an emotion or feeling. However, this definition of love is incomplete
because it fails to capture fully the essence of what love is. First and most
important, it cannot account for a person’s love of God, because to love God logically
cannot consist in willing His good, since He is Goodness itself and the source
of all goodness. Second, this definition also does not adequately describe love
between human beings, because we know from experience that our love is not simply a willed decision to improve other
people’s circumstances, or even an altruistic attempt to make them happier, but
rather our free response to their objective value, which we first perceive and
then act upon. Third, love defined as “willing the good of the other” fails to
account for why human beings are motivated (or should be motivated) to love either
God or each other, whereas love defined as “value-response” accounts for both
of these relationships very well. Finally, love defined as “willing the good of
the other”, especially without the distinction between various forms of love
(i.e. love of enemy, neighbor, family, friend, spouse), leads to confused
ideals of love, such as indifference towards reciprocity. These problems are
more easily avoided when love is understood instead as a value-response.
Careful
reflection on the most important realities, such as love, can greatly enrich
our lives here and now, especially our relationships with God and others, and
thus help us on our journey towards our ultimate fulfillment and happiness in
eternity. To that end, I hope this reflection has been helpful in some way.
Thank you for reading!
† Under the Mercy,
Chris Trummer
“Happiness is love’s
outcome, never its motive. Where someone is loved he is an end in himself and
certainly not a means toward something else. It is therefore of love’s essence,
wherever it is found, that the loved one seem precious, beautiful, and worthy
of love.”
–– Dietrich von Hildebrand, Man, Woman, and the Meaning of Love: God's Plan for Love, Marriage, Intimacy, and the Family
