I find it telling that
Jesus told us to love our neighbour and to love our enemies but he did not tell
us to love humanity. This must be because love cannot be directed to everyone
without ceasing to be love. Not for human beings anyway. For God, of course, it
can. But for us love must involve a personal relationship of some kind and so
Jesus told us to direct it towards those with whom we actually had some kind of
real contact.
Nowadays it often seems
that the idea of spiritual love is understood (or, I should say, misunderstood)
as an abstract thing, something that should be directed towards all men and
women equally. I may be mistaken but I don't think this is what Jesus taught.
He was not a theoretician like many people today. He was completely involved in
the real, the true and the practical, and so he spoke of love as an active,
living thing that opens up the heart in a genuine way. Who can love humanity?
Can you love this abstract concept in any real way? No, you can only love real
men and real women. Love of humanity is just a theory for those who don't understand
love and confuse it for a bland benevolence or, worse, see it as a badge to
prove their worthiness. You cannot love humanity. You can only act as if you
love humanity but then that is just acting. You can love your neighbour and you
can love your enemy (or try to) but you cannot love humanity, and if you
attempt that you may well end up a self-conscious fake as many spiritual
people seem to do.
The fact that you cannot
love humanity does not mean you should have no regard for people on the other side
of the world with whom you will never have any kind of relationship. You
should, of course, always recognise their common humanity and do to them
as you would have them do to you. But that's a different thing. Charity begins
at home, both in the modern sense of giving help to those in need and the
Christian sense of spiritual love. When you can love those near to you, whether
neighbour or enemy, then you can extend that circle but don't think abstract,
impersonal love can be used as an excuse not to love the annoying, foolish,
selfish people (as they may appear) who God actually puts in your way. He sends
us what we need and, if these are the people we encounter, they are probably
the ones through whom we can learn some kind of lesson.
5 comments:
@William - This seems right to me.
In my studies of the Fourth Gospel I have been struck by the way that Jesus aims to build a small but intense group among his disciples; on his last evening with them, he emphasises that he loves them, and they must love each other in the same way.
Jesus says and does nothing about the wider circle of abstract strangers that are the whole world - the emphasis is on specific and familiar people around him. This applies to the others whom Jesus is specifcially stated to love (eg the siblings Lazarus, Martha, Mary).
I also agree that the cant (whether implied or explicit) about loving everybody equally is profoundly destructive (as well as incoherent); and leads to bureaucracy, not Christianity.
Yes Bruce, as you say, we always see Jesus talking about love between actual individuals or connected groups of actual individuals, practical, real stuff not abstract generalities. He emphasised love as something living and real and personal not the universal unconditional thing it's sometimes thought of and which cannot really mean much when you think about it.
Lots of good points. Remember that the parable of the Good Samaritan is about who is *not* our neighbour, as much as who is and ought to be.
Yes that's very true,ajb."Which of these was his neighbour?" makes it clear that some who passed by were not.
I guess we can love humanity through Christ - as the transpersonal object of love. Humanity in and by itself? No.. I don't know what that is, and I agree it all boils down to the individual. Collectivism says the individual is an image of the group, but I hold the opposite view: the group is an image of the individual, actually. This means every individual is ultimately responsible for their group as citizens. The Left just can't accept such a position, which is why they hate stereoptypes and generalizations - because they identify with broad categories labeled as "love". But this means they don't give the individual enough worthiness to not take stereotypes personally, because they are so submersed in the lowest common denominator. The road to hell is paved with good intentions, eh? As Christians of course we must lift up the individual from that mud. Christ is what gives worthiness and grace to the soul. Without him it seems we fall back on ourselves and try to find a sense of worth from the world, through our "fellow humans".
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