This document discusses the theologies of love according to Kierkegaard, Nygren, Barth, and Jüngel. It notes that Kierkegaard asserts humans can love as God loves through emptying oneself before God. Nygren sharply distinguishes eros and agape and rejects self-love. Barth argues love is a human response to God's prior love. Jüngel centers his Trinitarian theology on God as love based on 1 John 4:8. The document also provides critiques of each view.

1. November 19, 2010

2. Kierkegaard Nygren Barth Jüngel
• humans must • humankind • theology of love • ‗love as God‘s
strive to love as dreams of a holy based on own identity‘
God loves, fellowship with theologies of and the human
without God creation and correspondence
preference • humans are election • connection
• the person must always related • affirms the between eros
be emptied to God as human potential and agape
before God sinners to love as the
work of the holy
spirit

3. • Came from an affluent family in Copenhagen, Denmark
(only left the city twice in his life)
• Influenced by:
• The Romantic Movement (die Romantic) – Schlegel and
Schillers
• German Idealism – Schelling and Hegel
• But most notably, Socrates
• Wrote over 30 works, many under ironic pseudonyms
• Used ―indirect communication‖
• Believed in three ―stages along life‘s way‖
Søren Kierkegaard, The Kierkegaard Reader, ed. Jane Chamberlain and Jonathan Rée
(Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2001), 381-383.

4.  Asserts that human persons really can
love (contra Augustine)
› Humans can actively relate to God and
neighbor
 Preserves focus on the human body, it‘s
natural desires, and emotions
 Love is work which must be done. It must
be enacted.
› Love as praxis

5.  Distinguishes between different sorts of love
 Rejects preferential love as Christian love
› The Christian must love all equally (even the self)
 Christian love is a love of self denial
› Persons must be emptied before God; they are
unworthy subjects
 Kierkegaard does not draw on Jewish
conceptions of love
 Kierkegaard‘s neglect of society/institutions
› The self isolated from society and ecclesia

6. Kierkegaard‘s system and
further conception of love

7. The Religious
The Ethical
The Aesthetic

8.  Kierkegaard and 19th Century
Lutheranism
› ―Saved by Grace through Faith‖
 Experiential character of love
› Love, like faith, cannot be taught. Both must
be experienced and enacted (shared).
 Intellectual influences
› German Idealism, Die Romantik, Socrates
 Existential

9.  Biblically relevant
› Utilizes both Hebrew Bible & New Testament
 Self love
 Other regard
 A Theology of Trust
 Existence as Given

10. • Swedish, Lutheran theologian
• Professor systematic theology at Lund University from 1924
• Ordained Priest in 1912 and served as parish minister for
almost 9 years in Diocese of Gothenburg
• Elected bishop of Lund in 1948
• Appointed as first president of Lutheran World Federation
• Active in both ecumenical affairs and in resisting Nazism
before WWII

11.  Agape and Eros: The Christian Idea of Love
› The most successful and influential
theological book on love in the twentieth
century
› Christian love stands in radical opposition to
the Greek eros and the Jewish love as
nomos
› The uniqueness of Christian love as agape

12.  Radical separation between human eros and divine agape.
 There is a problematic mixture, synthesis of eros - religion and
agape – religion.
 Aim: to restore the purified Christian understanding of love
by searching what is characteristic for all Christianity.
 Doesn‘t mention any manifestation or practical
achievement of agape by the human persons, but only the
formal aspects:
› God comes from the outside
› Only God and neighbor can be loved with God‘s love
› Self-love is ruled out

13. Platonic Christian
eros agape
Major non-Christian motif Major Christian motif
Old completely revolutionary,
entirely new
Particularly
Christian
meaning
Human form of egocentric and Love that comes from God
desiring love
Human
By its attitude:
own receptivity,
strength passivity
Aim: to reach the divine sphere To receive God‘s love

14. Jewish religion of the law Christian – agape
religion
Law is the bound Newly constituted
between people fellowship with God
Jesus
Love commandment
New content
Pharisees – religion of Jesus – religion of love:
law:
Includes all human
Jewish legal beings, even the sinners
righteousness

15.  Agape excludes all forms of self love (eros).
 Self love is man‘s natural condition and the reason for the
perversity of his will.
 Nygren‘s aim: to expose and overcome the self-seeking eros-
motif and to identify and reject all love discourses that do not
build on God‘s absolute sovereignty.
 Augustine: synthesis of eros + agape = caritas caritas
needs to be exposed as a polluted manifestation of the
original Christian idea of love.

16.  Nygren, like Augustine and Luther, approaches love from
anthropological and theological presuppositions: God vs.
imperfect creation.
 Since Christian love comes from God only He can be
conceived as its subject. Consequently, the human being
becomes a ―mere object of this divine love that employs
man as its instrument and organ‖.
 All human desire is in opposition to the divine gift of love.
 Faith is a precondition of the receiving of God‘s love: if you
don‘t believe you cannot love in a Christian way.

17. • Swiss Reformed theologian
• Among the most important Christian thinkers of the 20th
century
• From 1911 to 1921 he served as a Reformed pastor in the
village of Safenwil
• Professor of theology in Göttingen (1921–
1925), Münster (1925–1930) and Bonn (1930–1935)
• Forced to leave Germany in 1935 after he refused to swear
allegiance to Adolf Hitler
• Professor in Basel (1935–1962)

18.  Any consideration of faith, love and hope must be rooted in
Christological reflection.
 Explicating Christian existence from its centre – Jesus Christ.
 Christian love comes from God through Christ.
 In Christ, God loved the world in a concrete-perceptible way.
 He showed that He did not will to be God without all men.
 He has demonstrated that all men and each individual man
cannot be without Him.

19. Jesus is patient; Jesus is kind; Jesus is not envious or
boastful or arrogant or rude. He does not insist on His
own way; He is not irritable or resentful; He does not
rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. He bears
all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures
all things.
(verses 4 - 7)

20.  Neither the Old Testament nor the New speak about a love for man as
such and therefore for all man; of a universal love of humanity.
 Universal love can be thought only as an idea or an attitude.
 Christian love is an “act of obedience” which does not “take place always
and everywhere” but is determined by time, place and a concrete
demarcation and limitation of its objects: a love of choices and
differentiations.
 Insists on the concrete historical context.
 The “circle of brothers” – the horizon of Christian love, may need to be
extended beyond what we can see now.

21.  Sharp distinction between Eros and Agape:
 Which one reflects the “true human nature as created by God”.
 Agape-love - affinity
human nature
 Eros-love - opposition
 Conclusion: “Erotic love is a denial of humanity”.
 Agape is characterized by self-giving: turning wholly to another, although
the other is only an “object of love”.

22. Christian love The other kind of love
-grasping, taking, possessive love –
self-love
The reconciliation between God and
Its object:
humankind, achieved in Jesus Christ
- a qualitative difference. -Not necessarily sensual.
- It can be directed to the good, the
true and the beautiful.
-Even in its sexual form it may have
The ambiguity of Christian love: due
reference to the soul and not
to the ongoing mixture of both loves
merely to the body.
in one human being.
-It may even include God as its
object.

23.  Related with human love.
 It moves human beings to act accordingly: love is not a feeling but an act.
 Human persons are not simple channels of God’s love, but genuine
subjects who love in response to God’s prior love.
 3 crucial aspects of God’s love: Elective, Purifying, Creative.
 There is an inner connection between love for God and for neighbour, but
they must never be identified: they are “distinct and must not be
confused. But they are also inseparable”.

24. Originality of Christian love Vs. Continuity between the Old and the New
Testaments.
 There is not a change in God’s love over the years.
 We have seen another manifestation of this love in Christ: God’s
determination to love humankind totally.
 There is a significant difference between the Old Testament and the New
Testament: the emphasis on love for the neighbour and its connection
with love for God, corresponding to the New Testament tradition.

25. Nygren Barth
“The synthesis between eros-love “Is it not of the very essence of the
and agape-love should have come history that this opposition
to an end with Luther” can never be fully
overcome?”
Fellowship
No ecclesiological with God Concrete Christian
conclusions Church
Love: God’ action over Love: a human response to
human passivity God’s love

26. Nygren’s theology of love Barth’s theology of love
Rejection of self-love
• Rooted in his understanding of the • Rooted in his theology of creation
theology of justification. and election and based on his
biblical interpretation.
• God alone can be the loving • Human being is able to love God
subject. and his/her neighbours.
•God’s love – the origin of human
love (always preceding it).

27.  Sharp distinction between Eros and Agape.
 God’s love should be understood as related with human love.
 Wants to prove both originality of Christian love and the continuity
between the Old and the New Testaments.
 Any consideration of faith, love and hope must be rooted in Christological
reflection.
 Barth concludes his reflections on Christian love with a praise of love in 1
Corinthians 13 as a parallel to the Old Testament’s Song of Songs: it is
love alone that counts.

28. • Born: 1933
• Professor of Systematic Theology and Philosophy of Religion at Tübingen,
Germany
• Influenced by the German Protestant tradition
• Barth, Bultmann, and Luther
• Hegel and Heidegger also influence his work
• Major work: God as the Mystery of the World (1977)
• Focuses on a critique of classical theism and contemporary atheism
• Centers his Trinitarian account of God on the idea of God as different
aspects of love.
Additional reading sources:
Online essays and books: http://www.tyndale.ca/seminary/mtsmodular/reading-
rooms/theology/jungel
A theological forum dedicated to his thought: http://godasmystery.blogspot.com/
Brief biographical data: http://www.theopedia.com/Eberhard_J%C3%BCngel

29.  Centers Trinitarian thought around 1 John 4:8:
―Whoever does not love does not know God,
because God is love.‖
› The Christ event becomes the epitome of God‘s self-giving
love
› Attempts to theologically demarcate between love and
God while keeping the Johannine identification of God as
love
 Jeanrond will later argue this scope is too limited—
Jungel bases his theology only on John (pg 131)
 Others, such as J.M Dittberner will argue that this
makes God and Jesus less abstract
› ―Jungel‘s God still comes to us from the Bible. In fact, his
very Being is ‗coming,‘ and this is no mere fideism,
certainty can emerge…‖
Dittberner, J.M. "Vehicle for God: Metaphorical Theology of Eberhard Jungel." Theological Studies December, 1996.

30. A pre-understanding of love: I and Thou
› The ‗loving I‘ desires the Thou (loved object)
 Shows desire is integral to love, cannot be absolute
selflessness
 This stems from Martin Buber‘s book, I-Thou (Ich-Du)
and also has traces in the Hegelian Dialectic
› Relationship love has 3 ontological aspects
 Affection (Zuneigung)
 Turning to the other person (Zuwendung)
 Self-giving (Hingabe)
 Becomes the more important aspect of Jungel‘s thought for
Jeanrond

31.  The I surrenders itself to the Thou in a
renewal exchange, creating a symbiotic
relationship: if no Thou, then no loving I (and
vice versa)
› Similar to the Hegelian argument of being and
nonbeing
 Thus love is a totalizing power: love creates a
relationship of being
› With no love, neither the loving I nor the Thou exists

32. • God is the ultimate source of love
• This identification of God is revealed in the Crucified Christ
• As a total loving God, sacrifices his son, drawing in the finiteness of
humanity into his infinite God-self
• Post-resurrection, this love is sustained through the Holy Spirit
• This act of sacrificial, ultimate love bonds the (loving) Trinity
with humanity throughout history
• Shades of Luther: God makes humanity worthy of God
• ―The love flowing from the cross makes the ugly person
beautiful in the eyes of God‖ (Jeanrond, pg 130)

33.  Humanity‘s love is a love of desire (eros) and Hingabe
› All genuine love has a desire component
› Hingabe is a selfless, surrendering love but still requires a
loving subject and an object
› When erotic love is separated from other forms of love, it
becomes selfish and self-centered
 God is the subject and object of love at once
› Therefore, God‘s love is a complete, totally selfless love
› A distinction made in faith
 Human love is correspondent to the loving God but only
through the experience of faith
 Faith and love go hand in hand: cannot love without faith,
cannot have faith without love
› Only possible with God (as the creator and through the
Trinity)

34. • Jungel back to lack of scope:
• Does not go into the historical motives of the Johannine
community‘s desire to frame God in this way
• Jeanrond is right to point out that this is a narrow scope but
Jungel‘s thought does not overtly contradict other passages
• Never problematizes his understanding of selfhood and
subjectivity
• Who is the self? How does the self evolve?
• What is the relation between self-giving and self-surrender?

35.  Jungel‘s focus is on understanding God as love, but
in many aspects it becomes too abstract:
› Where does the body do? Jungel does not discuss the
implications of the Christ-event to the body
 While he corresponds human love to God‘s love,
several anthropological points remain unplotted
› Jeanrond sees a lack of understanding in the self
 ―Who is the self that is to grow into self-relationality and self-
giving?‖
 ―How do self-relationality and self-giving relate?‖ (Pg 131)
 Harks back to Jeanrond‘s desire for a sound anthropology
of love

36.  Jungel focuses on understanding God‘s
identity as love
› Too Abstract for Jeanrond
› Has no sense of ―social, ecclesiastical or
communal space‖ (pgs 132).
 However, Jeanrond must keep in mind that
Jungel has a different theological task
› Jungel‘s systematic theology is centered around
the debate of classical theism and atheism
 With this in mind, Jungel‘s theology is focused on a
definite understanding of God that can then be
applied to other matters

38.  All four authors carry on Luther‘s
Christological concentration
› Therefore, each of the authors continues
Luther‘s separation between human love
and God‘s love
 They typify the tendency to view the
human person (and human love) not as
divinely inspired, but as unworthy
› This is a continuation, specifically, of
Augustine

39.  These authors each develop Luther‘s
theology (from the end of the last
chapter) in new ways, moving toward
the question of love and desire (in the
next chapter)
 This task is necessary so that Jeanrond
can claim desire as a part of love
 These authors, he believes, clearly
differentiate between human desire for
love and the divine gift of love

40.  Kierkegaard rejects desire, especially in
preferential love, but maintains self-love
 Nygren rejects eros as a selfish force which
desires to reach the divine by its own
strength
 For Barth, the opposition between eros and
agape cannot be overcome; they are
always present together in the human
person
 Jungel sees God‘s love as agape and all
human love having some component of
desire
› Desire is only bad when it is separated from
other love

41.  These authors are trying to make sense of
a separation between human and godly
love. Why do they need to create these
distinctions? Why does Jeanrond push
back against them?

42.  Throughout the work, and specifically in
this chapter, Jeanrond has sought to
reclaim the sacrality of the body, the
place of self love, and of love for the
other qua the other in a theology of
love. Why do these anthropological and
interpersonal concerns factor so heavily
into a theology?

43.  From Augustine to Jungel, we have
discussed the problem of desire in
Christian conceptions of love. Why is
desire so problematic? What does the
fact that Jeanrond is giving such stage
time to the problem of desire say about
his task? How is it a critique of historical
Christian conceptions of desire?