Some reflections on Kierkegaard’s Works of Love:
As a full-time evangelist, I spend much of my time interacting with atheists and other unbelievers, trying to convince them that Christianity is true and that they should follow Jesus. As a result, I am often charged with being “unloving.” People who make this claim usually base it on the idea that true love would never suggest that any aspect of another person’s life should change. They assert that to love is to “accept others as they are” and not want any part of their life to be any different. In this view, particularly its more extreme permutations, love not only demands that all people are accepted in their present state, but that every characteristic of the person is approved and even celebrated as good, including their worldview beliefs, personality traits, and habits.
A key element of this view of love is the preeminence given to pleasurable emotions. Pleasure is seen as one of the highest goods and we are to approve of people (“love them”) so as to not cause them displeasure by hurting their feelings. A relationship of love is understood to be one filled with affection and the pleasing emotional state of “happiness.” If unhappiness is present, love is not. As such, it is not loving to claim, as I do, that all people are sinners who need to repent and embrace God’s grace. Indeed, this is seen as hateful, as it very often does not produce the proper emotional state.
In light of my experience, I really appreciate the way Kierkegaard distinguishes between the Christian definition of love and love as the world defines and practices it, particularly in the section titled “Love as the Fulfilling of the Law” (III A.). Here he notes several ways that worldly wisdom contrasts the wisdom of divine revelation, including the fact that, contrary to what the world thinks, a relationship of love must include God, as God is the ultimate good of another person, not pleasure or anything else. “Worldly wisdom thinks that love is a relationship between man and man. Christianity teaches that love is a relationship between: man – God – man, that is, that God is the middle term” (112-113). He goes on to point out that “to help another human being to love God is to love another man; to be helped by another human being to love God is to be loved” (113).
Kierkegaard isn’t speaking here specifically of the blatantly “evangelistic” relationships between a missionary and potential convert that I am so familiar with (he is making a broader point about how all humans should relate to all other humans), but I think the principles in this section of the book apply to my situation very well.
Trying to help another being love God is not always a pleasurable experience, on either side of the relationship. In other words, it does not always play out practically in a way that the world views as loving. Indeed, if often looks very unloving from the world’s perspective. Making disciples is not the same as making friends. Many times the attempt to draw a person toward God will actually alienate the two people. As such, the Christian view of love clashes with the worldly view of love. One person thinks he is being loving, while the object of his actions interprets his act as one of hate.
Kierkegaard understands this, and offers Jesus as an example of this principle in action, explaining that his life was “a terrible collision with the merely human conception of what love is” (115). Jesus loved the world to the fullest extent of the term, but the world despised and rejected him (Isa. 53:3). One problem was that people did not recognize Jesus actions as loving. Instead, they held stubbornly to their conception of love, desiring temporal pleasure and the approval of men rather than the holiness and union with God that Jesus was offering.
Even Jesus’ disciples had the false view, at least before the resurrection. They believed that the love of the Messiah would show itself in the establishment of a political kingdom in which they would reign, with all the pleasure that would bring. They could not see how true love could involve the suffering and misery that characterized Jesus’ mission. For example, Peter had to be rebuked as the mouthpiece of Satan (Matt. 16:23, noted on page 115) for declaring that Jesus should not go and suffer the passion. Even as zealous a follower as Peter did not understand that true love could bring pain and not happiness. As Kierkegaard says, the fact is that Jesus “made himself and his own as unhappy as possible” yet “died with the claim that it nevertheless was for love” (116).
The disciples eventually learned this lesson, giving up everything to evangelize the world for Christ. Most died as martyrs, examples to the many saints of the Church that followed in their footsteps. They forsook even life itself in an act of love for God and their fellow man. As a reward for their love, these heroes of faith were hated. This hatred, Kierkegaard notes, is quite a common response to true love (119) and should be expected as simply part of the sacrifice we offer. He points out that a Christian is even called to voluntarily be rejected by (“to hate”) his or her own mother and father, sister, brother, and beloved (Luke 14:26, referenced on 114) on behalf of love.
Kierkegaard does a wonderful job of showing that true love can actually produce conflict between people. This notion is obviously very strange from a worldly perspective. The fallen human inclination is to see love as something that promotes unity, peace, and pleasure, not the division, strife, and pain that often accompanies the sacrifice of godly love.
Unfortunately, the worldly view of love is often held even by Christians, including clergy. In my experience, many preachers ignore certain points of the gospel so that listeners will not be offended. St. Paul may have seen the need to discourse on “righteousness, self control and the judgment to come” (Acts 24:25), but many contemporary Christian leaders wouldn’t touch these topics with a ten foot pole. They are more interested in making sure that the audience feels “loved” and by that they mean “affirmed in who they are right now.” Sin, hell, and the need for sacrifice don’t do that, so these essential doctrines are ignored. Also, while one motivation for this dereliction of duty is the desire that the audience feel loved, another is certainly the desire of the preacher to feel loved by the audience, or at least be held in high esteem for being such a loving person.
Unfortunately, both motivations start from a false view of love. Everyone involved may end with nice feelings, but this is not a relationship that leads to God and therefore is not love. Kierkegaard makes this very clear, explaining that even the most “blissful and joyful attachment” is not love if the relationship does not lead me to God (124). He also warns that one should “beware that it does not become more important for you that you are looked upon as loving then than that you love them” (132).
While I have applied these truths to the relationship between minister and those who are ministered to, they are applicable to all relationships, including, of course, a marriage union. I must be a husband who brings my wife to God and if I do not, I do not love her.
This is not an easy job, but the fact is that Christ calls us to love and love can be difficult and painful. As Kierkegaard rightly notes, if you want and easy and sociable life, flee Christianity! (127) On the other hand, if you want union with God, Jesus is the way. We must follow him, the one who disavowed the praise and adoration of the world (125), scorning its shame (Heb. 12:2), to give himself as a sacrifice. This is true love.