Vaishali Institute Research Bulletin 4

Author(s): R P Poddar
Publisher: Research Institute of Prakrit Jainology & Ahimsa Mujjaffarpur

Page 83

Vaishali Institute Research Bulletin No. 4
Table II The God of Mystic communion 1
Agape level
Universal
Philia level
God is Love God is Father God is Redeemer Self-giving Redemptive, Compassion Charity, Benevolence God, will, Friendship Family love Sexual love
Eros level
Particular
elevation of the values of the lower level, so that the values of sexual and personal love are extended into family love, to friendship, benevolence, compassionate self-sacrifice, and even to the love of God. And in reverse the love of God provides motive and guidance, as well as strength and balance, to all the lower loves. So the Christian finds it meaningful to use the language of human love for God, calling him father, and seeks the blessing of God upon the sex relation itself in Christian marriage. An appraisal
A critic may object that after all it has been the Christian world which has fought the largest number of devastating wars. It goes against the fact that the philosophy of love is central to Christianity. The charge may be levelled that Christian world is susceptible to hatred. But critics who emphasize these facts in order to refute that the philosophy of love is central to Christian ethics have missed the whole point. in this connection, I submit that occasional deviations from a certain principle, though uofortunate, do not prove the lack of the principle itself, they only emphasize human frailty which is always responsible for man's fall from high and edifying ideals. Philosophical analysis is concerned with the principles rather them with the practice, with the fundmental rules that ought to govern conduct rather than with the degree of conformity to the rules. Hence conduct to the contrary, even if conclusively demonstrated, will not be taken to imply that the principle itself is missing.
It we keep these facts in mind, it will not be difficult to see that if anything is central to all forms of Christianity, it is the philosophy of love.
1. Edited by Joseph Campbell, Man and Transformation, Routledge
and Kegan Paul, London, p. 174,