Views and Counterviews

Jim Childs, The ELCA and Sexuality: Update Number 1 , p.245
Steve Lenius, Regarding "Bishops, Genes, and Sex" by Jarmo Tarkki in Dialog 40:3 (Fall 2001): 233–235. , p.246     

EUDAIMONIA AND AGAPE IN MACINTYRE AND KIERKEGAARD'S WORKS OF LOVE

This essay explores connections and divergences between Alasdair MacIntyre's eudaimonistic ethic and Søren Kierkegaard's agapeistic ethic—perhaps the greatest proponents of these ethical paradigms from the past two centuries. The purpose of the work is threefold. First, to demonstrate an impressive amount of convergence and complementarity in their approaches to the transcendent grounds of an ethic of flourishing, the rigors necessary for a proper self‐love, and the other‐directed nature of proper social relations. Second, given the inapplicability of common dichotomies, to pinpoint more precisely where Kierkegaard departs from eudaimonism, and where MacIntyre departs from agapeism. Finally, to show that both Kierkegaard's and MacIntyre's grounds for departure are inadequate, and thus that the most central insights of eudaimonist and agapeist ethics can be harmonized to a greater extent than either Kierkegaard's or MacIntyre's framework can allow.     

A RECONSIDERATION OF KIERKEGAARD'S UNDERSTANDING OF THE HUMAN OTHER: The Hidden Ethics of Soteriology

In this article, I embark on an analysis of Søren Kierkegaard's view of human otherness in strict correlation to his Christian philosophy. More specifically, my aim is to show that Kierkegaard's thought is essentially informed by a decisive appropriation of the soteriological category of sin which has momentous implications for Kierkegaard's views of selfhood and intersubjectivity. The main argument is that both Kierkegaard's negative evaluation of human otherness and his acerbic indictments of any collectivist interference in salvific matters cohere with his appropriation of the doctrine of the Fall. At the same time, I show in what sense Kierkegaard deems human alterity to be indispensable to one's spiritual self‐becoming expressed through the Christian imperative of loving the other as neighbor. Seen thus, agape, while supplementing Kierkegaard's creationistic psychology, actually becomes the necessary restorative opposite of sinfulness in the self's encounters with the distinct uniqueness of the human other.     

ON A PARADOX OF CHRISTIAN LOVE

The two love commands attributed to Jesus clearly show the basic feature of Christianity as a “religion of love.” However, it may be argued that there is conflict between these commands, so that the Christian idea of love confronts a deep paradox: on the one hand, it takes loving God as the ultimate foundation of loving one's neighbor and loving one's neighbor as the perfect manifestation of loving God. On the other hand, it gives supremacy to loving God over loving one's neighbor, with the result that, in cases of conflict, Christianity has to sacrifice loving one's neighbor to loving God and thus to negate the second great command by the first.     

Free love? On the relation between belief in free will,determinism, and passionate love

Is love possible if we are not free? Some philosophers consider that true love is necessarily free, while others think that the nature of love makes it incompatible with a certain type of freedom. Here, we explored the relationship between feelings of passionate love, belief in free will and determinism across three online studies. In Study 1 (N = 257), participants who believed strongly in free will (or determinism) expressed stronger passionate love. In Study 2 (N = 305), we again found a positive association between belief in free will (or determinism) and passionate love, although the passionate love-determinism relationship seems more conditional. Finally, Study 3 (N = 309) confirmed the relationship between belief in free will and passionate love but not between belief in determinism and passionate love. These findings, along with a meta-analysis, suggest that both beliefs in free will and determinism are compatible with passionate love.     

KAGAWA TOYOHIKO (1888–1960): WITNESS TO THE COSMIC DRAMA

At home and abroad, Kagawa Toyohiko was probably the best‐known Japanese Christian evangelist, social reformer, writer, and public intellectual of the twentieth century, nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature twice (1947, 1948) and the Nobel Peace Prize three times (1954, 1955, 1956). Appealing to the masses with little knowledge of Christian faith, Kagawa believed that a positive, religio‐aesthetic interpretation of nature and science was a key missiological concern in Japan. He reasoned that a faith rooted in the kenotic movement of incarnation and self‐giving must strongly support the scientific quest. A voracious reader of science and especially biology, he argues for “directionality,” or what he calls “initial purpose” in the long, painful, cosmic journey from matter to life to mind (or consciousness). Through an antireductionistic, a posteriori methodological pluralism that sought to “see all things whole,” this “scientific mystic” employed Christian, Buddhist, Neo‐Confucian, personalist, and vitalist ideas to envision complementary roles for science and religion in modern society.     

More than a feeling: Wittgenstein and William James on love and other emotions

One of the most significant features of Wittgenstein's Remarks on the Philosophy of Psychology (written after he had completed most of the Philosophical Investigations) is his reflections on emotions. Wittgenstein's treatment of this topic was developed in direct response to his reading of William James’s chapter on emotions in his 1890 masterpiece, The Principles of Psychology. This paper examines the competing views of emotions that emerge in these works, both of which attempt to overcome the Cartesian dualist conception in different ways. The main point of disagreement concerns the relation between emotions and their bodily expression (e.g. the relation between grief and weeping). My interpretation focuses on Wittgenstein's remarks on the emotion of love because, I argue, it is a particularly problematic case. To elucidate his largely unexplored view of love, I draw on his remarks on understanding and criteria in the Philosophical Investigations. I argue that by examining the examples of complex emotions like love, we can arrive at a more accurate characterization of Wittgenstein's general view of mental concepts and mental phenomena.     

Hating the One You Love

Many testimonies, as well as fictional works, describe situations in which people find themselves hating the person that they love. This might initially appear to be contradiction, as how can one love and hate the same person at the same time? A discussion of this problem requires making a distinction between logical consistency and psychologically compatibility. Hating the one you love may be a consistent experience, but it raises difficulties concerning its psychological compatibility.     

Freedom,Love, and Justice

This article starts from love as being a fundamental value, guiding modes of behaviour that establish a reliable framework and basis for the recognition of the rights and dignity of everyone in the community. The affirmation of justice and freedom based on love leads to corrective and transformative action in cases where life is threatened and rights are being violated. Drawing on the experience and witness of Martin Luther King Jr, the article underlines that love empowers the oppressed to stand up and becomes a moral imperative for change, against the background of the many forces promoting conflict and violence, division, and polarization. The power of love is a message to the world, to the powerful, and to the powerless – to all who long for a different reality from what we see in today’s world. This needs to be expressed in the quest for the unity of the church and the unity of humankind, serving the sustainability and unity of God’s creation.     

大学生恋爱动机问卷的初步编制

目的:探讨大学生恋爱动机的结构并编制相应的测量工具。方法:运用文献法、开放式问卷和访谈法设计问卷,多次施测修改问卷,采用相关分析、探索性分析和验证性分析对问卷的信、效度进行检验。结果:大学生恋爱动机问卷包括功利性、面子性、性爱性,情感性、消遣性和婚姻性六个维度,累计贡献率57.459%,共27项;问卷的信度和效度均符合心理测量学的要求。结论:大学生恋爱动机问卷可作为测评大学生恋爱动机的工具。