Argument from love
Encyclopedia
The Argument from love is an argument
for the existence of God
, as against materialism
and reductionist forms of physicalism
.
goes back to the foundational documents. In cultures where theism was taken for granted, the primacy and quality of love was used as an argument for the truth of Christianity. However in modern times the (suggested) reality of love has become seen as an argument for the existence of God
, as against materialism
and reductionist forms of physicalism
.
Tom Wright
suggests that:
Wright contends both that the real existence of love is a compelling reason for the truth of theism and that the ambivalent experience of love, ("marriages apparently made in heaven sometimes end not far from hell") resonates particularly with the Christian account of fall and redemption.
Paul Tillich
suggested (in 1954) even Spinoza "elevates love out of the emotional into the ontological realm. And it is well known that from Empedocles
and Plato
to Augustine
and Pico
, to Hegel and Schelling
, to Existentialism
and depth psychology, love has played a central ontological role." and that "love is being in actuality and love is the moving power of life" and that an understanding of this should lead us to "turn from the naive nominalism in which the modern world lives".
The theologian Michael Lloyd suggests that "In the end there are basically only two possible sets of views about the universe in which we live. It must, at heart, be either personal or impersonal... arbitrary and temporary [or emerging] from relationship, creativity, delight, love".
If materialism
(or reductionist physicalism
) is true, nothing exists in a way that transcends its physical manifestations. However, if classical theism
is true, love is a quality of God and exists in a way that transcends its physical manifestations. Therefore, to the extent that the premise is accepted, this increases the plausibility of theism by comparison with materialism (or reductionist physicalism
).
. It is possible to be an atheist without being a materialist. According to Midgley
"Atheistic Idealism like Hume
's is a perfectly possible option, and may be a more coherent one. At the end of the 19th century many serious sceptics thought it a clearer choice (Russell
's liflelong ambivalence is quite interesting here)" The classic view of Christian Neo-Platonists was that God is the perfection of the Idea
/Form of Love, and that if an Idealist was philosophically committed to the existence of the Form of Love it was reasonable for them to accept the existence of the perfection of that Form in God.
entails the proposition that "nothing exists in a way that transcends its physical manifestations" the argument works against physicalism as well as materialism. However a physicalist need not be a reductionist in a metaphysical sense so some versions of physicalism appear to be compatible with the existence of love "in a way that transcends its physical manifestations": the argument would only work against reductionist physicalism.
, postmodern theology portrays how religious questions are opened up (not closed down or annihilated) by postmodern thought. The postmodern God is emphatically the God of love, and the economy of love is kenotic
.
suggests: "Rational argument can get us just so far...It can help us to understand the real difference between a faith that commands us to forgive our enemies, and one that commands us to slaughter them. But the leap of faith itself — this placing of your life at God's service — is a leap over reason's edge. This does not make it irrational, any more than falling in love is irrational."
who suggests that it is an "Argument from emotional blackmail
".
Argument
In philosophy and logic, an argument is an attempt to persuade someone of something, or give evidence or reasons for accepting a particular conclusion.Argument may also refer to:-Mathematics and computer science:...
for the existence of God
Existence of God
Arguments for and against the existence of God have been proposed by philosophers, theologians, scientists, and others. In philosophical terms, arguments for and against the existence of God involve primarily the sub-disciplines of epistemology and ontology , but also of the theory of value, since...
, as against materialism
Materialism
In philosophy, the theory of materialism holds that the only thing that exists is matter; that all things are composed of material and all phenomena are the result of material interactions. In other words, matter is the only substance...
and reductionist forms of physicalism
Physicalism
Physicalism is a philosophical position holding that everything which exists is no more extensive than its physical properties; that is, that there are no kinds of things other than physical things...
.
Outline of argument
The deep relationship of theism in general, and Christianity in particular, and loveLove
Love is an emotion of strong affection and personal attachment. In philosophical context, love is a virtue representing all of human kindness, compassion, and affection. Love is central to many religions, as in the Christian phrase, "God is love" or Agape in the Canonical gospels...
goes back to the foundational documents. In cultures where theism was taken for granted, the primacy and quality of love was used as an argument for the truth of Christianity. However in modern times the (suggested) reality of love has become seen as an argument for the existence of God
Existence of God
Arguments for and against the existence of God have been proposed by philosophers, theologians, scientists, and others. In philosophical terms, arguments for and against the existence of God involve primarily the sub-disciplines of epistemology and ontology , but also of the theory of value, since...
, as against materialism
Materialism
In philosophy, the theory of materialism holds that the only thing that exists is matter; that all things are composed of material and all phenomena are the result of material interactions. In other words, matter is the only substance...
and reductionist forms of physicalism
Physicalism
Physicalism is a philosophical position holding that everything which exists is no more extensive than its physical properties; that is, that there are no kinds of things other than physical things...
.
Tom Wright
Tom Wright (theologian)
Nicholas Thomas Wright is a leading New Testament scholar and former Bishop of Durham in the Church of England. His academic work has usually been published under the name N. T...
suggests that:
- Materialist philosophy and scepticism has "paved our world with concrete, making people ashamed to admit that they have had profound and powerful 'religious' experiences".
- The reality of Love in particular ("that mutual and fruitful knowing, trusting and loving which was the creator's intention" but which "we often find so difficult") and the whole area of human relationships in general, are another signpost pointing away from this philosophy to the central elements of the Christian story.
Wright contends both that the real existence of love is a compelling reason for the truth of theism and that the ambivalent experience of love, ("marriages apparently made in heaven sometimes end not far from hell") resonates particularly with the Christian account of fall and redemption.
Paul Tillich
Paul Tillich
Paul Johannes Tillich was a German-American theologian and Christian existentialist philosopher. Tillich was one of the most influential Protestant theologians of the 20th century...
suggested (in 1954) even Spinoza "elevates love out of the emotional into the ontological realm. And it is well known that from Empedocles
Empedocles
Empedocles was a Greek pre-Socratic philosopher and a citizen of Agrigentum, a Greek city in Sicily. Empedocles' philosophy is best known for being the originator of the cosmogenic theory of the four Classical elements...
and Plato
Plato
Plato , was a Classical Greek philosopher, mathematician, student of Socrates, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world. Along with his mentor, Socrates, and his student, Aristotle, Plato helped to lay the...
to Augustine
Augustine of Hippo
Augustine of Hippo , also known as Augustine, St. Augustine, St. Austin, St. Augoustinos, Blessed Augustine, or St. Augustine the Blessed, was Bishop of Hippo Regius . He was a Latin-speaking philosopher and theologian who lived in the Roman Africa Province...
and Pico
Pico
Pico- is a prefix in the metric system denoting a factor of 10−12 or .Derived from the Italian piccolo, meaning small, this was one of the original 12 prefixes defined in 1960 when the International System of Units was established....
, to Hegel and Schelling
Schelling
Notable people with the last name of Schelling include:* Ernest Schelling, American composer* Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling, German philosopher* Thomas Schelling, American economist and Nobel laureate...
, to Existentialism
Existentialism
Existentialism is a term applied to a school of 19th- and 20th-century philosophers who, despite profound doctrinal differences, shared the belief that philosophical thinking begins with the human subject—not merely the thinking subject, but the acting, feeling, living human individual...
and depth psychology, love has played a central ontological role." and that "love is being in actuality and love is the moving power of life" and that an understanding of this should lead us to "turn from the naive nominalism in which the modern world lives".
The theologian Michael Lloyd suggests that "In the end there are basically only two possible sets of views about the universe in which we live. It must, at heart, be either personal or impersonal... arbitrary and temporary [or emerging] from relationship, creativity, delight, love".
Main premise
The arguments Wright, Tillich and others are making essentially rest on the following premise: there are compelling reasons for considering love to exist in a way that transcends its physical manifestations. Wright evidences primarily the human experience of love, Tillich the philosophical and ontological primacy of love.If materialism
Materialism
In philosophy, the theory of materialism holds that the only thing that exists is matter; that all things are composed of material and all phenomena are the result of material interactions. In other words, matter is the only substance...
(or reductionist physicalism
Physicalism
Physicalism is a philosophical position holding that everything which exists is no more extensive than its physical properties; that is, that there are no kinds of things other than physical things...
) is true, nothing exists in a way that transcends its physical manifestations. However, if classical theism
Theism
Theism, in the broadest sense, is the belief that at least one deity exists.In a more specific sense, theism refers to a doctrine concerning the nature of a monotheistic God and God's relationship to the universe....
is true, love is a quality of God and exists in a way that transcends its physical manifestations. Therefore, to the extent that the premise is accepted, this increases the plausibility of theism by comparison with materialism (or reductionist physicalism
Physicalism
Physicalism is a philosophical position holding that everything which exists is no more extensive than its physical properties; that is, that there are no kinds of things other than physical things...
).
Suggested reasons for accepting the premise
The principal arguments for the premise are:- We have a strong intuition, especially when contemplating someone we love, that love is real and transcends its physical manifestations. Although such intuitions are not always correct, they are strong enough prima facie evidence that very compelling arguments to the contrary would be needed to cancel them out.
- Although one can make plausible evolutionary explanations for loving potential sexual partners, ancestors and children, the experience of love is wider than these categories and is more experienced as more intense and fundamental than sexual desire or a propagation of ones genes.
- It is possible to conceive of love as the most fundamental principle, or one of the most fundamental principles, of the universe, and thinking about the universe in this way appears more coherent with human experience.
- It is very difficult to speak of love in a coherent way without assuming its objective existence, albeit mediated by highly subjective and cultural factors.
- People act in practice as if love is real and transcends its physical manifestations, even if they claim to believe that it is a matter of neurons and chemistry.
Suggested reasons for disputing the premise
- Our commonsense intuitions may be mistaken and based on limited knowledge or primitive, prescientific folk psychologyFolk psychologyFolk psychology is the set of assumptions, constructs, and convictions that makes up the everyday language in which people discuss human psychology...
. For example, the idea that life processes, such as metabolism and growth, are biochemical, and hence merely physical, was far from widely accepted before the twentieth century (see vitalismVitalismVitalism, as defined by the Merriam-Webster dictionary, is#a doctrine that the functions of a living organism are due to a vital principle distinct from biochemical reactions...
). - Evolutionary psychologistsEvolutionary psychologyEvolutionary psychology is an approach in the social and natural sciences that examines psychological traits such as memory, perception, and language from a modern evolutionary perspective. It seeks to identify which human psychological traits are evolved adaptations, that is, the functional...
suggest that mechanisms favouring altruistic behaviour — of which love is arguably a special case — are more pervasive and subtle than might be supposed. - This way of thinking about the universe is attractive but may only be wishful thinking.
- Ordinary language is not always a reliable guide to objective reality.
- Scientific theories of loveLove (scientific views)The theory of a biological basis of love has been explored by such biological sciences as evolutionary psychology, evolutionary biology, anthropology and neuroscience...
might explain the neurological basis of deep emotions in such a way as to make their reduction to physicalism more plausible. For example, Spindle cells allow humans to experience love and emotions and encourage the development of social interaction. These spindle cells also appear in great apesGreat ApesGreat Apes may refer to*Great apes, species in the biological family Hominidae, including humans, chimpanzees, gorillas, and orangutans*Great Apes , a 1997 novel by Will Self...
and, more recently, have been discovered in some whales. There is considerable empirical evidence that brain damage can alter or abolish a person's ability to experience affection, that oxytocinOxytocinOxytocin is a mammalian hormone that acts primarily as a neuromodulator in the brain.Oxytocin is best known for its roles in sexual reproduction, in particular during and after childbirth...
is causally responsible to a significant extent for romantic inclination, and there is no convincing empirical evidence that any love can exist without corresponding activity in the brain.
Relation to Idealism
The argument as stated is for theism against materialismMaterialism
In philosophy, the theory of materialism holds that the only thing that exists is matter; that all things are composed of material and all phenomena are the result of material interactions. In other words, matter is the only substance...
. It is possible to be an atheist without being a materialist. According to Midgley
Mary Midgley
Mary Midgley, née Scrutton , is an English moral philosopher. She was a Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at Newcastle University and is known for her work on science, ethics and animal rights. She wrote her first book, Beast And Man: The Roots of Human Nature , when she was in her fifties...
"Atheistic Idealism like Hume
David Hume
David Hume was a Scottish philosopher, historian, economist, and essayist, known especially for his philosophical empiricism and skepticism. He was one of the most important figures in the history of Western philosophy and the Scottish Enlightenment...
's is a perfectly possible option, and may be a more coherent one. At the end of the 19th century many serious sceptics thought it a clearer choice (Russell
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, OM, FRS was a British philosopher, logician, mathematician, historian, and social critic. At various points in his life he considered himself a liberal, a socialist, and a pacifist, but he also admitted that he had never been any of these things...
's liflelong ambivalence is quite interesting here)" The classic view of Christian Neo-Platonists was that God is the perfection of the Idea
Idea
In the most narrow sense, an idea is just whatever is before the mind when one thinks. Very often, ideas are construed as representational images; i.e. images of some object. In other contexts, ideas are taken to be concepts, although abstract concepts do not necessarily appear as images...
/Form of Love, and that if an Idealist was philosophically committed to the existence of the Form of Love it was reasonable for them to accept the existence of the perfection of that Form in God.
Relation to Physicalism
To the extent that physicalismPhysicalism
Physicalism is a philosophical position holding that everything which exists is no more extensive than its physical properties; that is, that there are no kinds of things other than physical things...
entails the proposition that "nothing exists in a way that transcends its physical manifestations" the argument works against physicalism as well as materialism. However a physicalist need not be a reductionist in a metaphysical sense so some versions of physicalism appear to be compatible with the existence of love "in a way that transcends its physical manifestations": the argument would only work against reductionist physicalism.
Relation to Postmodernism
According to Graham WardGraham Ward
Graham Ward is a professional footballer, currently playing for Conference North side Worcester City, where he plays as a Defender.- Playing career :...
, postmodern theology portrays how religious questions are opened up (not closed down or annihilated) by postmodern thought. The postmodern God is emphatically the God of love, and the economy of love is kenotic
Kenosis
In Christian theology, Kenosis In Christian theology, Kenosis In Christian theology, Kenosis (from the Greek word for emptiness (kénōsis) is the 'self-emptying' of one's own will and becoming entirely receptive to God's divine will....
.
Comparative rationality of belief in God and Love
A variant on the argument is a defence of the rationality of theism by comparing faith in God with love, and to suggest that if it isn't irrational to love someone then it shouldn't be seen as irrational to believe in God. The philosopher Roger ScrutonRoger Scruton
Roger Vernon Scruton is a conservative English philosopher and writer. He is the author of over 30 books, including Art and Imagination , Sexual Desire , The Aesthetics of Music , and A Political Philosophy: Arguments For Conservatism...
suggests: "Rational argument can get us just so far...It can help us to understand the real difference between a faith that commands us to forgive our enemies, and one that commands us to slaughter them. But the leap of faith itself — this placing of your life at God's service — is a leap over reason's edge. This does not make it irrational, any more than falling in love is irrational."
Suggested compelling nature of God's Love
Another variant of the argument is that the evidence for God's love is sufficiently compelling that people can reasonably believe in it, and hence a fortiori believe in God. This approach is criticised by Richard DawkinsRichard Dawkins
Clinton Richard Dawkins, FRS, FRSL , known as Richard Dawkins, is a British ethologist, evolutionary biologist and author...
who suggests that it is an "Argument from emotional blackmail
Emotional blackmail
Emotional blackmail is a term used to cover a central form of psychological manipulation - 'the use of a system of threats and punishment on a person by someone close to them in an attempt to control their behavior'. "Emotional blackmail.....
".
Further reading
- The work of Love and The faith of a Scientist by John PolkinghorneJohn PolkinghorneJohn Charlton Polkinghorne KBE FRS is an English theoretical physicist, theologian, writer, and Anglican priest. He was professor of Mathematical physics at the University of Cambridge from 1968 to 1979, when he resigned his chair to study for the priesthood, becoming an ordained Anglican priest...
- Tom WrightTom Wright (theologian)Nicholas Thomas Wright is a leading New Testament scholar and former Bishop of Durham in the Church of England. His academic work has usually been published under the name N. T...
, Simply Christian SPCK 2006, Ch 3 "Made for each other" - Richard SwinburneRichard SwinburneRichard G. Swinburne is an Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at the University of Oxford. Over the last 50 years Swinburne has been a very influential proponent of philosophical arguments for the existence of God. His philosophical contributions are primarily in philosophy of religion and...
, The Existence of God OUP 2nd Edition 2004 ISBN 0199271682