Love Triangle

I have been thinking lately about the three loves as described in the Bible. We understand them to be as follows:

-Agape: Eternal love for God, each other, and even enemies.

-Philia: A feeling which produces a brotherly kind of love.

-Eros: The physical desiring which often leads to a physical connection between couples.

Recently I had a conversation with a friend who passionately expressed his views on Agape love. Eventually I realized that he was really grinding an axe against 21st Century political agendas. Regardless, I did take away an interesting point. Our nation has become so caught up in Eros (see above definition), we seem to have lost all grounds for loving each other within the other two spheres of love.

I look at it this way. Agape is the most important love that mankind can nurture. It goes beyond all treacherous actions and ensures a commitment that goes beyond mistakes. God's love for us was realized in Christ coming to our world in the form of a man and taking our penalty. He demonstrated how we ought to love each other, in agape, an absolute and eternal kind of love that is not dependent on the ability to behave.

The other two loves have become blended together in movies and other forms of art over the past thirty years. It seems one cannot "love" anyone without there being an erotic element to it. Two men or two women seem to have lost the ability to differentiate a connection established in Philia, with a connection to erotic "love" as manifested in a marital relationship.

So the question is... What has happened?

I believe we no longer understand what it means to love God, his people, and our enemies unconditionally. It is from this love that the other two find their balance. Philia and Eros essentially feed off of this kind of love.

Take for instance my relationship to my wife. Because of my efforts to love God, his people, and even my enemies without any strings attached, I find my relationship to my wife to be very fulfilling within the other two spheres of love. We work best together as a team when our love for God is exercised in worship and faithfully serving him. We are in best unison when we exercise a deepening love for his people. And we are best fit for the ministry when we realize the enemies of our faith are in just as much need of this love as we are.

It is when we begin to forget that God is the head of our love for each other that the other two spheres begin to dissipate. The love we experience in eros comes up empty. Our ability to function as a unit because of Philia is no longer being fed by Agape. Therefore our relationship begins to deteriorate.

I wonder how the church would function if they took their sights off of Eros and Philia and refocus prayer and thought on Agape. How might our attitudes change when we begin to love those who mistreat us or don't seem to be working in unity with us? Is it possible that we will begin to experience more Philia and Eros over longer periods of time? All I can say is that only after a year and a half of marriage, I have found that by exercising Agape, Eros and Philia just seem to fall into place.