Ability To Love

[Semalsia]

Let's say someone hasn't ever really understood what love means. She's never been in love or loved anyone, as far as she can tell. She always gets confused when others speak about love.

Would you consider her to be a bad person? Would you think that there's something wrong with her? Is she broken? Would she be intrinsically immoral and evil? Can she be a good person?

The reason I ask this is because of the great emphasis on love by the Church. Love your neighbor, God is love, God is good (love is good). I wonder what this means spiritually. Would she, being incapable of love, be as far a way from God as possible?


I'm not sure if this is an debate, but I didn't know where else to put it. I'm very interested in your thoughts on this.

[Thy Geekdom Come]

[quote name='Semalsia' post='1385612' date='Sep 14 2007, 07:22 PM']Let's say someone hasn't ever really understood what love means. She's never been in love or loved anyone, as far as she can tell. She always gets confused when others speak about love.

...

Would she, being incapable of love, be as far a way from God as possible?[/quote]
I don't see how not knowing about love would make her incapable of love. Are we unable to explain it to her?

If a person is incapable of love, then that person is not a person. It's that simple. Persons are capable of love, because the image of God is, first and foremost, the ability to love, especially in communion with God.

Edited to add: I realized that the above could lend itself to misunderstanding. I mean that having the ability to love according to nature is intrinsic to the person. This does not mean it is fully developed or even recognizable in an individual (for instance, a newly conceived baby). That baby, however, by human nature, has the ability to love, simply in a sort of seminal form.

[Semalsia]

[quote]If a person is incapable of love, then that person is not a person. It's that simple. Persons are capable of love, because the image of God is, first and foremost, the ability to love, especially in communion with God.[/quote]

That's really not the kind of answer I was hoping to hear. But ok.

Could you imagine a person incapable of love and then tell what you think the consequences of that might be? Or is that too much like the square circle thing?

[Dismas]

[quote name='Semalsia' post='1385612' date='Sep 14 2007, 07:22 PM']Let's say someone hasn't ever really understood what love means. She's never been in love or loved anyone, as far as she can tell. She always gets confused when others speak about love.

Would you consider her to be a bad person? Would you think that there's something wrong with her? Is she broken? Would she be intrinsically immoral and evil? Can she be a good person?

The reason I ask this is because of the great emphasis on love by the Church. Love your neighbor, God is love, God is good (love is good). I wonder what this means spiritually. Would she, being incapable of love, be as far a way from God as possible?
I'm not sure if this is an debate, but I didn't know where else to put it. I'm very interested in your thoughts on this.[/quote]
What is it that you mean by love? The general culture considers love a euphoric fuzzy feeling that one gets. Sure, that is a baser form of love, but we are not Freudians or Nietzscheists.

The Catholic Christian believes that love is a choice. We have Christ Jesus as our model, and I certainly think Jesus didn't feel very warm or fuzzy in the Garden of Gethsemane. Instead of feeling love, our Lord sweat blood, choosing to love us even as we were preparing to nail Him to a tree. This is the Christian meaning of love: to love one another as Christ loved us, which is to be crucified.

As for a person being devoid of love, all love, there is a term. Such a person is a sociopath, and while not incapable of love, has totally rejected it. Everything begins and ends with that person and their feelings. Such a person is not known for remorse, and finds pleasure in using and harming others for entertainment. Such a person would never have the self doubt to ask such a thing, as love to that person is simply a "high" to be used for further entertainment. You would never find such a person asking, "Am I a bad person" unless it was meant as a way to further use another person.

All but two people in this world have from conception to death not been "bad". One was God, the Son of God, and the other His Immaculate mother. I'm bad, you're bad, Mother Theresa was bad. It is in grace and in contrition that we find our way home.

Does this mean that such a person is damned on Earth? No, though rarely do they convert, a sociopath is not closed to grace. Does this mean that only a sociopath is able to be damned? No, merely that they are prime exemplars of such a fate.

[carrdero]

[quote name='Semalsia' post='1385612' date='Sep 14 2007, 07:22 PM']Let's say someone hasn't ever really understood what love means. She's never been in love or loved anyone, as far as she can tell. She always gets confused when others speak about love.[/quote]
Couldn't this girl love herself? This is a fine and firm foundation for understanding love and how one will eventually express and receive that love. If this girl was the only person in the world she could still understand love even though there was no one else to share it with. Love doesn't necessarily have to be recognized to be enacted.

[Thy Geekdom Come]

[quote name='Semalsia' post='1385632' date='Sep 14 2007, 07:58 PM']That's really not the kind of answer I was hoping to hear. But ok.

Could you imagine a person incapable of love and then tell what you think the consequences of that might be? Or is that too much like the square circle thing?[/quote]
I think it was said above, but the answer is that love is a choice. Someone who lacks, by nature, the ability to choose is not a person.

Anyway, if a person were incapable of love, they would be a robot. But then, as I said, they really wouldn't be a person at all.

[XIX]

[quote name='Semalsia' post='1385632' date='Sep 14 2007, 08:58 PM']That's really not the kind of answer I was hoping to hear. But ok.

Could you imagine a person incapable of love and then tell what you think the consequences of that might be? Or is that too much like the square circle thing?[/quote]
Love is not an emotion. It is a choice.

And it's not that being incapable of love makes you a non-person. It's more that every person is capable of love, whether they realize it or not. All six billion people have bae basic capacity to love, even if they have been led to believe that they can't.

[Aloysius]

one could be 'incapable' of the emotions associated with love and still be a perfectly good person by their choice to love, it needn't be accompanied by emotion. There might be something disordered in their nature if the choice of love did not find the same emotional rewards as it does in most human beings; or it might be a type of test (for instance: Mother Theresa truly loved God. She did not experience the emotional rewards of that love of God, but she still loved Him. It was a test, so that she might all the better exemplify pure love, love is pure when it is done with absolutely no self interest, and Mother Theresa's love of God then, was purely with no self interest. One could not even say that she loved God so that she felt good about loving God, because it did not bring her those emotions generally associated with loving God: pure unselfish love)

[Semalsia]

Well, thank you. This was very helpful.

carrdero,
No, she couldn't love herself.

[Semalsia]

[quote]one could be 'incapable' of the emotions associated with love and still be a perfectly good person by their choice to love, it needn't be accompanied by emotion. There might be something disordered in their nature if the choice of love did not find the same emotional rewards as it does in most human beings;[/quote]

What exactly do you mean by 'choosing to love', if there are no emotions involved?

[Aloysius]

As was said before, love is not an emotion. Mother Theresa loved God, but she had no 'emotional love' of God. Love is an act of the will by which one says "I'd do anything for your greater good". To make the decision that you would do anything for the good of another, that is the decision of purest love. There are different degrees of love, in that the more or less you would do for the greater good of the other shows how much more or less you really love them... pure love, though, would do anything for the good of another (except something evil, which would be contrary to love, for one cannot do evil to acheive a good without sinning against love; but that's a WHOLE other discussion)

Mother Theresa is such a blessing to us here as a perfect example for this: she basically said to Christ "I'd do anything for you" and He responded "go help the poorest of the poor"; every act she did for the poorest of the poor was a decision to love God, but she personally experienced no emotional love of God.

[chelsea]

[quote name='Semalsia' post='1385612' date='Sep 14 2007, 08:22 PM']Let's say someone hasn't ever really understood what love means. She's never been in love or loved anyone, as far as she can tell. She always gets confused when others speak about love.

Would you consider her to be a bad person? Would you think that there's something wrong with her? Is she broken? Would she be intrinsically immoral and evil? Can she be a good person?[/quote]


She is NOT a bad person, and there is nothing wrong with her. If she has not been loved, that is not her fault. Hopefully, she would find Christ and see His love and understand it, and then try to imitate that.

[CatherineM]

Semalsia, my mom is kind of like that. I can't say if she is incapable of feeling love, or just incapable of expressing it. She has led what most people would call a good life. She raised a bunch of decent kids, she volunteered extensively at church and in the community. She has always been a good friend to those close to her, but I can't remember her ever reaching out to hug any of us or touch us tenderly. If our dad hadn't been a gregarious, loving man, we probably could have all become serial killers I guess. She had two younger sisters, and the middle one was the same as she was, but her youngest sister was the complete opposite. I found out years ago that my mom and her middle sister had both undergone female circumcision as little girls. I always thought that was a Muslim or African thing, but was actually practiced in North American in rural area until the 1950's. I don't know if that had anything to do with her seemingly being unable to express emotion, but I think I prefer thinking that was the reason rather than she just was born that way. I can't bring myself to think that anyone is born that way. I know there are some drugs, both legal and illegal, that can burn out the brain's ability to produce some chemicals that can leave people emotionless. Is it possible that your friend is just depressed?

[carrdero]

[quote name='Semalsia' post='1386045' date='Sep 15 2007, 04:25 PM']Well, thank you. This was very helpful.

carrdero,
No, she couldn't love herself.[/quote]
I am saddened to hear that.

[cmotherofpirl]

[quote name='Semalsia' post='1385612' date='Sep 14 2007, 08:22 PM']Let's say someone hasn't ever really understood what love means. She's never been in love or loved anyone, as far as she can tell. She always gets confused when others speak about love.

Would you consider her to be a bad person? Would you think that there's something wrong with her? Is she broken? Would she be intrinsically immoral and evil? Can she be a good person?

The reason I ask this is because of the great emphasis on love by the Church. Love your neighbor, God is love, God is good (love is good). I wonder what this means spiritually. Would she, being incapable of love, be as far a way from God as possible?
I'm not sure if this is an debate, but I didn't know where else to put it. I'm very interested in your thoughts on this.[/quote]

First you must define love. Are you talking the warm fuzzy response you get toward your cat or dog or a good friend or a parent?
That is a feeling and a good one. Its a response to love but not love itself.

Most of us have love for ourselves, in that, we do actions that maintain ourselves. We try to eat what we enjoy, we try to dress in clothes that make us feel good, we try to engage in activities that make us feel good, in general we take care of ourselves because it gives us comfortable feelings. That is love for self.
Love for others means that we [color="#FF0000"]choose[/color] to make THEIR needs as important or more important than our own needs. This is partly biological in nature because indeed we are PROGRAMMED by God to love others. This can be God, a parent, a friend, a lover, child, animal or even the entire world. Does this means we get warm fuzzy feelings from this choice?? Yes and no. Can it feel great- absolutely! But there are times love can have a great personal cost to ourselves - the most extreme example would be taking a bullet for someone you love, pushing a child out from in front of a car and getting hit yourself etc. There are times when the other is so annoying the only feeling you have is anger and annoyance [ 13 year olds come to mind here] At this point the choice you have made is most obvious - you continue to make the other more important because you have chosen to love them.
No one is incapable of love, but some people have been damaged early in life, and so its more of a struggle to learn to love emotionally. If you makes someone's needs as important as your own you are choosing love, whether the emotional component is there or not.