Eros
and Agape
A
capital distinction
because it aims at an essential difference.
We owe it to the Swedish Lutheran theologian Anders Nygeren. This
distinction between two loves gives the key
of reading
of the whole of the Christian existence. And it opens well beyond. At
the same time it governs the understanding
of the spirits
between mystic and mystic, and finally between human and human…
To
love… All the Christian innovation is there. That begins with God
himself. Because God
is love.
(1 John 4:8). Saint Augustin will be able to summarize its essence:
Love.
And after that, do all you want!
Is this really all? Yes. At the same time, it is enormous! Like God
himself.
This
so simple a word is present everywhere, even where it is not marked.
All the other words and all the other verbs are secretly assigned,
directly or indirectly, for or against it. At the same time, it
overflows all the meanings one can give it. Between 'loving' God and
'liking' chocolate, between 'loving' a dear being and 'loving' a
poor being, what a lot of nuances! Between various 'loving' there are so
many differences, and often so many oppositions!
To
love, however, does not inevitably want to say loving according to
Christ. This verb must go through its 'Passover' into a new reality.
A crossing of an understanding… As of the beginning, to say 'love',
saint Paul and the Evangelists, who write in Greek, have at their
disposal the word Eros.
This term, far from being marked negatively, indicates the noblest
love and even the divine love. But, very astonishing, from the start
on they avoid this word as if it were unsuitable and impotent to
translate the radical innovation. Even if they have to revive a new
word to express the new reality of love according to Christ. And this
new word, this converted word, is Agape.
This change of name is significant of a radical change of identity.
From now on the understanding goes essentially between the pagan love
and the Christian love, between Eros and Agape. It is not about a
cleavage between what would be well on one side and badly on the
other. There is only 'value' on both sides. But different values.
Christ comes to introduce a rupture of salvation into the best of
man!
Specific
dynamics of Eros.
On the contrary
to the simple instinct which is spread horizontally, Eros wants 'to
go up'. In
a vertical
tension
through the sacral
difference.
Agape
appears in
counterpoint. Agape
descends and crosses the whole field of negativity to transform it in
a space of grace… An infinitely open space!
Agape
is absolute dissidence.
Starting from Agape, God is not any more only where the divine
one is. Value is not any more exclusively where Beauty, Truth or
Good are. Transcendence is not any more where Marx, Feuerbach or Stirner
chased it. Progress is not just where Eros progresses!
Agape,
strictly speaking,
cannot be said. It is out of the speech and its fatal closure. The
rupture passes between the same
and
the other
one.
Agape is of an other
order. Eros goes up with the same one; Agape descends and promotes
the other one. Eros tends towards the divine; Agape sacrifices itself
to save what is lost. Eros requires immortality; Agape believes in
resurrection. Eros sublimates; Agape is compromised with the evil.
Eros manages the need; Agape promotes the grace. Eros wants to gain;
Agape dares to lose. Eros wishes what is well; Agape creates what
will be well.
In
Agape the best of man is crucified.
The irruption of Agape means a total inversion not only of the values
but of the space itself where value can emerge. An arising of a
different radical order. But can the truth be sought elsewhere than
in dissidence since the Revelation of the Logos? Nobody perceived so
deeply the absolute heterogeneity of the orders of reality as Blaise
Pascal. The
infinite distance from the bodies to the spirits…
represent
the infinitely more infinite distance from the spirits to charity.
To Agape.
The
other one is too burdensome for Eros.
Never enough, however, for Agape. The
other,
the absolute
otherness, the radical difference, can be only too present for Eros.
It's a scandal. The Christian irruption provokes this scandal and
assumes it. Against the most fundamental and formidable natural
dynamics. Against all the Eros of the world. Against all the glory of
the world. Against all the reason of the world… The
other
provoked to exist. In gratuity. The
other
order beyond the natural obviousnesses. The
other
one which does not cease making irruption in the middle of our
fashionable safety measures. The
other
which infinitely questions the 'same'… The other one really
'other', irreducible to the 'same'. Thus impossible to circumvent by
the idea, irretrievable by ideology and insurmountable by the
technique. Always too much. To
expel!
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