Bonhoeffer - Spiritual Love vs. Human Love - III

Here is the third of my posts quoting Dietrich Bonhoeffer on the subject of spiritual love vs. human love from his book Life Together.

Likewise, there is a human love for one's neighbor.  Such passion is capable of prodigious sacrifices.  Often it far surpasses genuine Christian love in fervent devotion and visible results.  It speaks the Christian language with overwhelming and stirring eloquence.  But it is what Paul is speaking of when he says "And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned" - in other words, though I combine the utmost deeds of love with the utmost of devotion - "and have not charity [that is, the love of Christ], it profiteth me nothing" (I Cor. 13:3).  Human love is directed to the other person for his own sake, spiritual love loves him for Christ's sake.  Therefore, human love seeks direct contact with the other person; it loves him not as a free person but as one whom it binds to itself.  It desires to be irresistible, to rule.

The part of this that stood out the most to me is this idea of loving someone as a free person vs. binding them to oneself.  In my own experience what we call "love" can often be expressed in ways that bind the loved one to oneself.  True, love does bind the loved ones together in a real sense, yet it goes bad when, to use myself as an example, I make my hopes and dreams and desires for you determinative for you, rather than serving you as a free person.

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Comments

[pgepps]

I still think he's using a stylistic ploy to overwhelm the reader, while not observing the real distinctions within his categories.

The "spiritual" and the "human" are manifestly inseparable, insofar as Paul can even speak of a "spiritual body" in 1 Cor 15.

Moreover, it is not at all clear that "human" love which "is directed to the other person for his own sake" is at all the same, or subject to the same criticisms, as "human" love which "binds to itself"--in fact, it seems to me that some of the ways he speaks of "human" love are more like what he calls "spiritual" love than they are like other kinds of "human" love.

In short, under even a little bit of analysis, his profound and pious-sounding system creaks and crumbles, and we're left with pithy statements, here and there, with which we have to differ about as often as we agree. This is hardly high-water-mark stuff.

Cheers,
PGE

[Coleen Sharp]

This is a very fascinating subject to me. In the last year, I have done a lot of thinking about what love looks like in the Church. In 1 Peter 1 it talks of how we are to love one another deeply. It is something that is lacking in the Church. But in a recent situation in my life, loving a friend of mine ended up looking different than what this person expected. It was then that my Mom shared this passage from Bonhoeffer with me.

This persons expectations of love from me was not in this persons best spiritual interest. To continue to meet this persons expectations, actually almost enabled them to continue in continued unrepentant sin. It was eye opening to me about what Christian love really looks like.

It is difficult to explain to the degree I wish I could in this short post.

I know this is an older post, but I look forward to reading your blog. Good recommendations in your reading list. Against Christianity by Leithart is a good read, and am reading Christless Christianity is great, of course Horton has long been one of my favorites.