not to possession but to giving

It is striking that the Greek Old Testament speaks quite naturally of a husband's agapan for his wire and of husband and wife for their children.  And Jesus, according to the Greek New Testament, uses the same verb for the love of friends and the love of enemies.  Jesus in the Gospels appears as wholly and entirely human., cuddling children, allowing women to anoint him, aware of a bond of "love" between himself and Lazarus and his sisters, evidently this "love" does not exclude eros.  Jesus calls his disciples, "friends."  Obviously neither the Old nor the New Testament is interested in the distinction between a "heavenly" and an "earthly "love.  God's love is described in a pleasantly human way and elemental human love is in no way denigrated.  Genuinely human love of husband and wife, father, mother, child, is not opposed to love of God but set within the context of that love.  But when eros and agapan are regarded not only as distinct, but as mutually exclusive, this is at the expense of both eros and agape. 

Then eros is devalued and condemned.  Passionate love desiring the other for oneself is restricted to sex and thus both eroticism and sexuality are depricated.  Eros is then regarded with suspicion even when it appears not simply as uncanny, overpowering, blind, sensual passion, but - as for instance in Plato's Symposium - as a drive toward the beautiful and as creative force, which becomes a pointer to the supreme, divine Good (in Plotinus a longing for reunion with the One).  Education hostile to eros and more especially religious attitudes opposed to eros and sexuality have caused an enormous amount of harm.  But why should loving desire and loving service, the game of love and the fidelity of love, be mutually exclusive?  

When eros is depreciated, however, agape is overvalued and dehumanized.  It is desensualized and spritualized (then falsely called "Platonic love").  Vitality, emotion, affectivity are forcibly excluded, leaving a love that its totally unattractive.  When love is merely a decision of the will and not also a venture of the heart, it lacks genuine humanity.  It lacks depth, warmth, intimacy, tenderness, cordiality.  Christian charity often makes little impression just because it had so little humanity. 

Should not all that is human be echoed in all love of man, love of neighbor and even love of enemies?  This sort of love does not become selfish, seeking only its own, but strong, truly human, seeking with body and soul, word and deed, what is for the good of the other.  In true love all desire turns, not to possession but to giving. 

I will give a little preview of here this is going by pointing out that in the distinction between political and social good and evil, probably a majority of that distinction is based in the difference between possession and giving.  In the most extreme forms of that there is the complete difference between the possession of other human beings, generally by a man or a woman of property and wealth over slaves, wage-slaves*, children - especially daughters - wives and the practice of egalitarianism - which I would assert is an expression of love or it is merely an optional legalism which can easily be withdrawn without cost to the one withdrawing it - and the actual distribution of material goods.   In the most extreme difference can be seen such things as Jeff Bezos making 24 million dollars during the current pandemic as the wage-slaves in his warehouses are not only worked more sedulously than field-slaves, but their lives endangered as Amazon takes back the measly 2 dollars in "hazard pay" they announced for PR purposes.  Or as can be seen in just the most recently "honor killing" to make the international news as well as the myriad of others that don't.  

This is one of the ways in which the teachings of Jesus are as radical as can be as seen in one of the most fraught areas of human life, one which is far more complex and difficult in our conduct of our lives than it is in even this kind of in depth expression of it.  The difference between wanting or expressing possession of the life of another person and loving them in a way that rejects that kind of possession is in no way an easy thing to even put into words, practicing it is far more complex than that.  I am tempted to go into, for example, the complication that sexual infidelity among those in a committed relationship plays into this, that complex that plays off notions of possession and permission to break promises of support, the irresponsibility of the possible production of a pregnancy and child outside of a stable family, the dangers of contracting and passing on sexually transmitted diseases, the abandonment of a wife and children or a husband and children, etc. are in every way related to not only the giving or withdrawal of material support but also of emotional support and guidance that parents owe to their children.  

This is the crux of why The Law, the Prophets, the Gospel and the apostolic teachings were and are so despised, because they all come down with a preference for giving instead of possession, of moral responsibility instead of selfishness - no matter how imperfectly expressed in such legalisms as The Law's dealing with adultery, so decisively interpreted against tradition in John's Gospel. 

I think the spectacle of the Trump regime is, if not the perfect, quite an adequate view of the antithesis of the Gospel to be getting on with.  And the impotence of the atheist-materialist-secular "left" in opposing it is clear, too.  To the extent that that "left" adopts the components of the depravity of which Trump is merely a developed example, to that extent they participate in elevating it to power.  Even in their opposition to it, they have had such a tendency to aid it in the past century, as, indeed, so many in the "Christian" churches.   Jesus is too radical for such "Christianity" so they don't much talk about what he said. 

In this the absolute radicalism of the sayings and doings of Jesus as recorded in the Gospels, as taught by Paul and James and the others and how subsequent accommodation of Christian authorities with worldly power was a distortion and rejection of that radicalism becomes clearer.