CHILE: LEGISLACIÓN LABORAL

In his first letter to the church at Corinth, Paul was able to affirm that "love (agape)...believes all things."^ But Nygren's antitheses between agape and the other 'types' of love demonstrate a disjunction which prevents a hopeful belief in many related loves. Nygren's dualism inhibits a conviction that throughout the error and frustration of human attempts to love, God's purpose is yet active to make many different varieties of love work together. For Nygren there is no conception of greater and lesser loves, but rather only of those which are true and false. The exclusive Christian love (agape) is counterposed to all that has passed for love which is not defined in the terms 'spontaneous', 'sacrificial', 'value-creating', and 'unmotivated'. There is no way from eros, (acquisitive love) to agape, just as there is no way from the human to God.

Although Nygren may be right in asserting that it is by God's own initiative that human love "is perfected", there does not seem to be a clear case for the opposition between divine and human loving. Even if God's love is made manifest at the Cross, there seems to be no reason to doubt that God's love is already creative in other, or even lesser, loves. As Kierkegaard said, (quoting Augustine) "love must always be loved forth". Of course Nygren's doubt about loves which are less than the love shown by Christ is somewhat justified. But wheriever doubt is as integral to method as in the extreme fashion demonstrated by Nygren, there may be unmanageable repercussions. As Descartes put it:

He is no more learned who has doubts on many matters than the man who has never thought of them; nay he appears to be less learned if he has formed wrong opinions on any particulars. Hence it were better not to study at all than

to occupy one's self with objects of such difficulty that | owing to our inability to distinguish true from false we are

forced to regard the doubtful as certain... 1. I Corinthians 13:7

2. Descartes, "Rules for the Direction of the Mind" in The Essential Descartes, New American Library, New York, 1969, p. 37

As Descartes realized, once we begin to make radical distinctions, it becomes more and more difficult to distinguish the true from the false. Although we would not be wise to adopt Descartes' solution,

"to trust only what is completely known and incapable of being doubted", we might notice that if we begin with scepticism, it is hard to be able to stop being sceptical. If Christian love is as remote from "vulgar eros" as Nygren has asserted, it occurs to us that a love which only operates 'from above' is also a bit incredible. The agape- eros dualism is essentially a sceptical approach to the idea of love; if the approach is taken to its logical extreme, one might doubt whether there would be anything left of the 'positive' side of God's love. On the other hand, if we are able to stop with Nygren's strict definition of agape, a static concept dependent upon an interpretation from Luther (and through Luther, Paul), it seems that we should be "forced to regard the doubtful as certain".

Of course we must make distinctions, and what love has meant for others must be distilled and adapted to fit our time. Yet, incon­ gruous as it may seem, Paul's assertion that 'love hopes all things and believes all things' seems to be a better starting point for talk about love than deciding beforehand what we shall doubt. Otherwise, perhaps, we must "doubt everything, and believe nothing".^

As we shall see, even Paul's idea of agape is itself a synthesis. The notion of a 'pure' or 'original' concept of Christian love is a reduction which does not take sufficient account of either the rich­ ness of love-talk within the New Testament, or of the positive contri­ butions of Rabbinic thought to New Testament theology. Insofar as human beings have attempted to characterize the idea of love in

1. cf. Kierkegaard, Works of L o v e , op. cit. pp. 213-230; Despite S.K.'s own radical distinctions, there is a significant difference between his approach and Nygren's. For S.K. only as love "believes all things" does it protect against every deception. S.K. claims that Christian love overcomes the distinctions of various loves, instead of highlighting them.

successive epochs there has indeed been much innovation from creative thinkers. But at the same time, it would appear, ex nihilo nihil fit; there is no 'pure' concept of love.

My criticism of Nygren thus begins with the endemic scepticism

in Nygren's approach. Such a criticism must be a careful one,

however, for we cannot escape the necessity to make choices. We certainly cannot condone all that has passed for love, and criteria for assessment of different love-ideals are required. But the method of Marcion (significantly acclaimed in many respects by Nygren) is negative and short-sighted.^ Even in view of the inadequate interpret­ ations of prior generations, we may need to affirm that the character of love is 'one, infinite, and universal'. Preliminary doubts and distinctions must not obscure the essential universality and pervasiveness of the love of God. We need not affirm any particular interpretation as authentic for all time, but neither must we

artificââlrly limit new and relevant syntheses. Against Nygren's

dualistic scepticism, we may quote both Paul and Luther (interpreted

rather too systematically and one-sidedly by Nygren). As we have already noted, Paul asserted that "love...believes all things." His notion of the love of God is one of "breadth and length and height and

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depth...which surpasses knowledge." For Paul the love of Christ appears more as a universalizing energy than a model for making

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distinctions. For Luther (who, like Paul, was far from a 'systematic theologian), "Spiritus Sanctus non est scepticus."^

In the light of the above general criticism of Nygren's essentially sceptical, dualistic, and artificially exclusive view of love, we may now examine some specific problems which are raised in the distinction of agape from eros.

1. Nygren, Agape and Er os, op. cit. pp. 317 f f .