I consider all these ideas as I approach (with my wife, of course) our 45 anniversary. Depicting love as a feeling is a great disservice Hollywood has inflicted upon us. I doubt if feelings would be robust enough to sustain the wear-and-tear of living with another human being, given our self-centred nature in its unregenerate state. My wife has certain physical limitations which are accumulating as we age. I am not the strapping youth I once was either, for that matter, though my wife’s ailments are more severe and serious. Easy is not a common word used by the ones slipping out of the strength of life.
Having said that, the love between us becomes more precious with the passing years. As the lessening frequency of our physical love (and sometimes the entire absence by virtue of bodily pain) is the order of the day, love is still the sweetness between us. My goal remains to have my wife be the most loved wife on the planet. Being a husband is a godly calling in the direction of becoming more like Jesus. It is not some trifle. Though I am not perfect at it yet, I will pursue it in the Name of Jesus Christ till I die.
On Pieper’s analysis of love: it seems like love *doesn’t* require the affirmation that “I’m glad you exist. I’m glad you are”, at least if the “glad” in question means “glad all things considered”. We can conceive of persons (Satan, perhaps) whom God loves, but whose lives are worse than no life at all. Given God’s love for such (conceivably, even if not actual) persons, he should not be glad all things considered than they exist, *for their own sakes*! I think Aquinas’s analysis is closer to being right.
I consider all these ideas as I approach (with my wife, of course) our 45 anniversary. Depicting love as a feeling is a great disservice Hollywood has inflicted upon us. I doubt if feelings would be robust enough to sustain the wear-and-tear of living with another human being, given our self-centred nature in its unregenerate state. My wife has certain physical limitations which are accumulating as we age. I am not the strapping youth I once was either, for that matter, though my wife’s ailments are more severe and serious. Easy is not a common word used by the ones slipping out of the strength of life.
Having said that, the love between us becomes more precious with the passing years. As the lessening frequency of our physical love (and sometimes the entire absence by virtue of bodily pain) is the order of the day, love is still the sweetness between us. My goal remains to have my wife be the most loved wife on the planet. Being a husband is a godly calling in the direction of becoming more like Jesus. It is not some trifle. Though I am not perfect at it yet, I will pursue it in the Name of Jesus Christ till I die.
On Pieper’s analysis of love: it seems like love *doesn’t* require the affirmation that “I’m glad you exist. I’m glad you are”, at least if the “glad” in question means “glad all things considered”. We can conceive of persons (Satan, perhaps) whom God loves, but whose lives are worse than no life at all. Given God’s love for such (conceivably, even if not actual) persons, he should not be glad all things considered than they exist, *for their own sakes*! I think Aquinas’s analysis is closer to being right.