Moral Theology examines human action and how a man should live their life. The concept of love is an important aspect of Moral Theology. Man cannot live his life without love, both spiritually and physically. Josef Pieper’s work in faith, hope, love and Anders Nygren’s work in Eros and Agape, both discuss about the concept of love. Although Pieper talks about love in a Catholic’s perspective and Nygren describes the Protestant’s perspective. These two perspectives differ by salvation. In a Catholic religion the bible and the Catholic is necessary for salvation. In the other hand, the Protestant religion believes that faith alone is necessary for salvation. Mainly, Pieper heavily criticizes Nygren on his view about love. In both works, both
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Love is something universal and a human person cannot be human without the emotion of love. In the end, both authors needs to agree about on something, in regards to love. They both compare and contrast Eros and Agape. In Nygren’s work he gives a good comparison between the two terms. For example, Eros is man’s effort, and it assumes that man’s salvation can be found in their own work. Compared to Agape, who is God’s grace, personifies salvation as the work of Divine love. Another comparison between the two: “Eros is man’s way to God...Agape is God’s way to man”1 . Again, Nygren gave a description on the two kinds of love, and describes the major differences between the two. Eros is the kind of love that is more like a kind of love that is more desire. Eros differ from Agape which is the kind of love that is more to express an unconditional love of God for all …show more content…
both of terms represents different kinds of love. Pieper first stated a question of how we go from self-love to selfish love. He discusses on how we both need Eros and Agape: “From all we have been discussing so far, we might draw the following conclusions: that no gulf separates the one kind of love from the other, at least not necessarily: that, on the contrary, it might be almost impossible to say where one’s own desire for happiness ceases and unselfish joy in happiness of others begins”6. Again, Eros and Agape are two kinds of love, Eros represents egocentric love, and Agape represents unselfish love. In a Catholic’s perspective, they can agree that both parties need to exist for good to happen. On the other hand, in a Protestant’s perspective: “The Church clearly and finally parted ways with Marcion in the second century. Marcion, says Nygren, was one of the first advocates of the idea of agape. Marcion claimed that the Christian God “has nothing to do with the creation”7. Nygren 's argument is twofold, he argues that agape is the only truly Christian kind of love, and eros turns us away from God. Either we love others and God in the manner of eros, purely for ourselves, in which case we do not really love them at all; or we love them in the manner of agape, for themselves with a true love, in which case we act against our own self-interest and
Love is something universal and a human person cannot be human without the emotion of love. In the end, both authors needs to agree about on something, in regards to love. They both compare and contrast Eros and Agape. In Nygren’s work he gives a good comparison between the two terms. For example, Eros is man’s effort, and it assumes that man’s salvation can be found in their own work. Compared to Agape, who is God’s grace, personifies salvation as the work of Divine love. Another comparison between the two: “Eros is man’s way to God...Agape is God’s way to man”1 . Again, Nygren gave a description on the two kinds of love, and describes the major differences between the two. Eros is the kind of love that is more like a kind of love that is more desire. Eros differ from Agape which is the kind of love that is more to express an unconditional love of God for all …show more content…
both of terms represents different kinds of love. Pieper first stated a question of how we go from self-love to selfish love. He discusses on how we both need Eros and Agape: “From all we have been discussing so far, we might draw the following conclusions: that no gulf separates the one kind of love from the other, at least not necessarily: that, on the contrary, it might be almost impossible to say where one’s own desire for happiness ceases and unselfish joy in happiness of others begins”6. Again, Eros and Agape are two kinds of love, Eros represents egocentric love, and Agape represents unselfish love. In a Catholic’s perspective, they can agree that both parties need to exist for good to happen. On the other hand, in a Protestant’s perspective: “The Church clearly and finally parted ways with Marcion in the second century. Marcion, says Nygren, was one of the first advocates of the idea of agape. Marcion claimed that the Christian God “has nothing to do with the creation”7. Nygren 's argument is twofold, he argues that agape is the only truly Christian kind of love, and eros turns us away from God. Either we love others and God in the manner of eros, purely for ourselves, in which case we do not really love them at all; or we love them in the manner of agape, for themselves with a true love, in which case we act against our own self-interest and