Tagged: “agape”

If I cannot offer this “moral love” or agape to the one who hurt me, does this mean that I have not forgiven?

No, it does not mean that at all.  Aristotle makes a distinction between Essence and Existence.  Essence is the core meaning of any object or concept.  The highest Essence of forgiveness is to offer this moral love or agape to the other person. Existence in terms of forgiveness is how you express now that forgiveness to the other person.  You might be able to reduce some resentment right now.  If you can do that as you commit to do no harm to the other, you have begun the process of forgiveness.  You have not reached the highest Essence of forgiveness, but you are expressing it to the best of your ability now.  Here is a sports analogy to try to make this clearer.  Suppose you are playing basketball and you are shooting free-throws.  You make 4 out of 10 shots.  This is your Existence (how you behave now) at the free-throw line. The Essence of basketball is to successfully make 10 out of 10 shots.  Even though you are not matching the perfect Essence of free-throw shooting, you are playing basketball.  It is similar with forgiveness.  Even if you cannot offer complete forgiveness in terms of agape love, you still are forgiving as you commit to do no harm to the other and as you work in reducing resentment toward that person.

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You say that to forgive is to offer “moral love” to another person.  What exactly is moral love?  I don’t think I can reach that high with my partner at this point.

Moral love, or agape in the ancient Greek, is a deliberate caring for another person (or other persons) for that person’s own sake, for the good of the other.  This sometimes can be difficult because it requires effort and persistence on your part.  It is not doing something so that you get something in return, but done for the other person’s sake.

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So then, what do you see as the bottom line or essence of humanity?

Aristotle said that the essence of humanity, that which separates us from the other primates, is our ability to think rationally.  While this is true, I think the great Aristotle did not go far enough.  I think our essence is to consciously and deliberately, through our free will, love others even when it is painful to do so, and to love in this way for the other’s benefit.  The Greek word agape describes this kind of love.

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Agape Love: “A Sense of Joy in the Giving”

The first phase of a multi-million-dollar, multi-year forgiveness research project in three culturally distinct regions of the world is providing clarity to an ancient concept that researchers say could bring psychological health to individuals as well as peace and unity to families, communities, and countries.

“Agape love is an under-researched concept that has significant implications for harmonious relationships and good mental health,” according to forgiveness pioneer Dr. Robert Enright, an educational psychology professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and co-founder of the International Forgiveness Institute (IFI). “The goal of this project is to define what agape love is and is not, and to develop accurate measures of agape so we can assess the degree to which a person understands and practices it.”

 

That 3-year research project is focused on incorporating agape love fundamentals with Dr. Enright’s Forgiveness Education Curriculum materials for grade school students. Working with 60 teachers and up to 1,200 elementary students in Northern Ireland, Israel (both Arabic- and Hebrew-speaking schools), and Taiwan, the research is being funded by the John Templeton Foundation which has been supporting research on forgiveness for more than 20 years.

Agape love is a concept found in at least eight world religions and dates back to the work of three Greek philosophers:

  • Socrates (470 BC – 399 BC), who was among the first moral philosophers to espouse the theory of virtue ethics;
  • Plato (428 BC – 347 BC), a student of Socrates who is the namesake of Platonic love; and,
  • Aristotle (384 BC – 322 BC), a student of Plato, who is called “the father of psychology.”

The influence of those three philosophers continued well into the 19th century, helped shape much of Western moral philosophy, and gained renewed interest with the modern advent of virtue ethics in the late 1950s. This “Aristotelian philosophical view of virtue ethics” was used by Dr. Enright’s initial research team (composed of UW-Madison and IFI researchers) to develop its definition of agape love:

“Agape love is a moral virtue in which a person willingly and unconditionally offers goodness, at a cost to the giver, to another or others in need.”

To further explain, the team added:

“There is a giving of the self to the other(s) that is: a) understood, b) motivated c) willed, and d) acted upon toward other people in such a way that the actions cost the one expressing that love. Because so much is given in agape, it follows that something is taken away from the one who engages in this form of love and such taking away might be needed energy, needed material possessions, needed comfort, and/or even needed safety. Yet, there is a paradox to agape: In the giving, there is psychological gain for the giver, including a sense of joy in the giving.”

That definition was the key element in the research team’s initial report called “The Philosophy and Social Science of Agape Love.” It was published this month in the latest issue of the Journal of Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology, a quarterly publication of the American Psychological Association (APA).

In addition to examining the true meaning of agape love, the research report explores the characteristics of a moral virtue and delineates both the commonalities and significant differences between agape and other forms of love. It also provides an in-depth critique of existing social scientific love scales in preparation for a phase-two activity that will result in the development of a specific psychological agape love scale that is statistically reliable and valid and that has cross-cultural validity.

“Agape love is worth studying because, as a moral virtue, it challenges people to strive for betterment in their humanity,” the report concludes. “Agape requires heroic commitment to the betterment of others. As such, agape may aid humanity in reaching its highest level when people begin to deliberately, consciously, and willingly cultivate this moral virtue.”

The content of the agape and forgiveness curriculum across the three world zones will be described by the teachers themselves during the International Educational Conference on Agape Love and Forgiveness being held at the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus on July 19-20, 2022. Additional information about agape love and the conference is available at the                Agape Love and Forgiveness website.

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Your Unfolding Love Story…..Continued

In my book, The Forgiving Life, I challenge the reader to start or continue telling his or her life’s story with an emphasis on putting more love in the world. The emphasis is not on romantic love, or what the ancient Greeks called eros.  Instead, the emphasis is on service love in which a person strives to support and uplift others.  This kind of giving-love, in Greek, is agape.
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A major challenge is this: No matter how you have lived your life to this point, you can begin, by your motivations, decisions, and actions today, to put more love in the world.  This can give you much more meaning and purpose in your life than perhaps you ever thought possible.
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Forgiving others can be part of your Unfolding Love Story.  In the name of goodness, is there someone at whom you have annoyance or perhaps deep anger?  Your forgiving that person can put more love into the world now by first putting that love in your heart.
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It is never too late to alter your story. What can you do today to make a love-difference in this difficult world?
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Robert

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