[By extension, this also applies to agape.]
Schoonenberg asserted:
No love is possible on any level without conversion from sin. Without grace, a sinful man is incapable of any love, natural or supernatural.
[Another way to put that is:
‘Natural love (especially eros, the emphasis here) is an idol.
An idol is neither supernatural nor natural.]
[Culture is the way that this takes place.
So what is the bottom line?
The concept of ‘natural attraction’, regarded from the point of view of human evolution, is not natural.
It does not encourage the male to be the female’s helper.
It does not provide a cultural motif through which the female anoints the male and puts him in charge.]
Summary of text [comment] page 71
[A brief review of male-female pair bonding is in order.
The human male evolved to be the female’s helper.
This adaptation could not take place without assurance by the female of the male’s paternity of the children.
The female evolved a hard to fake behavior that provides this crucial assurance.
She put the male in charge of the family.]
[On the one hand, the basis of ‘something’ (for love and self-destruction in the previous blog) can never be limited to feelings of attraction, arising from the so-called natural dispositions.
On the other hand, ‘feelings of attraction’ could be something that others call ‘the love arising from the natural dispositions’.
In sum, what others proclaim to be natural design3a substitute for ‘God’s creative design3a’.]
Summary of text [comment] page 71
[With substitutions, I begin to approach, but do not arrive at, delineating a contrast between ‘grace’ and ‘nature’.
How about this scenario:
Paralleling grace is ‘a state of supernatural and natural love’.
Paralleling self-destruction is ‘a state of not supernatural and not natural love’.]
[Paralleling self-destruction:
‘Something called ‘love’3V’ brings ‘I (imaging the lover) and the object of my love (imaging the ‘something I love’)2V’ into relation with ‘my potential for conscience, ‘what I love’, and self1V’.
Here, ‘the object of my love2V’ stands in for ‘myself (the one who I recognize on the basis of ‘something’)2V’.
How close is that to: ‘I’ must be ‘whoever my love says I am’?]
[Paralleling grace:
‘Love or the Holy Spirit3V’ brings ‘I (imaging the Father) and the one I love (imaging the Son)2V’ into relation with ‘my potential for conscience, ‘what I love’ and self1V’.
Here, ‘the one I love2V’ stands in for ‘myself (the one who I recognize)2V’.
How close is that to: I can love the other as myself?]
[The substitution of the word ‘love’ into the vertical axis produces different results for the cases of grace and self-destruction.]
