What is Love? (Augustine Don't Hurt Me)

I read through Augustine's De Doctrina Christiana (On Christian Teaching) recently, and it was quite a good work.  It's divided into four major chapters that he calls books.  He sparked a lot of thought for me on the use of symbolism in Christianity and effective rhetoric in preaching and teaching the faith.  But there was one thing about Augustine that nagged me as I read his work.  

The biggest difficulty that I had with him is that I find his definition of love to be insufficient.  He begins by talking about the differences between “using” and “enjoying” things (1.7-10), and he implicitly ties the notion of enjoyment into his idea of love many times throughout book I.  He finally gives his explicit definition of love in 3.37 – “By love I mean the impulse of one’s mind to enjoy God on his own account and to enjoy oneself and one’s neighbour [sic] on account of God…” (Green, 1997, p. 24).  Augustine also notes that God does not love humans, but uses us to enjoy the goodness of himself that he has placed in us (1.73-75).  While I think that love and joy are definitely related, I think there is something lacking theologically in this definition of love. 

Don't get me wrong, I think enjoying God is a good thing that we all should do.  But is joy all there is to love?  My main critique is that Augustine does not seem to have a Christ-shaped definition of love (Phil 2:1-11; 1 John 3:16).  If we exist primarily as a means for God to enjoy himself, why would he suffer and die on our behalf?  He does not need us; most of the Church has believed that he is completely self-sustaining and that we cannot add to God one thing that he does not already have – Augustine himself affirms this in 1.74-75.  It seems to me that if love is purely about enjoyment, God would have cut ties with humanity at the Fall and would have enjoyed himself not one bit less as a result, perfectly content in his self-love. 

           

But in the patient God of Israel and in the suffering Jesus Christ, I think we see that there is something more to love: an undeserved sharing of goodness with the other, even at great cost and anguish to self.  Understanding God’s love in this way makes more sense to me biblically and helps me better comprehend God’s motives in creation, redemption, and glorification. I also think that the kind of sacrificial love found in Jesus spurts forth joy and happiness like a surging sea, because evil cannot overcome it.  Though we are undeserving, God really does love us.  I even think God enjoys us and delights in us (Deut. 30:9; Psalm 149:4) when we reflect back to him his goodness and love (in agreement with Augustine), though our disobedience does not mean that God does not love us in the sense of wanting to share his goodness with us.

How do you think about God's love?  Are you for it or against it?  ;)

I'm pretty sure it's different from the guys on Night at the Roxbury :).