This evening's discussion focused on the first section of Chapter 2 called “Metaphysical Analysis of Love.” Kathy gave us a synopsis of the introduction, where Wojtyla discusses the word “love” and its multiple meanings. As a starting point, love is always a mutual relationship between persons. In our general analysis of love between man and woman, we must distinguish love's basic elements, “both the substantial elements connected with attitudes to the good, and the structural elements connected with the reciprocal relationship between persons.” Wojtyla calls this general analysis “metaphysical” because “the love of man and woman takes shape deep down in the psyche of the two persons, and is bound up with the high sexual vitality of human beings...”
Alberto then explained Wojtyla's three characteristics of love which he examines in the following sections on love as attraction, desire, and goodwill:
- Mutual: seeing good in each other
- Biophysiological: desiring good for yourself
- Personal: desiring good for the other.
Wojtyla also explains that love has a profound ethical significance in that it constitutes the content of the greatest commandment in the Gospel. And so, in the end, love is the greatest of all virtues which embraces all the others and raises them all to its own level.
Peter then led our discussion on the three aspects of love: love as attraction, love as desire, and love as goodwill.
Love as Attraction
Wojtyla explains love as attraction as being based on “a particular attitude to the good.” That is, to attract someone means to be regarded as “a good.” Attraction also involves knowledge, a cognitive commitment; but attraction is not purely cognitive... the emotions and the will are involved as well. To be attracted does not mean just thinking about someone as a good—it means a commitment to think about that person as a good, and this commitment is effected only by the will. But in addition to the will, the emotions, Wojtyla says, are present at the birth of love because they favored the development of a mutual attraction between man and woman.
We paused to discuss the notion of love being a decision. Love does draw from the intellect and from reason, yet, as Wojtyla explains, it is guided and oriented by emotion. Marriage and commitment are decisions, Alberto added.
“For every human person is an indescribably complex and, so to speak, uneven good. Man and woman alike are by nature corporeal and spiritual beings. And such a being is also at once a corporeal and spiritual good.” Yet there is more to attraction than sensations or feelings. Attraction has as its object a person, and its source is the whole person. Such an attitude to a person is love. Wojtyla states: Attraction is of the essence of love and in some sense is indeed love, although love is not merely attraction.
One's attraction to another depends on two things: on seeing values in the other person that are really there and on being particularly sensitive to those values. This explains why two people react differently to the same person and are attracted to different persons.
Wojtyla also explains the role of sentiments and feelings. He says that sentiments have the power to guide and orient cognitive acts. Feelings arise spontaneously, and the reaction which one person feels towards another often begins suddenly and unexpectedly. But this reaction is in effect “blind.” Feelings are not concerned with the truth about their object, and can distort or falsify attractions. Wojtyla explains that this can be very dangerous to love, ultimately causing emptiness and disappointment. The group also discussed the merits of love at first sight. Peter mentioned that the great Catholic philosopher Dietrich von Hildebrand has written on love at first sight as being not purely a physical phenomenon. Meredith added that it depends on how and where you see someone (e.g., in an act of charity)… or holding a copy of Love and Responsibility.
“... in any attraction... the question of the truth about the person towards whom it is felt is so important.” Here, Peter interjected a joke about a media personality who once said, “Sincerity is everything, once you can fake it, you've got it made!” Two truths—the truth about the genuineness of feelings and the truth about the person who is the object of attraction—properly integrated, “give to an attraction that perfection which is one of the elements of a genuinely good and genuinely 'cultivated' love.”
Wojtyla continues that attraction must never be limited to partial values of a person, to something which is inherent in the person but is not the person as a whole. This traces back to Wojtyla’s “personalistic norm” which we covered in Chapter 1. Wojtyla concludes this section by explaining that while beauty is a value in the context of attraction one must discover and be attracted by inner as well as outer beauty—a full and deep appreciation of the beauty of the person.
Love as Desire
Desire, too, says Wojtyla, belongs to the very essence of the love that springs up between man and woman. “This results from the fact that the human person is a limited being, not self-sufficient and therefore—putting it in the most objective way—needs other beings.” Sex is a limitation, an imbalance—a man needs a woman to complete his own being, and a woman needs a man in the same way. Love as desire originates in a need and aims at finding a good which it lacks.
Love as desire cannot be reduced to desire itself. Love as desire is a longing for some good: I want you because you are good for me. Desire goes together with this longing but must be overshadowed by it. We know that desire is “at our disposal” but we see to it that desire does not dominate or overwhelm, for when desire is predominant it can deform love between man and woman and rob them both of it. Wojtyla concludes that “true 'love as desire' never becomes utilitarianism in its attitude for (even when desire is aroused) it has its roots in the personalistic principle.”
Love as Goodwill
Wojtyla begins this section by stating that “love is the fullest realization of the possibilities inherent in man.” He says that a genuine love is one in which the true essence of love is realized—a love which is directed to a genuine good in the true way. Genuine love between man and woman perfects the life and enlarges the existence of a person. False love is false in its premise or in its manifestations and is an evil love.
Love as desire is incomplete—it is not enough to long for a person as a good for oneself. One must long for that person's good. This uncompromisingly altruistic orientation of the will and feeling is love as goodwill. Wojtyla explains that love as desire and love as goodwill are not incompatible, but are closely connected: if one person wants another as a good for himself or herself, he or she must want that other person to be a real good. Goodwill is quite free of self-interest, traces of which are conspicuous in love as desire. Goodwill is the same as selflessness... I long for that which is good for you. Love as goodwill is love in a more unconditional sense than love as desire. It is the purest form of love bringing the greatest fulfillment. Comparing the three elements of love, Cyrille commented that the primary orientation and emphasis is different for each: love as attraction is something mutual between two persons, while love as desire is focused on one person fulfilling his or her needs (through the other), and love as goodwill is focused on what is good for the other.
The love between man and woman cannot but be love as desire, but must as time goes by move more and more in the direction of unqualified good will, especially in marriage. What is the difference between being in love and love? Meredith put it this way: On my wedding day, I will be in love. Forty years later, I will love.