Funnily enough I'm reading a very interesting book at the moment that covers this subject, comparing, contrasting, and logically analysing three concepts of love; Plato's eros, Christian agape, and Aristotle's philia.
Where in a nutshell eros is deemed man's route to God, and agape, God's route to man. Eros is acquisitive love based on seeking value... 'the good' (whatever that may be for a person). The logic goes... as I presently understand it... you cannot want what you already have except inasmuch as to keep it into the future, therefore you want the good and you want to keep it forever... ie you want eternal good... and therefore immortality. So where to Plato the Gods are both immortal and want for nothing, they cannot themselves love but only be the objects of man's love, hence man's route to God.
And where, in comparison, agape is God's route to man, conceptualised as a value-creating rather than value-seeking type of love.
So far in my reading, Plato's concept of eros makes a lot of sense to me. I mean I'm not seeking metaphysical immortality but I understand and agree with the psychological principles behind what he's saying... that you seek value and seek to maintain it... which is essentially seeking immortality if only in the moment. It's just that nonexistence poses no threat to that, in the sense that it is the absence of seeking full stop. In other words I understand seeking that sort of 'eternal good' in life, but ceasing to exist poses no threat to that.
Anyway, as it stands agape makes less sense to me, but I'm not even half way through the book yet. So it remains to be seen, how coherent that will be as a concept to me.
Where in a nutshell eros is deemed man's route to God, and agape, God's route to man. Eros is acquisitive love based on seeking value... 'the good' (whatever that may be for a person). The logic goes... as I presently understand it... you cannot want what you already have except inasmuch as to keep it into the future, therefore you want the good and you want to keep it forever... ie you want eternal good... and therefore immortality. So where to Plato the Gods are both immortal and want for nothing, they cannot themselves love but only be the objects of man's love, hence man's route to God.
And where, in comparison, agape is God's route to man, conceptualised as a value-creating rather than value-seeking type of love.
So far in my reading, Plato's concept of eros makes a lot of sense to me. I mean I'm not seeking metaphysical immortality but I understand and agree with the psychological principles behind what he's saying... that you seek value and seek to maintain it... which is essentially seeking immortality if only in the moment. It's just that nonexistence poses no threat to that, in the sense that it is the absence of seeking full stop. In other words I understand seeking that sort of 'eternal good' in life, but ceasing to exist poses no threat to that.
Anyway, as it stands agape makes less sense to me, but I'm not even half way through the book yet. So it remains to be seen, how coherent that will be as a concept to me.
