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A purely disinterested agapic love, if it is even possible, is not selfless but the opposite. A purely disinterested love, one that does not communicate a desire for love in return, is an act of power. A man who loves but refuses to receive love is claiming a right that he denies to all others. He is claiming the right to love and to give, but refusing to acknowledge that others have the right to love and give to him. He has the right to put other people in his debt, but refuses to accept the same vulnerable position in relation to others. Paradoxical as it may seem, a truly selfless relationship is possible only when we both love and desire to be loved. As David Hart puts it: In simple human terms, a love that is inseparable from an interest in the other is always more commendable, more truly selfless, than the airless purity of disinterested expenditure, because it recognizes the otherness and delights in the splendor of the other.E The otherEthat disinterested love loves is shapeless, featureless, formless Ein short, a nullity. True love, attends to a particular shape, a particular face, one man or one woman. A disinterested love is a love beyond the possibility of jealousy, and this is surely not the kind of love commanded by a God whose Name is Jealous.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Friday, July 02, 2004 at 09:35 AM
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