Meaningfulness and Loving: Phenomenology between Theological and Religious Studies Perspectives on Christian Love

Abstract

Meaning finds its origin in love. That claim is rather unremarkable for Chris- tian thought. One need look no further than the final line of the Divine Comedy and Dante’s praise for the “Love that moves the Sun and the other Stars.”1 But I could have pointed my example toward any number of Christian texts preoc- cupied with love in various genres, languages, cultures, and times: Augustine’s restless heart, Julian’s Shewings as revelations of divine love, Teresa of Avila’s transverberation, the battering three-personed God of Donne’s Holy Sonnets, Kierkegaard’s Works of Love, C.S. Lewis’ The Four Loves ... the list continues ad infinitum. Love fascinates and perplexes Christian thinkers, not least because love is a central theme throughout the Bible and its subsequent interpretation. What does it mean for Jesus to instruct his followers to “love one another. As I have loved you, so you also should love one another” (John 13:34) in order to be known as disciples of the Son of God who “so loved the world” (John 3:16)?2 Love invites interpretation because love calls for meaning