When I was still a believer, I was also an amateur Biblical scholar. One of the words I liked learning about was agape; the Greek word for the concept we refer to as "unconditional love". It's not necessarily an exact translation, but it's close enough for our purposes here in this article.  Recently a friend of mine and I were discussing this concept and its relation to God and the relevance of God to it.

[ In the hope of offering you a better understanding of what I mean when I talk about this kind of love prior to reading the rest of this page, here's a link to my page about the concepts I refer to as Love and Compassion. It's quite likely that my ideas about these words are quite similar to how you conceive of them as well, but it might help to understand more clearly what I mean when reading the rest of this page. Here's the link.]

It was interesting to me to have the discussion. I've always enjoyed discussing such things with this particular friend. We haven't always agreed on every theological or spiritual or social issue we've discussed, but I've always had the sense that I am free to say whatever is on my mind and he truly wants to discuss it with me. Of course we both fall into the mode of "trying to convince the other" (me more often), but we usually eventually come around to having a normal discussion (and more so as the years go by).

This time it was a bit different than the last time we discussed this particular issue since I am no longer a believer now. However, this status does not disqualify me from being capable of discussing such things. Nor does he play it that way.

In a recent e-mail, my friend told me of something he heard about the nature of Love that I remembered hearing before. It was about the concept we refer to as "unconditional love" as it is expressed in the NT with the word agape (as I mentioned above). The msg he heard pointed out four kinds of love that the Greek language acknowledged; storge, fileo, eros and agape. It basically said the same old line I've heard many times before (which I strongly disagreed with while I was still a believer); that storge (familial love), fileo (friendship love) and eros (sensual/sexual love) are referred to as human kinds of love while agape (unconditional love) is referred to as the kind of love that comes from God. 

There was a particular piece of text from the NT that he quoted... here it is...
"...the fruit of the Spirit is love...".
It is from Galatians 5:22
It's where I get the idea of putting the words "love, joy and peace to you" at the end of most e-mails I send out. Even though I no longer believe in God, I still do wish love, joy and peace for my self and others.
Here is a link to this verse on a web site called BibleGateway.com

He also referred to chapter 13 of I Corinthians
Here's a link to that one on the same site as the other above.

Following is basically what I was writing to him in response to his e-mail msg to me which was part of this latest discussion. I decided to post it here on my web site and just send him a link to it instead.

On the issue of agape...
Well, that's all neat and everything, but (speaking from within the believer frame-work, not as opposed to it) if a line in the Bible says that the fruit of the Spirit is agape, does that necessarily mean that it can't be anyone else's fruit? Is that text really trying to say that only the Spirit can produce agape, or is it simply making a contrast between the lifestyle of someone walking "by the Spirit" verses walking "by the flesh" (regardless of what either of us thinks is meant by "the flesh"...we probably never fully agreed anyway)?

Either way, regardless of what the Text says, can a religious concept of a supernatural force or Being from a letter or other document written by a human have a monopoly on unconditional love? It's all a matter of opinion at that point I guess.

One person counts God as being real without knowing for sure and the other does not. The one that counts God real without knowing for sure is also counting the Text to have absolutely come from that same God which they don't know for sure is even there. The other person is not making any absolute conclusion about the existence or non-existence of God and is simply being honest about their state of not knowing and thus, they can't be sure of the Text either. Therefore, no matter what the Text says, they're not going to count it as having any kind of absolute authority (in any matter, let alone whether or not anyone other than the Spirit can produce unconditional love).

Even if the Bible clearly stated, in black and white terms (which I haven't seen quite yet in this discussion...though it might be in there) that only the Spirit can produce agape, that statement would be irrelevant to me. It would seem immature, naive and a slight bit offensive as well. Why?
I already know that it is not accurate from personal experience and from the personal experiences of many other people.

Even while I was still a believer, I no longer believed this concept; that agape (unconditional love) can only come from God. I did believe that God was the one that first showed it to me, but I clearly was woke up to the concept of growing and maturing as a person. How could God be excited about someone loving in the agape sense if it were only coming out of them due to God's supernatural intervention? I think God would be much more excited by watching someone learn and grow and mature as a person to the point that they are genuinely loving others from their own attitude, by their own will.

When someone freely chooses to love me because it is something they've incorporated into their own attitude and lifestyle as a personal choice, it is a lot more exciting than when they are simply performing some religious task or following orders or being manipulated to do so by some other person (of course the whole definition of the word agape breaks down in such cases anyway).

As far as my belief at the time that agape could only came from God...
Of course I believed it. This was all part of the whole thing. It was one of the major necessitating factors (which I touch on again below a ways) in my world view for the existence of God I guess. Since then I've realized that there need not be any such thing as a God or anything else to have come up with such a concept. Clearly it could just as easily have come about as follows...

One day I thought to my self,
"Ya know, I sure would rather receive love from people that didn't have some kind of string attached. I would enjoy it a whole lot more to be loved simply for free without them expecting something else back from me in return. Hey, in fact, I'll bet other people would like it as well. I like the idea of loving others with no strings attached and wanting nothing in return. So, from now on, whether or not anyone else ever freely loves me at all, strings or no strings, I am choosing to love my self and others in this way. I might not always be perfect at it, but it is certainly my intent. It won't depend on getting anything in return or on anyone else ever even recognizing what is in my attitude. I hope they will, that way perhaps others will like the idea as well and join in and love themselves and others in this kind of way too. However, my choosing to love in this way is in no way what so ever related to any of that. It is simply a concept that I like and so, I'm going to go with it."

So, with this realization in mind, I set out to offer it as an option to others for the rest of my life. The only difference for my life now in this respect compared with where I was at when I was still a believer is that I no longer claim that this concept of this kind of love could have only come from God. I still like the same concept of love just as much as before and I am still just as committed to loving my self and other people and still just as committed to expressing this concept to others and inviting them to consider it as I ever was before.

As you can see, agape is clearly a concept that the ordinary human can understand and can choose to move towards in their own attitudes and lifestyle. There's no reason to force the issue of claiming that love could have only come from God. To do so is to hold it hostage to religion for the sake of establishing a necessitating factor for the belief in the existence of God it self.

The reason the writers of the NT used it in the first place was because it was a word that people already understood. The reader didn't need anyone to tell them what it meant. They saw the word and knew what the writer was talking about.

The writers did not make up the word or the concept of agape. Of course the writers may have tried to rewrite the definition of the word to some degree by how they used it, but still, the word and the concept of that kind of love was already in their language, thus already in their minds and to some extent, most likely, in their attitudes and lifestyles.

If you want to talk about perfection, that's another story. Please show me an example (other than that of Jesus in the Story) of any human anywhere, ever that has lived a perfect life of agape and we'll have something to discuss on that aspect of agape. Otherwise, let's just acknowledge the simple truth; people can and do either encounter in others or imagine in their own mind a concept that would be appropriately identified as what you and I know of as agape without even so much as knowing anything about God, let alone the Spirit.

storge, fileo, eros and agape
As for the different types of love that you mentioned... I am somewhat familiar with these all....

storge:
familial love; that which family members may or may not have for each other

fileo:
friendship love; for example, the kind of love that people have for each other when there are mutual interests, opinions or experiences etc

eros:
erotic love; a kind of (usually) sexually related love that is often experienced between two partners either in marriage or other close relationships

agape:
unconditional love; the kind of love that seeks only to give of self to help another without asking for or even desiring anything in return

I understood all of these while I was still a believer. I still understand them now. The one thing that always bugged me while I was still a believer and which continues to do so to this day is when I hear people preaching the idea that storge, fileo, eros are human kinds of love and that agape is God's kind of love. This immature idea cheapens the whole Story and causes people to miss some of the richest insight into life that the Bible has to offer.

I don't claim to know exactly why these teachers do this kind of thing. I can't really see any legitimate theological point anyway.
I suppose it might be just to push their other theological points of view (i.e. the idea that agape only comes from God), but I don't know.

Of course they're going to say that agape only comes from God. That's what their theological system requires. Since there's no actual evidence to suggest it, they have to come up with a way to necessitate the existence of God. In order to claim to have proof that God exists, they have to fabricate something like a concept of something that we have all experienced which can only come from God. If it can only come from God, and if we've experienced it, then of course God must exist. How else could we have experienced it if not from God, right?

This is a classic, circular argument. Here it is in slow motion.....
1. An unsubstantiated claim for the existence of a person or power outside of knowable reality
I claim that God exists, but I have no proof.

2. Introduction of a necessitating factor
I claim that some thought, concept, feeling or other thing could only be produced by God.

3. The circular argument comes full circle
I claim that the existence of the thing in step 2 is proof of the existence of God since there's no other way for it to come about without God having been in existence in the first place.

Hopefully you can see right through that kind of thinking too.

As far as their Biblical scholarship goes... I wish they'd include a bit more critical thinking in their study of the Text. For instance,
1. Where does the Bible ever say that only God has agape and that no human can or will ever learn and grow and mature to the point of living with an attitude and lifestyle characterized by agape?
2. Where in the Bible does it say that God never has storge, fileo or eros? Reading the passages where God is portrayed as having these kinds of love is so basic to understanding the expression of the heart of the Father in the Bible that it makes me sick to hear supposed Biblical scholars talk like that.

Just to make sure you know where my frustration is coming from..... this isn't personal between my friend and I... we're just discussing things as friends, but it sure is between me and anyone that calls them self a Biblical scholar and then goes around talking like that. My mind is as sharp as ever and I'm still just as equipped and as skilled as a Biblical scholar as ever. Just because I'm no longer a believer doesn't mean that I'm gonna let something like that slip by me.

Thanks for pointing it out and asking for my thoughts.

So, what do you think?

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