This might be something rough, unfinished and unclean
but I think it has to do with a perspective of - This morning
I was sitting over there by the table working and Barbara asked,
"Now what do you mean by ontological love?" Your whole
insides just run out under the table. That is a task of this two
weeks, to find out what do you mean by ontological love. But there
are probably some things you could say in terms of perspective
if nothing else and maybe begin to get a feel for issues that
make this important again. And I want to try to lay out a few
theses that don't have directly anything to do with what you're
writing now, but maybe it does and maybe it will generate some
stew.
First point would be that love as Ontological Love
is a reality as objective as gravity and electricity. Point number
one - Love, if we're going to talk about love as Ontological Love
as we're saying. It's as objective a reality as gravity itself,
gravity or electricity. They are just there. I was thinking of
some implications of that. If that be so, then this son, What
the World Needs Now is Love Sweet Love" is a lie or is ridiculous,
one or the other. It's almost like a pious lie promulgated by
the devil himself and anybody who believes it is going to hell
to burn forever. You would almost want to say it that strongly
because what it means is that if love is a reality as objective
as gravity to sin and believe what the world needs most is gravity
sweet gravity, it's ridiculous. If you go around trying to generate
gravity, you are putting yourself in an impossible situation.
In that sense, the notion that love is ontological is something
that you and I have to generate more of, is off target. That's
point number one.
Second point: Loving the world is something that
is being done to us. Elaboration, like it or not, choose it or
not, know it or not, life itself is piteously and relentlessly
making your life and my life one of radical, total, unconditional
love for the world. Try that again. Okay. Now this doesn't make
sense yet either, but the point being that life itself, well,
loving the world is being done unto us or that my life and your
life, whether we like it or not, know it or not, or have decided
or not, is being made a life of love for the world. Using the
gravity analogy again, it's almost like whether we know it or
not or like it or not or choose it or not, gravity is operative
in our life. It affects us. We're a part of it. Something like
that. Now there's something freeing about that because it means
that you and I don't have to be doing anything extra. It means
that what we're doing is making us conscious of what is real and
what's going on. That's the point there. Now that doesn't make
any sense yet, but I want to develop it in three steps that get
at the overall rationale of that triangle.
The first one would be that a human being's life
has three primary aspects and abstract. One has to do with relation
to individuals. One has to do with the relationship to the mystery
or the depth of the reality itself or whatever category you want
to talk about that. Another way to come into that same rationality
is that this has to do with saying words, this has to do with
doing deeds, and this has to do with being style. And there's
no content on that. It doesn't say anything about the type of
style or the type of deeds or relationships or anything else.
It just says that's part of it. Or that this has to do with knowing
and this has to do with doing and this has to do with being. And
that's a dynamic which simply exists everywhere there's human
life and the important thing is that's the dynamic that moves
the social process. You know those big social process triangles.
If you didn't have human beings knowing their knows and doing
their do's and being their be's, you wouldn't have a society to
be processing. So there's a sense in which this whole dynamic
of human life is behind or underneath the prime mover of the social
process. Okay. That's reasonably clear. Now, what you might mean
by love would be that unreduced form of this dynamic which keeps
society from going out of being. That's to say, love is the authentic
knowing ones knows, doing ones do's, being one's be's, without
which society would probably go out of being. That means that
the phrase, "Love makes the world go round," is a true
statement, angelic, sent by the Lord himself and anybody who believes
it is in heaven. That's an exaggeration but Love All you have
to do is look at the world and see whether it's still going around
and if the answer is Yes, then that's your primary evidence that
love, or authentic knowing doing and being, is operative in history.
So we are talking about something that is real and there, and
the evidence of which is there is a reality to be there. If we
are talking in the writing about ontological love, we're saying
it has several identifiable dynamics or parts of this one swirl
of the human activity. One is witnessing. One is Justice. One
has to do with presencing. Those parts are RS-I, LENS, Popular
Preaching, Local Church, Primal Community, Social Demonstration,
Religious, Guru and Guildsman. What we are suggesting is that
these are part of that dynamic that's just part of history itself,
without which the world would quit turning and we'd all fall into
the sun or something. That's what's at stake when you talk about
ontological love.
It might be that you could talk about this pole of
it, if you take that rationality serious that witnessing love
is that unreduced relationship to individuals, saying of words,
knowing one's knows which occurs in the arena of the personal,
social, and is intensification of personal and social. This whole
business of witnessing love is about authentic saying, knowing
and relating to individuals that takes place in the social, the
personal, and the whatever. it is the coming together of the personal
and the social. That rough.
The other point when you talk about ontological love
is, we participate in it, like it or not. Maybe I can spell this
out, very rough. We've heard it said a hundred thousand times
that without personal relationships, one's style is stupid. You
know the Charlie Brown cartoon: I love humanity, I love mankind.
It's people I can't stand. We laugh at that and nod and find ourselves
playing that role often. But then life comes along and tricks
us and a recluse, like William Faulkner who could not stand people,
has done more wording to individuals to bring them into an authentic
relationship with life, particularly in the south of the United
States, he is better than anyone I know. Life takes that recluse
who tried to cut off his personal relationships and just spun
that into a tremendous impact on persons, on individuals. Trick
number one.
Trick number two. This is fun. You can come up with
better examples. Without your being behind your words, your words
are empty, right? That's the platitude. An example is easy. You
kids can tell when you tell them something, whether you've got
your being behind it or not. It's not tone of voice. It's not
volume. But a kid can tell whether you've got your being into
what you're telling them and will act accordingly. That makes
us think, we always have to be sincere and have our being behind
every time we open our mouth. Then life comes along and tricks
us in the sense that when we stand up as teachers or parents and
make a statement, even without our being behind it, we are communicating
that the statement is more important than our personal feelings
on the matter. Life tricks us into doing love, often without knowledge
or consent.
Trick number three. We commonly say that without
action, one's style has no impact. I have long berated the ascetics
as social cop-outs, empty of any influence on or responsibility
for society. Then life plays another one of its tricks. The ascetic
becomes the vanguard of the future. This was especially true in
the early days of the church, when the cloistered orders were
literally the saviours of civilization.
You can go on with this in the other interrelationships
of the triangle. It's true, isn't it, that without one's being
in his action, it is sheer hypocrisy? Insincerity. One has to
deal seriously with the depths in order to make effective change.
That's been one of my personal criticism of the liberals - thoughtless,
beingless activism. But then life plays another trick: It's been
the burned-out activists of our own time who have pushed this
culture into a deep concern with the spiritual dimensions of life.
The current sensitivity to the spirit would probably never have
occurred without the collapse of activism.
The same dynamic holds true in the relationship between
the knowing and the doing poles. We all know that without deeds
to back them up, one's words are empty. The popular phrase is,
"What you do speaks so loud, I can't hear what you say."
But then there comes the trick: the disgust with the discrepancy
between words and deeds, between values that are given lip service
and actually operating values often occasions movement for the
renewal of society.
It also works the other way. Without concern for
individuals, without warm personal relationship, justiceing love
becomes de-humanizing. We are all familiar with the 1984 version
of society in which people are adequately cared for in terms of
structures, but are deprived of their individuality. But life
again plays its tricks: the threat of dehumanization leads to
movements for emphasis on individuality.
Life itself is tricking, pushing, cajoling, dragging
us into the doing of love. Love goes on - not as a moral imperative
but as an ontological process. Theologically, that is to say that
life IS lived for the glory of God, even, as Calvin suggests,
as a horrible example.
This love is what we are writing about.
John Epps
ONTOLOGICAL LOVE TRACT
The
Times
Ontological Love
Love's Dimensions
Practical Implications
These are times of human resurgence. Everyone experiences
himself newly aware of his citizenship in a global village and
is overwhelmed with an explosion of care for his fellow man. no
longer can one's concerns be geographically limited. Thanks to
rapid communication and transportation, the issues of the world
intrude into one's consciousness. The struggles of man today is
no longer with ignorance or apathy, but with integrity, radical
integrity. How can one practically act out his universal concern?
What is required to love the world? What dimensions must be considered
in giving practical form to the compassion one feels for the rest
of mankind?
The answers to these and related questions are found
in an exploration of the dynamics of Ontological Love. This love
is the foundation and source of life and gives the capacity to
receive and experience universal care. Ontological Love may be
defined as the authentic relationship between man and his neighbor,
his society, and the Mystery of Being Itself.
A Man's life has three primary aspects. One of these
has to do with knowing, with relationship to individuals, with
communication through language. Ontological Love in this aspect
release the illumination of mundane situations, occasions foundational
decisions and motivates societal care. The second has to do with
doing, with relationship to society, with communication through
activity. Love in this aspect allows man to dramatize life's meaning,
to order corporate existence and to signal future society. The
third has to do with being, with relationship to the depth of
reality, with communication through life style. Ontological Love
in this aspect symbolizes and guards human deeps and embodies
social responsibility. All of these activities are dimensions
of love. They are interrelated and inseparable.
The analysis of Ontological Love gives aim to man's
actions. It leads him to know that as a child of fate he can design
the universe. He becomes aware that everyone experiences the same
basic care. He realizes that all life is victorious and all death
is full of meaning.