Agape or Eros: A False Choice?

Before we leave the subject of the love of God, one last question must be addressed,

namely, are agape and eros mutually exclusive types of love? Or to put the question

theologically, is God then not eros in any sense? The question requires some clarification. It is

not just a matter of terminology, for as we have already seen, the fact that God is agape does not

preclude the use of words in the philia family to describe God’s love. Even the absence of words

in the eros family from the New Testament does not in itself rule out the presence of the concept,

or at least certain aspects of the concept, as that is presently defined. Also, this is not a matter of

whether eros in its sexual or romantic sense applies to God; that is totally out of the question.

The issue is whether eros as philosophically defined (e.g., by Nygren) in no sense characterizes

the nature of God’s love.

The Traditional Contrast

In his book Agape and Eros Nygren has, among other things, very specifically defined

and sharply contrasted these two types of love in their very essence. Of course he is concerned to

show that the agape motif, as he understands it, applies to God in every way, while the eros

motif is totally absent from the nature of God. He summarizes the main features of agape thus:

(1) It is spontaneous and unmotivated, i.e., there is nothing outside of God that causes him to

love. The only ground for his love is within himself. God’s love is not drawn to us by anything

within us. (2) This leads to the second feature, namely, agape is “indifferent to value.” God does

not love us because there is anything worth loving within us. He loves us because he is loving,

not because we are lovely. Agape does not consider either the worthiness or the unworthiness of

its object. (3) Agape is creative. This means that it does not find value in its object, but imparts

value to it. The Liberal concept of “the infinite value of the human soul” is actually destructive to

agape, since such an inherent value would be a motive for God to love us, thus destroying its

spontaneous and unmotivated character. (4) Finally, agape takes the initiative in establishing

fellowship. God comes to us; we do not come to God.65

By way of contrast, Nygren summarizes the concept of eros thus: (1) It is acquisitive

love. It is characterized by desire and longing. Its object is seen as something desirable to fill a

need within the one who loves. Thus only that which is deemed valuable can be the object of

such love. It can never be spontaneous and unmotivated, since it is motivated by the value of its

object. It desires to acquire or possess that which it values. (2) Eros is descriptive of all human

attempts to find a way to God. In non-Christian systems, where agape is unknown, the deity does

not come seeking for man; so man must seek for God. His upward longings are the essence of

eros. (3) Finally, eros is an egocentric type of love. The eros-lover loves for his own sake, not

for the sake of his object. He desires to possess the object so that it may fill his own needs.66

In reference to the love of God, Nygren dismisses the eros motif completely. “Eros is

yearning desire; but with God there is no want or need, and therefore no desire nor striving.”

God is agape, and agape only.67

Of course, Nygren is not alone in his view. In fact, it is quite generally accepted and

already was to some extent before Nygren’s influential work was published in 1930. For

example, Strong had already said that when God is described as agape, “it is already implied that

God loves, not for what he can get, but for what he can give.”68 Later writers say the same thing,

5 65Anders Nygren, Agape and Eros, pp. 75-81.

6 66Ibid., pp. 175-181. See p. 210 for a convenient chart with the main points of contrast between the two motifs.

7 67Ibid., pp. 211-212.

8 68Augustus H. Strong, Systematic Theology, p. 264.

but with details supplied mostly by Nygren. For example, after summarizing Nygren’s

explanation of eros, Brunner says, “The Love of God, the Agape of the New Testament, is quite

different. It does not seek value, but it creates value or gives value; it does not desire to get but to

give; it is not ‘attracted’ by some lovable quality, but it is poured out on those who are worthless

and degraded.”69 Konig says it is apparent “that God’s love is not desire, and that the object of

his love is not in fact desirable. Even in his created universe as such there was nothing desirable

in the sense that it met a need or lack in him.” God’s love gives. It “goes out to a worthless

object, giving it value.”70 Erickson describes God’s love as “an unselfish interest in us for our

sake.” God “is concerned with our good for our own sake, not for what he can get out of us. God

does not need us. . . . Thus, his love for us and for his other creatures is completely

disinterested.”71 Leon Morris sums it up thus:72

. . . Eros has two principal characteristics: it is a love of the worthy and it is a love that desires to possess. Agape is in contrast at both points: it is not a love of the worthy, and it is not a love that desires to possess. On the contrary, it is a love given quite irrespective of merit, and it is a love that seeks to give.

A False Choice

What shall we say about this? First of all, we acknowledge that the general thrust of the

distinction is quite appropriate, and that many of the details are acceptable and quite

commendable. Agape certainly is a creative love, and it surely does take the initiative in the God-

man relationship. Nygren’s analysis of the upward and downward motifs is a beautiful

contribution to Christian thought. Also, it is quite true that God does not love in order to fulfill a

9 69Emil Brunner, The Christian Doctrine of God, p. 186.

0 70Adrio Konig, Here Am I! A Christian Reflection on God (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1982), p. 37.

1 71Millard J. Erickson, Christian Theology, pp. 292-293.

2 72Leon Morris, Testaments of Love, p. 128.

need in himself. He has no needs, and he does not need us. This must be emphasized, over

against the eros concept.

I believe, however, that the contrast between agape and eros has been carried too far, and

that something of the love of God has been lost in the process. In a sense, a false choice between

the two types of love has been created. Why, for example, is it not possible for God to love us for

our sakes and for his own sake? Or why cannot God’s love be truly rooted in his own divine

nature, and at the same time be drawn to something within us? These are the two issues I will

address specifically, and I will insist that it is unnecessary, even unbiblical, to set up an either-or

choice on both issues. There is no compromise of the essential nature of agape when we

recognize that there is something in human beings that is worthy of God’s love, and when we see

that God does desire to possess us for his own sake.

God’s Love Finds Value in Us

First, it is said that God’s agape is not at all attracted by anything outside himself, that it

is uninfluenced by the worthiness of its object (or lack thereof), that it is disinterested and

indifferent.

I question this whole idea. If this is true, why does God not love stones and flies in the

same way that he loves men? Morris himself has pointed out that there is nothing in the word

agape itself that excludes value in its object. Indeed, this is the very love the Father has for the

Son, and the Son has for the Father.73 Also, it is the kind of love we are to have for God (Matt.

22:37) and for Christ (John 14:15). Once we begin to direct our agape toward God, a lot of the

Nygrenian contrast goes out the window. But what about God’s love for us? Is there anything

within us that attracts God’s love to us? Here is where an important distinction must be made. On

the one hand, we must see ourselves as the creatures God made in his own image, made “a little

3 73Ibid., pp. 137-138.

lower than God,” crowned with glory and majesty, made to rule over other created things (Ps.

8:3–8). On the other hand, we must see ourselves as we have been corrupted by our own sin and

rebellion, as we have sullied the image, made ourselves slaves to other created things, and lost

our crowns in the miry clay of sin. Thus in the total present makeup of every sinful creature,

there are both what God has contributed and what the sinner has contributed. Nygren and others

are correct to stress that there is nothing worthy of God’s love in us from the latter perspective.

I.e., when we consider what we have made (or unmade) of ourselves, there is nothing of value

that God should be attracted to us. But from the former perspective, from the point of view of

what God has placed within us from the very beginning (Gen. 1:27), there is value—indeed,

tremendous value—in every single human being. This value has not been forfeited or

compromised by sin. It is there, like a jewel in a garbage pail. And why should God not

recognize the value he has placed within his own creatures and love them for what he himself

has made them to be? This in no way compromises the remarkable nature of the fact that he still

loves us in spite of what we have done to ourselves by our own sin. Another way of saying this is

that he loves us not for what we have done (our works) but for what we are (his works).

Thus I believe it is a false choice to say, as Morris does, that God “loves not because of

what we are, but because of what he is,” or that agape “is not a love drawn from God by

attractiveness in men; it is the expression of his own innermost nature.”74 Though the latter is

certainly dominant, the former cannot be totally dismissed. It is simply not true to say that

“nothing in men can account for God’s love.”75 There is nothing in man that can wholly account

for it or even mostly account for it, but the fact that man is God’s own image-bearing creature

4 74Ibid., pp. 142-143.

5 75Ibid., p. 271. Emphasis supplied.

counts for something. God cannot be indifferent toward or disinterested in such works of his own

hands.

Louis Berkhof recognizes this point but does not elaborate on it when he says that God

does not “withdraw His love completely from the sinner in his present sinful state, though the

latter’s sin is an abomination to Him, since He recognizes even in the sinner His image-bearer.”76

Erickson has stated this idea in more detail and approaches the view that I have given above. He

says, “God loves us on the basis of that likeness of himself which he has placed within us, or in

which he has created us.” But he then dilutes the whole idea by saying this means simply that

“he loves himself in us.”77 It also seems to be inconsistent with his characterization of God’s love

as “completely disinterested.”78

God Loves Us for His Own Sake

This leads to the second false choice in the agape-eros contrast, i.e., the idea that God

loves us for our sakes alone and not at all for his own sake. Another way of stating this is that

God loves us for what he can give us and not for what he can get from us. Now, this is true if we

are thinking only in terms of a possible need or lack within God which can be filled only by

means of his loving us. But I think we must distinguish between what God needs, and what he

wants or desires from a relationship with his image-bearers. It is a fundamental fact that

everything God does, he does for his own glory, beginning with the initial creation itself.79 Thus

the constantly underlying goal even of his love, and even in its supreme manifestation in the

6 76

Louis Berkhof, Systematic Theology, p. 71.

7 77Millard J. Erickson, Christian Theology, I:294.

8 78Ibid., p. 293.

9 79See Jack Cottrell, What the Bible Says About God the Creator, pp. 124-128.

redemptive work of Christ, is his own glory. This is seen quite clearly in the grand summary of

redemption in Philippians 2:5–11, where the entire saving history of Jesus Christ is said to

climax in “the glory of God the Father.” This is in no way unworthy of God, nor does it diminish

the genuineness of his self-giving for our sakes.

But this is not the whole point to be made here. It is my opinion that in his fellowship

with his creatures, God desires more than his own transcendent glory, namely, he desires the

fellowship itself. He finds delight and even joy in such fellowship. Otherwise why did he even

create beings in his own image who are capable of such a relationship? All this is seen, I believe,

in the fact that love includes the aspect of affection, as noted above. In a sense what we are

saying is that God not only loves us, but he also likes us, and likes being in fellowship with us.

Jesus says that when a single sinner repents, “there is joy in the presence of the angels of God”

(Luke 15:10). In the presence of the angels? Is this not, then, God’s own joy? In the three

parables in this chapter, the three figures representing God all rejoice when the lost is found. The

extravagant reaction of the prodigal’s father can hardly be called “disinterested.” Packer has

made the interesting comment that once God has freely decided to make image-bearers with

which to fellowship, “he has in effect resolved that henceforth for all eternity His happiness shall

be conditional upon ours.”80

For these reasons I do not find it at all objectionable to say that God’s love is a love that

desires to possess us for his own sake, for the joy of the fellowship for which he created us in the

first place. It is simply false to think that this somehow dilutes his infinite concern for our

welfare for our own sakes, or that he has no selfless motives for his self-giving. Clarke’s

methodology is faulty in that he begins with human love and draws his conclusions about God’s

0 80J. I. Packer, Knowing God (Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 1973), p. 113. For one thing, I find it interesting that a Calvinist would make a statement like this!

love on that basis, but his conclusions are not too far from the Bible’s own representation of the

love of God. He says, “God, then, is moved by the well-known desire to impart himself and all

good to other beings, and to possess them as his own in spiritual fellowship. This is his love.”81

Wiley agrees with Clarke that divine love includes the desire to possess the object loved,

alongside the desire for self-giving.82

As important as it is to distinguish between the eros and the agape motifs, we must not

press the contrast so completely that we lose sight of these important aspects of Biblical love and

of God’s love in particular.

1 81W. N. Clarke, The Christian Doctrine of God, p. 85. See his whole thought-provoking discussion of this, pp. 84-86.

2 82

H. Orton Wiley, Christian Theology, I:379-380. See also A. W. Tozer, The Knowledge of the Holy, p. 107: "Self-sufficient as He is, He wants our love and will not be satisfied till He gets it."