How shall we continue to speak of God's love in a world which continues to be flagrantly frustrated by human injustice? The question is not so much concerned with theodicy as with the task of human loving. Loving justly, so that ever wider structures of justice are made possible in history, must be a human endeavour which correlates with a divine precept, mandate, and command. Indeed, Christians are 'commanded' to love, both "one another" and the neighbour as oneself, in correspondence with the love revealed and exemplified by Christ. The 'thesis' developed in this research is given, to the Church and to the world, in Jesus' word to his disciples: As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you. Dwell in my love. If you heed my commands, you will dwell in my love, as I have heeded my Father's commands and dwell in his love ... This is my commandment: love one another, as I have loved you. (John 15:9-12) The task of loving is a problem of authentic correlation. We must first reflect upon the ministry of Jesus, and upon the sort of love or loves which he exemplified among his contemporaries. Then we must discover ways of interpreting the commanded love for our own day, and of putting such a love into practice. The quest for justice parallels and criticizes our quest for love. New Testament scholarship and theological reflection of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries have interpreted Christian love in many ways. As a convenient starting point for evaluating interpretations of Christian love, the proposition is suggested that an appropriate practice of love, correlating with the love of Christ, should lead, if ever so subtly, to the creation of justice in contemporary societies of human beings, and provide foundations for greater justice in future societies. A 'symposium' of selected 'speakers' on the characteristics of Christian love is 'convened'. From the nineteenth century we consider the thoughts of Ludwig Feuerbach and Soren Kierkegaard, and briefly, of the 'young Hegel'. These thinkers set the tone for much of the discussion, and in their ideas are distinguished certain dominant themes which will continue to characterize love-talk in the twentieth century. The twentieth century discussion takes the form of a 'debate' between 'neo-orthodox' Protestants, Latin American 'liberation theologians', and North American 'theologians of process'. But the debate is complicated, because the lines of division are not always distinctly drawn. We consider the most germane propositions of Anders Nygren, whose strict division between agape and eros has had a continuing impact upon Christian theology. Briefly we compare the thoughts of Emil Brunner, Reinhold Niebuhr, John Burnaby, and Karl Barth, and their impact upon the discussion of Christian love which began with Nygren's radical definitions. We observe, for example, how Karl Barth moves away from the early 'neo-orthodox' concerns, answering the critics of neo-orthodoxy with a holistic interpretation of love which melts into action, not determined, but sustained, by the covenanted love of God for his creatures. The latter part of this 'symposium' is an attempt to hear, without prejudging, two of the most prominent interpretations of love in contemporary thought. The Latin American theologians of liberation, since the late nineteen-sixties, have projected a view of Christian love which is thoroughly interpolated with the call for justice, on their continent especially, and also throughout the world. Their viewpoints elevate the discussion to a new plane, in which theory and practice are profoundly interdependent. Although Alfred North Whitehead wrote in the early twentieth century, his followers, in the United States specially, have begun to build upon his ideas, so that the 'process theology' of the eighties is intimately related to Whitehead's work in the twenties. Although the literature is massive, a hearing of Whitehead himself seems import if his ideas about love are to be set in relation to the genre which he inspired. Influenced significantly by the synthesizing method of Whitehead, the concluding chapter aims at no definitive conclusion. However, in recognition of the criterion that love should be creative of justice, certain related issues are distinguished which might inform theology's love-talk for the future. For example, recent textual analysis of the New Testament has demonstrated that the word agape has no consistent usage in the Bible as a word for love superseding all others. The perpetuation of agape as a ‘technical' word for a definite ‘type' of love, is not justified by scripture, and may obscure the profound intimacy of love to justice. Similarly, the relationship of faith to Christian love has the capacity to militate against love's relation to justice. The idea of eros may entail elements of Christian love and justice not normally construed by interpretations of agape. Response to God's love may be inhibited by exclusive, elite, or essentially egocentric characterizations of Christian love. Other insights pertinent to love's relation to justice, its affiliation with feeling, and its universal quality, are suggested.

彭淑芬. / 論文(神學碩士) -- 香港中文大學硏究院宗敎與神學學部, 1995. / 參考文獻: leaves i-iv (3rd group) / Peng Shufen. / 序 --- p.i / 撮要 --- p.iii / 前言 --- p.1 / Chapter 第一章 --- 尋根探源 / Chapter 一. --- 理智和宗敎植根期(1909-1924) --- p.5 / Chapter 二. --- 智識開展與獻身社運期（1925~1936) --- p.7 / Chapter 三. --- 神秘經驗與信仰闡釋期（1937~1949) --- p.9 / Chapter 第二章 --- 歷代愛觀與神秘主義方式 / Chapter 一. --- 基督敎傳統中的愛觀 --- p.13 / Chapter 1. --- 奧古斯丁： caritas的宗敎 --- p.14 / Chapter 2. --- 阿奎那：caritas的繼承 --- p.17 / Chapter 3. --- 路德：agape的恢復 --- p.19 / Chapter 二. --- 薇依的神秘主義方式 --- p.21 / Chapter 1. --- 神秘主義的特徵 --- p.21 / Chapter 2. --- 言說愛的方式 --- p.23 / Chapter 第三章 --- 薇依之愛的思想 / Chapter ´ؤ. --- 愛與認識 --- p.27 / Chapter 二. --- 愛上帝與不幸 --- p.29 / Chapter 三. --- 友誼 --- p.33 / Chapter 四. --- 愛鄰舍 --- p.36 / Chapter 五. --- 愛世界之美 --- p.38 / Chapter 六. --- 愛宗敎與聖事 --- p.41 / Chapter 第四章 --- 對談：薇依思想與基督敎愛觀 / Chapter 一. --- 愛上帝：agape與eros之間的爭論 --- p.45 / Chapter 二. --- 十字架聖愛：基督敎的核心愛觀 --- p.55 / Chapter 第五章 --- 綜合評價 / Chapter 一. --- 愛的實行 --- p.63 / Chapter 二. --- 對薇依的評述 --- p.68 / 結論 --- p.76 / 參考資料 --- p.（i)

A love ethic is the ground of agency and subjectivity for both men and women, and mutuality is the heart of love. Many feminist scholars are working to articulate and understand love by examining women's identity and language. In this thesis, I explore a language used for love and desire through theoretical examination and poetic expression. Using a dialectical relationship between the text and the reader, this project demonstrates that mutual love depends on access to language that can express love and sexuality. Three central texts are used: 'All About Love: New Visions' by bell hooks, 'I Love to You: Sketch of a Possible Felicity in History' by Luce Irigaray and 'Love Lyrics from the Bible: The Song of Songs, a New Translation' by Marcia Falk. In six sections of theoretic analysis and poetry, I show that female subjectivity and agency are conditions for mutuality in both love and sexuality.

Anders Nygren's Agape and Eros is a classical work in the history of Christian ideas of love. It has inspired the academic debate on the relationship between Agape and Eros, while the former is a core concept in Christian theology and ethics, the latter represents the ancient Greek humanistic ethos. Nygren points out that agape and eros encounter and mingle with each other at the theoretical level. However, he suggests that in the Christian idea of love and theology, the erotic ingredient, which invades in and weakens the pure original meaning of agape, should be eliminated. In achieving this, he attempts to deny the role of eros, which manifests the existential characteristics of human being, in the Christian ethical life. Thus Nygren not only makes agape and eros distinctive in their respective meanings, but also separates them in human existential situation. / In the history of Christian theology, we can find "Tradition of Separating" which tends to separate agape from eros like Nygren does. Meanwhile, there is "Tradition of Uniting" claiming to unite the two kinds of love and Tillich's idea of love is a typical example. Therefore, an investigation of Tillich's idea of love, especially its elaboration on the agape-eros relationship, is helpful and constructive not merely to a deeper understanding of Tillich's systematic theology, but also a comprehensive and balanced understanding of the two trends mentioned above in the history of Christian theology. / In this thesis, we examine Tillich's idea of love within the context of history of ideas and trace its historical roots, so that the tradition of uniting agape-eros in the history of ideas, mainly in that of Christian theology can be demonstrated. On the one hand, we try to retrieve the Courtly Love tradition in Medieval-Renaissance ages and Marcilio Ficino's Neo-Platonist understanding of eros in Renaissance as the historical sources to the particular meaning of Tillich's eros. On the other hand, our discussion makes particular reference to Gregory of Nyssa and John of the Cross, two representatives of the Christian spiritual theologians, whose spiritual writings on love will be considered as the historical roots of Tillich's agape-eros union within the Christian tradition. At last, the present study attempts to show that the modern application of Tillich's uniting agape with eros in Christian theology and ethics, along with related secular philosophy, revitalize this "Tradition of Uniting". / Paul Tillich handles the relationship of agape-eros in his systematic theology in a way radically different from the Nygrenian way. In dealing with the relationship between agape and eros, Tillich proposes a "quadric interactive structure of love" in which the four qualities of love namely libido, eros, philia and agape united and synergized in one love. In this structure, agape uplifts eros (including libido, eros and philia qualities) as divine-human power from the ambiguities of life into the unambiguous transcendent unity of life; while eros substantiates the abstract agape by clothing it in substantial appearance common to human existential feature. / 王濤. / 呈交日期: 2006年5月. / 論文(哲學博士)--香港中文大學, 2006. / 參考文獻(p. 282-301). / Cheng jiao ri qi: 2006 nian 5 yue. / Adviser: Lai Pan Chiu. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 67-11, Section: A, page: 4225. / Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Electronic reproduction. [Ann Arbor, MI] : ProQuest Information and Learning, [200-] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Abstracts in Chinese and English. / School code: 1307. / Lun wen (zhe xue bo shi)--Xianggang Zhong wen da xue, 2006. / Can kao wen xian (p. 282-301). / Wang Tao.

Bibliography: leaves 276-298.

Bibliography: leaves 276-298. / 298 leaves ; 30 cm. / Title page, contents and abstract only. The complete thesis in print form is available from the University Library. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Adelaide, Dept. of European Studies, 2001

Scanned copy of Culpepper's dissertation which is now in the public domain. Scanned as part of our digitization on demand service.

Thesis (MPhil)--Stellenbosch University, 2012.

Text in German / From a Christian perspective, complete wellness is available for man. This fact is based on God's unconditional Agape-love bestowed on man in Jesus Christ. It is by this love that being is offered a perfect vision of eternal existence. The Bible clearly shows that even creation was brought forth by the very word in which the love of the creator manifested itself in a mighty way. All being is being in the love of God, apart from which it will cease to exist. It would therefore seem advisable to examine Agape as a basic ontological category, which is our intention in this treatise. Following the course of salvation history we shall demonstrate how the love of God is responsible for being in all its complexity, where the separate parts work together constructively, thus glorifying their creator. In this way we behold the order of being in Agape. We move our attention beyond salvation of the individual but rather focus on the community aspect of salvation, and thus demonstrate from a biblical point of view, the significance of the New Testament ecclesia as the spearhead of God's Kingdom. We will show that it is the intention of Agape to give a specific Christian character to the community of believers as a witness to a world which is lacking in love and therefore also without proper orientation in its being. Where the ecclesia has lost its trait of love, we advise an uncompromising return to a corrective gospel as designed by the creator for true being, keeping in mind the limits, which the church has been given as an existing body in this world. What must never leave our focus, however, is that we extend to each other the forgiveness of Christ as the core of God's love, thus holding on to the distinct difference between Christian and non-Christian being. We therefore also recommend to examine the denominational structure of Christianity whether it is in conflict with a being that carries the mark of God's love. We remind that Agape wants to cause unity in a concrete way - unity that cannot be brought about by any secular strategy, but only by the power of God. By reorganizing our personal as well as our ecclesiastical being, the love of God will also verify the truth of God completely. / Systematic Theology & Theological Ethics / D.Th. (Systematic Theology)

This dissertation develops a God-centered understanding of forgiveness based on the context of God's redemptive history and derived from His two great commandments. Chapter 1 surveys the forgiveness literature, points out the divergent views of twelve aspects of forgiveness, and builds a case for the need of an explicitly theocentric model of forgiveness. Chapter 2 begins with an overview of redemptive history and its implications for understanding forgiveness, and then provides a biblical and theological understanding of divine love. The intimate connection between love and forgiveness is demonstrated from Scripture and explained as a precursor to developing a theocentric definition of forgiveness. Chapter 3 starts with an overview of the major theological omissions of the prevailing clinical models of forgiveness---the centrality of God, doctrine of sin, and primacy of Jesus Christ. Then, the theocentric definition of forgiveness is used to address and develop the twelve aspects of forgiveness, looking also at the communal aspects of each issue. Chapter 4 develops a Christian psychology of unforgiveness and forgiveness by examining the dynamics within the soul. A model for moving from unforgiveness to forgiveness is offered, which focuses on developing a heart of love, and entails a growing intimacy with, identity in, and imitation of Christ. Chapter 5 offers concluding thoughts and reflections and recaps the theme that runs through the dissertation---the process of moving from unforgiveness to forgiveness is a primary process of sanctification. Implications of a theocentric understanding are briefly discussed for the areas of clinical research, Christian counseling, the body of Christ, and the life of the believer. Finally, significant areas for further research are highlighted. / This item is only available to students and faculty of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. If you are not associated with SBTS, this dissertation may be purchased from <a href="http://disexpress.umi.com/dxweb">http://disexpress.umi.com/dxweb</a> or downloaded through ProQuest's Dissertation and Theses database if your institution subscribes to that service.