Agape and Personhood. David L. Goicoechea
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health,
to the religious holy and then to have the wisdom that
after leaving the aesthetic and ethical he could so transform
the holy that he could return and renew the aesthetic and ethical.
II.1.7 Loving Socrates as More Important
Can Socrates and Jesus be fully reconciled in Søren’s thinking
if Jesus is like the prodigal son and Socrates like the elder brother?
While Socrates lived and died as a philosopher Jesus lived
and died as a God and such a claim could offend Socrates.
Jesus could look like a prodigal with his claim to be the one
and only Son of the one and only Creator, Father God.
According to Søren if Jesus is to win over the elder brother
he would begin by loving Socrates as more important and
then Socrates might begin to love him as more important.
Søren believed that Jesus did love Socrates more than himself.
In his incarnation Jesus stepped down in self-emptying.
His life was one of self denial for all his brothers and sisters.
He offered his passion and death for the redemption of all.
Jesus loves everyone as more important than himself.
With his love of Jesus Søren really loved Socrates too.
Søren had tried his best to live with purity of heart.
He had tried to will one thing in knowing, loving and serving God.
He had tried to be the best student and philosopher possible.
He had tried to follow his vocation and make it his profession.
But all his effort failed and he felt he was going mad.
Then he fell in love with Regina and Socrates became
his teacher and his guide and helped him understand himself.
His love for Regina let him understand Socrates
and Socrates let him understand his love for Regina.
His writing began going better than he could ever imagine
as he began writing about his beloved Socrates
and that sexual love that ironically took him beyond sex.
In Søren the love of Jesus loved the love of Socrates even
more than himself for the love of Socrates let him
attain the purity of heart that Jesus demanded of him.
Socrates’ praise of love taught Søren how to praise love.
II.1.8 The Noble Socratic Return
Søren greatly admired Socrates and thought that if he had
known of Jesus he would have believed in him and loved him.
That is so because of Socrates’ conversion which revealed how
he would follow his conscience with humility and honesty.
At the heart of Søren’s philosophy of love is the “like for like.”
Before Jesus revealed his agape the “like for like” was that
of “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth” and that
“like for like” wanted justice without a primacy of forgiveness.
But the “like for like” of the judging Christ is mercifully just.
Whatever goes out from my heart will return with exactly
its same quantity and quality in upbuilding my heart’s habit.
As Søren saw more clearly and loved more dearly each day
as he prayed for his lovely Regina, the queen of his heart,
and as he daily wrote about Socrates, the teacher of his soul,
he knew that the Christ in his heart loved Socrates as more
important so that Socrates could love Jesus as more important.
That is the way the “like for like” always has to work.
It is the law of agapeic love that accomplishes reconciliation.
Christ in justice can truly love Socrates as more important
for Socrates’ love makes up for what is lacking in Christ’s love.
That is so because the heart cannot say to the head: “I have
no need of you.” For in the Mystical Body of Christ
each member is lacking what only the other members can do.
Socrates was not afraid of dying and ironically he comforted
those who were trying to comfort him by telling them that
perhaps after he drank the hemlock he would be with Homer.
And Jesus after he was put to death descended to the dead
and there he no doubt gathered up Socrates and all the others
and let them arise from the dead with him and let them ascend
with him into the realm of God who is universal love.
How could the noble Socrates not love Jesus as more important?
II.1.9 Loving the God-Man as More Important
Søren knew in his mind and his heart that the prodigal Jesus
could win over the elder brother, Socrates, and reconcile with him.
Søren had tried to be reconciled within himself and with others
and with God, but he only sank deeper and deeper into despair.
Then one day he met Regina and she inspired him into integrity
and the reconciliation of Platonic love as his crippled chariot
began to fly with the black and white horse teaming and the charioteer
driving them with poetic, philosophic and holy religious harmony.
Socrates and his wondrous Platonic love reconciled Søren with Jesus.
His aesthetic me, his ethical myself, and his religious I could
harmonize in the happy, healthy, holy wisdom that could
yield great grades, a terrific job and a great life as he became
a relation that relates to itself and in relating to itself relates to God.
The elder brother, Socrates, had a love that won Søren over to Jesus.
But how about the Thou and the you? Could the prophetic Jesus
be reconciled with the mystic Socrates so that Søren could
love Regina for herself and let his muse become his wife?
How could the prodigal Jesus win over the elder brother, Socrates?
Søren’s strategy for winning over the grudging elder brother
has the three parts of: (1) loving him as more important so that
with the like for like he will love the prodigal as more important,
(2) praising love so that he too will come to praise love, and
(3) recollecting the dead so that he will do likewise.
Praising the God who is Love praises all love that truly loves