The Oneness of Love in Works of Love

Abstract

Kierkegaard’s claim that God just is love implies that love is ultimately one reality. Indeed, on more than one occasion, Kierkegaard will make this point explicitly as well as implicitly by frequently asserting the oneness of love. For example, early on in Works of Love, he states plainly that “this love for the neighbor is not related as a type to other types of love. Erotic love is defined by the object; friendship is defined by the object; only love for the neighbor is defined by love”. What Kierkegaard means by this is that preferential loves are defined by a factor in addition to love itself: the object of that love. Neighbor-love is defined by love itself, which takes as its object the neighbor, or in other words, “unconditionally every human being”. Preferential loves are specified as it were by the person loved in this manner. Neighbor-love is not related as a type to other types of love in that neighbor-love is paradigmatic love; preferential loves are specified, but as recent commentators have shown, are not thereby precluded from also being or filtered by or infused by or coincident with neighbor-love as well. The point of this passage is that there are not distinct, enumerated types of love that, taken together, can be amalgamated into something called “love”, which would be inclusive of distinct kinds. The current paper argues that neighbor-love is meant to be thought of as paradigmatic. Therefore, as a paradigmatic unity, it will also exhibit qualities ordinarily associated with preferential love. Put differently, my claim is that we have reason to conclude that, in the end, features of preferential love will be manifest in neighbor-love just as surely as neighbor-love has an effect on preferential love. I wish to take seriously the claim of Works of Love that, ultimately, love is one. Love, being one, is not comprised of distinct types or subsets. I demonstrate the importance of this point by explaining how all love has its ultimate origin in God (and God just is love). While seemingly a truism, I argue from a variety of passages that the oneness of love has multiple implications throughout the text, implications that further support the theory that neighbor-love is not an alternative to, but rather encompasses features of, preferential loves.