Agape and Eros and “The Logic of Scriptural Discourse”: Toward Conceptual Clarification1 By Elizabeth Y. Sung, Ph.D. What essentially characterizes divine love and the corresponding desiderata of human love and Christian love as revealed in Holy Scripture? In posing this general question, we confront matters that comprise a divine mystery (God’s love as revealed in Scripture, rendered intelligible and coherent by the Christian classical-theist doctrine of God as actus purus—especially the concept of divine simplicity) 2 and embark upon well-traveled theologico-ethical terrain. This particular inquiry is undertaken in an Anselmic spirit of “faith seeking understanding”; it aims to summarize and assess several influential theological accounts of the meaning of the term agape and the relevance of eros as they relate to descriptions of love within the immanent Trinity, God’s love for humans, human love for God, human self-love, and human neighbor-love found in the New Testament. Each of the specific theological definitions proposed will be examined for their explanatory precision and conceptual cogency in relation to several specific New Testament passages that have the status of loci classicae on the topic. Finally, an attempt will be made to relate the diverse claims to what is analytically contained in these biblical loci, showing their respective contributions to the presentation of agape in the New Testament as a whole. “The Logic of Scriptural Discourse”: A Methodological Note Testing all claims for their commensurability with Scriptural teaching as a whole is a method underpinned by two theological convictions advanced by the magisterial Reformers, and, arguably, especially by the Reformed tradition. The first affirmation, sola Scriptura, the so-called “formal principle of the Reformation,” names “Scripture alone” as the ultimate authority, the norma normans non normata (“norming norm”) that governs the norma normata (“normed norms”) of church tradition, reason, and experience. The second affirmation, an implicate of the first, states a general hermeneutical rule: Scriptura scripturae interpres (“Scripture is its own interpreter”). One influential statement, the Westminster Confession of Faith (1647), explains the import of both of these axioms for biblical interpretation and the formulation of doctrine and theology as follows (albeit presented in reverse order): 9. The infallible rule of interpretation of Scripture is the Scripture itself: and therefore, when there is a question about the true and full sense of any Scripture (which is not manifold, but one), it must be searched and known by other places that speak more clearly. 10. The supreme judge by which all controversies of religion are to be determined, and all decrees of councils, opinions of ancient writers, doctrines of men, and private spirits, are to be examined, and in whose sentence we are to rest, can be no other but the Holy Spirit speaking in the Scripture. 3 In other words, Holy Scripture is the final arbiter in all matters of Christian faith and practice, especially when varied human authorities make conflicting claims. Biblical teaching—the parts understood in light of the whole, and the whole in light of the parts, with the clear, more
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