That’s the gist of an article that somehow ended up on my Google News alerts this week. So in the spirit of Valentine’s Day, here’s my rebuttal.
This is the author’s argument: “When you love someone it is purely to satisfy your ego. . . Every expression towards those you love is also a mutual trade between two people for reciprocal advantage and to regard love as sacrificial or altruistic makes it, and the relationships that result, pointless and contemptible.”
When I got over my initial irritation at this statement, it struck me that HE’S RIGHT. Love, as understood and practiced in our culture, is all about self. Romance is a cycle of emotion in which happiness is contingent upon how good the other person makes us feel.
Interestingly, this view of love fits perfectly with Richard Dawkins’s claim in The Selfish Gene: “Now they [the genes] swarm in huge colonies, safe inside gigantic lumbering robots... They are in you and me; they created us, body and mind; and their preservation is the ultimate rationale for our existence.” In an atheist, postmodern culture, love is simply what we call the relationship between two sets of genes using each other to reproduce. All the flowers, chocolate, lingerie…just natural selection marching on.
So why, if you read this article to your date tonight, would you get a slap in the face? Because, at our core, we know that love transcends self. It’s not just Christian tradition that asserts itself here. A quick review of popular films reveals the same theme. Consider the sacrifices in Band of Brothers, We Were Soldiers, The Dark Knight, Schindler’s List, even Terminator. On the girl side, think Titanic and Twilight. All involve putting your own desires and even life aside for the good of another.
Why this dichotomy? Why do we recognize that love SHOULD be selfless, yet remain trapped in self-interest?
I think it’s because we’ve mistaken human love for what it’s supposed to point to. Yes, love can deliver some of the best life has to offer: companionship, passion, understanding, pleasure, and the rest of the Valentine’s Day adjectives. But inevitably, something breaks down. Love fails, leaves us empty or broken. We become cynical, convinced that romance is just two people using each other, ready to move on as soon as the deal isn’t mutually profitable.
The fact that love cannot completely satisfy—even though it brings great joy—I think points to a far deeper reality. We were created for relationships, not just with each other, but with God. Only he offers the perfect love and faithfulness we crave (even though we may mock it). His love is unconditional, unearned, constant. Why he desires us is a mystery, but he does. We were made for his delight and to delight in him. And love is what he did to win us back. “This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers” (1 John 3:16).
Selfless love happens when we realize we are already loved perfectly. It’s not selfish to desire joy—the problem simply comes from looking in the wrong place. The best of human love offers a stunning picture of God. When we turn from the picture to the artist behind it, only then do we know Love.
As usual, C. S. Lewis says it best:
“We were made for God. Only by being in some respect like Him, only by being a manifestation of His beauty, lovingkindness, wisdom or goodness, has any earthly Beloved excited our love. It is not that we have loved them too much, but that we did not quite understand what we were loving. It is not that we shall be asked [in heaven] to turn from them, so dearly familiar, to a Stranger. When we see the face of God we shall know that we have always known it. He has been a party to, has made, sustained and moved moment by moment within, all our earthly experiences of innocent love. All that was true love in them was, even on earth, far more His than ours, and ours only because His.”
