Quote:
Originally Posted by Original Position
I think it should be pointed out here that the main metaphor for intertheistic love in the New Testament is not between a man and his wife, but between a father and his son. So the Trinitarian love is not conceptualized directly as a sexual love, lessening I think the force of this argument. In fact, in the New Testament the main marriage metaphor is that between the Church and Christ, which is a dualistic and exclusive relationship.
Bolded: I didn't claim it was. Note also, that I'm not arguing on biblical grounds, but take up an argumentative figure by a scholastic theologican, which is standard exam-material for a dogmatics exam these days. Hence, it's not quite as simple as saying: "The NT construes the terms differently, hence it doesn't hold force." Richard doesn't found his concept on an idea of sexual love either, nor, for that matter, on a conception of paternal/parental love. The basic point is that Pure love is non-dyadic (which parental love is, for example).
From a post-Vaticanum II point of view, however, it's hard to see how any conception of Perfect Love cannot include some notion of sexual love too. Be that as it may, this is not what the argument relies on (at least I don't see how it does).
Quote:
For a more direct argument, I would imagine that more conservative Christians would just deny that polyamory is truly a case of loving others. I think more typically in the Christian tradition sex is viewed as an act of selfishness or self-love (Kant also had this view). It only becomes an act of love towards another when also bound up in the promises and commitments of marriage.
This is basically what I called the lame argument: Polyamory is just a way of rationalizing the urge of getting into others pants. True love only exist within marriage and two people.
For one, this fails on empirical grounds (unless you want to claim, for example, that the
Mosuo and other cultures who have non-dyadic man/woman marriage conceptions know no love), for two it also fails on theological grounds - that's the whole idea: Perfect love is not a dyadic relation. (I guess the third alternative is to claim that pure love is indeed dyadic and that Richard was simply wrong to use the notion of love in the first place.)
Last edited by fretelöo; 06-13-2013 at 09:50 AM.