Charity According to St. John of the Cross: A Disinterested Love for Interesting Special Relationships, including Marriage

Journal of Religious Ethics 21 (1):87 - 115 (1993)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

Many moral philosophers and theologians recently have criticized traditional Christian concepts of a pure, self-denying, disinterested love (agape, charity) partly on the grounds that such a love is neither possible nor desirable, especially in special relationships such as marriage. This article draws from the teachings of St. John of the Cross on the theological virtue of charity to argue that such a pure love is both desirable and humanly possible. John holds that charity includes not only God's love, but also the perfection of a natural human love that can be meaningful for secular as well as Christian ethical thinkers. John's disinterested charity requires only an interior loss of desires for friendships and other temporal goods, not the literal sacrifice of these goods; thus, this love can and does support the building of friendships and communion in marriage and other special relationships.

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 90,221

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

Analytics

Added to PP
2011-05-29

Downloads
18 (#708,051)

6 months
1 (#1,027,696)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Citations of this work

The View from Pȏle Nord.Martha J. Reineke - 2023 - Contagion: Journal of Violence, Mimesis, and Culture 30 (1):1-27.

Add more citations

References found in this work

No references found.

Add more references