Eros – Romantic Love Part 2
Published March 14, 2009 | 
Eros is not only a word in Greek used to describe romantic love. In Greek mythology, Eros was the god of love and son of the goddess Aphrodite. He is synonymous with the Roman god Cupid, often depicted as a naked, winged boy with bow and arrow.
Most of us have seen cartoons of such a character firing his arrow into an unwitting guy who is suddenly struck with an insatiable compulsion to seek out the object of love’s spell. The lovestruck suitor loses all self control and is at the mercy of base, animal instincts. It would seem to me that such legend exists because of the incredible strength of sexual desire.
I have to admit, there have been times when the draw to consume pornography or reach sexual release was so great it seemed as if I were on autopilot; practically unable to resist the temptation. Most who find themselves in the pitiable state of addiction to porn or sex will attest to similar loss of self control. It would seem as if something has pierced the heart, driving the compulsion. However, rather than an arrow flung from the bow of some chubby baby, I submit that the piercing results from moral boundaries crossed repeatedly. Decades of choosing to indulge my lust brought me to the place of virtual powerlessness over it. It was no single arrow, but thousands of tiny slices at my heart. The Assassin of Character Creep had done its work well, and I was the assassin.
It is important to redeem the word love, in particular the type of love known as eros. What I have been describing is not love at all. It is lust and nothing more. Eros is not lust, but a God-given desire meant to passionately bind husband and wife together. Eros is like fire: inside of proper boundaries it is beautiful and adds warmth to those huddled around it. Outside of safe boundaries, it is a wild force that destroys everything it comes in contact with.
Studying “The Four Loves” has helped me draw a clearer distinction between eros and lust. One is a God-given love. The other is a selfish impulse better defined as unlove. Which do you think best fits pop culture’s portrayal of romance?
2 Responses to Eros – Romantic Love Part 2
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On the combined topic of eros and intimacy, lust, love, sex, etc. there is a tendency in contemporary life to categorize and isolate human qualities. This might be worth examining. The word used most often is boundaries.
I feel it is worth asking honestly where these boundaries are and why they have been placed there?
I say that because I wonder is it possible for example for there to be a continuum between love and intimacy and lust and self destructiveness rather than a boundary?
I realize that a continuum would make life much more difficult to deal with because it could become nearly impossible to distinguish at any given time exactly where one is in relationship to another person.
So, as difficult as it may be to live in an unbound living reality such a world view might explain something about why, for six billion individual souls, love continues to hurt as well as inspire art and spiritual awakening.
I think your observation is reasonable. It is much easier to wrap things up into tidy little packages. But, life just isn’t that easy is it?
One thing that comes to mind in considering your comment is the notion of love as a divine quality of God (1 John 4:7-8). This being the case (from a Christian world view) love is a transcendent concept which we can only comprehend in part as finite beings attempting to understand the infinite. To that end, all of our definitions will fall short of the totality that is love.
C.S. Lewis in his work, as mentioned in this blog series, is the best work I know of to describe the different facets of love as we understand them. His writing attempts to bring various aspects of what we call love into view so we can get a better understanding of the mosaic that is the quality we call love.
Thought provoking questions, Mark.