Perfect agape is philia love that is limitless. If philia is mutually shared joy, then perfect agape would be joy that is experienced amongst and with all people. However, Sponville asks, "Of all the living beings we know, how many bring joy or bring us enough joy to overcome our own egoism?" (268). Indeed, an aspect of perfect philia is a decentering of the self. Since we have joy in another's existence, take the risk of loving another completely by opening ourselves up to another (for joy from philia love is "transparent" and requires that one understand, know, and adapt to what is real, rather than desired), we have given ourselves up. And yet, even this sacrifice comes back to the self. As Sponville says, "And why do we love our friends, if not because they love us and because we love ourselves?" (268). In other words, the friends that we have and choose to love have been chosen because they have something to do with us - they bring us joy and we love them in return. Even if that friend does nothing for us directly, if his or her existence brings us joy, that joy is something that we receive from them and urges us to maintain that friendship. This philia and friendship still allow us to decenter ourselves because although receiving joy gets us into a friendship, being immersed in the life of others takes the focus off of us. The joy we receive from that friendship is really a culmination of giving and receiving.
Most people make a distinction between their friends and everybody else. With agape, that distinction is gone. I like Sponville's conccept of agape as love that becomes "permanent and chronic" (285). In friendships, we see ourselves in them and receive joy. However, because of the constraints of fear, egoism, prejudice, or time, we fail to see ourselves in everybody. Indeed, we probably do not have time to look for ourselves in everybody. Sponville solves this problem by describing agape as the love that creates value and worth rather than making one look for it. This love is " 'spontaneous'" and "generates that value" (281). "We do not love something because it is lovable, it is lovable because we love it" (281). This is a very interesting concept and new way of thinking about love. Rather than making love something you see in somebody else, love is an excellence, a virtue, that enables one to see everyone as someone whom you love. Everyone has the capacity to bring joy, and one will take that risk of philia and love them. You derive joy from everyone else, and life itself is a joyful experience. Love is a state, a way of seeing people and the world. However, this love is more than a state, for philia love is "active." Agape love would be active philia love that is shared amongst every person, a process of giving and receiving joy from everyone. Sponville seems to support this with the following statements: "charity only begins with philia" and "charity, then, would be a very wide friendship" (280). Sponville states philia is only the start of charity, or agape. I would think this is because one must learn to love and share joy selflessly with friends before one can transfer that same love to everyone.
Sponville states that part of agape is taking "steps back…to give you more room, to avoid crowding you, invading you, or crushing you…the weaker he feels you are, the more freedom he gives you" (276). Sponville differentiates philia and agape, saying that philia is "a joyous and expansive capacity…a shared affirmation" whereas agape is "is withdrawal and gentleness, the thoughtfulness of existing less." (277). I would say that one becomes less and steps back to the extent that is needed for the other to realize he or she can be "real" and be a "friend" in that person's presence. In other words, you are inviting that person to come out and become who he or she really is, which is what ideal friends are in front of other friends. Agape is giving the world the opportunity for philia. However, I disagree with Simone Weil that this stepping back makes agape weak. Even love has to abide by truth - in other words, love has to maintain the essence of its own definition. Someone who is showing apage love may appear weak because he or she is not forcefully exerting him- or herself. However, they are not weak in the respect of being cowardly and feeble, for they will act in the defense of others.
Lastly, Sponville stated in the beginning of the chapter that the person who loves is already just, courageous, and merciful. "Love commits us to morality and frees us from it" (290). I think he is saying that love contains all other virtues. When love is shown, all these other virtues are also being shown. I agree with Sponville that the virtues find their highest fulfillment in agape, and agape places each virtue within the context of other people, rather than the self. A person who loves with joy and selflessness will be courageous when he or she needs to defend another, and a person who loves others, even his or her enemies, will refuse to hate another and will forgive them. It is not humanly possible to love everyone and step back to everyone - we do not have the time nor the abilities. We need to try to love whenever and wherever we can, but we cannot reach everyone directly. Furthermore, the essence of love, joy, warns against us feeling resentment and self-guilt over this truth. We can only do so much, but whatever we can do, do it with the maximum amount of love. Additionally, one's love can be spread indirectly through the actions people see and the actions they remember well after we are dead. Likewise, we should not try to open ourselves up to everyone freely - if love includes prudence, then even love itself does not condone this. If we step back too much out of love for another, we may be allow him or her to injure us or someone else.
However, I believe that the state of experiencing joy through life and through all people is humanly possible. It is possible to smile at people, to talk to people, to treat all people as if they were a community of friends.
"This love that is neither want nor capacity, neither passion nor friendship, this universal and disinterested love that would have us love even our enemies, is what the Greek of the Scriptures calls agape." (270) This is the love that I’ve been referring to all along—a universal love; a love for everyone, despite who they are or what they have done; a flawless love, for God is love. God is agape. We are called to be a reflection of this perfect love on a broken Earth.
Jesus commands, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” As Comte-Sponville suggests, self-love always comes first. As humans, by default, we prize our own lives above those of others, however, in order to be a reflection of Christ, we must be self-sacrificial, loving others just as much as, if not more than, we love ourselves. Expressing agape, or perfect love, to everyone seems nearly impossible. It is something that we must work toward, but I definitely feel that it is obtainable. Though a deep agape love is not always necessary, especially for those that you will never encounter in your life, I feel that we can still express a certain level of agape love to everyone—a love with no selfish ambition, a pure love for humankind. Needless to say, however, we are not God, therefore, we are not perfect and will never spotlessly reflect his love.
"When we do love, however, the other virtues follow spontaneously, as though naturally, so much so that they can cease to be specific virtues or specifically moral virtues! (266) When we begin to grasp agape love for a child or a partner or a friend or a neighbor or a stranger, virtues no longer become a strict set of rules. As C-S suggests, the virtues will simply happen. On behalf of our love, we will act courageously. Toward our love, we will practice patience. The virtues are love, an expression of love. However, as mentioned above and as C-S states, "For Epicurus, too, "all friendship is desirable in itself," in other words, a virtue, from which all the others arise or would if we knew how to practice it fully." (266) As imperfect humans, we cannot always practice agape love. At times, it may be out of our grasp to express agape toward everyone, therefore we must, "Act as though [we] love." (266) Furthermore, even though we have agape love for someone or for everyone, we may sometimes lack the capacity to express this love fully and may falter in regards to our virtues. For humanity, agape is the goal, but agape is the exception. We must recognize that only God is agape. We must strive daily to reflect his perfect love, but must also love ourselves enough (and have the humility) to recognize that we aren’t agape as he.
Throughout this study of the virtues, I have reconfirmed my belief that love is the reigning virtue, hailing high above the rest. If we have love, we carry all of the virtues with us, though they slip out of our hands from time to time. As we strive to make good decisions, let agape be our goal. Let virtues be our fall back.
Agape, the last of our "types" of love, seems to be the strongest, most powerful kind to me. I agree with Michael in that even though others like Simon Weil might see agape as weak, I believe it is the opposite. By stepping back from our own boldness and selfishness and allowing others to be truly who they are in our presence, and to love them for all of encompassing features of who they truly are takes more strength than any of the other forms of love. By withdrawing and being gentle, as Comte-Sponville points out, we allow others to more freely and deeply express who they are. By "existing less" we allow them to exist more, and what could be more selfless and loving than that?-to allow another to fully express him or herself, while knowing he or she accepted and embraced for all the parts which make up his/her whole. The greatest example in my own life of this love is my relationship with Jesus Christ, because while I struggle and fail in many ways, I know that He loves me all the while and that love is eternal and immovable.
I also really enjoy the idea of this type of love as a sort of "freedom from morality." I feel that in my own experience, when I try to think about or practice any of the virtues individually, it's very thought-laborious and sometimes impersonal. I would be trying to practice the virtue for the sake of "being a better person" or simply practicing the virtue. Love is different. When you have a love for someone individually, or humanity on a whole, your actions involve multiple virtues without a thought given any specific one of them. Because I love my mom, I can be generous, polite, honest, and compassionate at the same time without thinking about why/how I am expressing those virtues. Love frees us from the chains of laboring over morality, but bonds us to the actions and fruits that come with morality.
Agape love is probably the type of love I have heard most about because of my time in Church and its appearance in the Bible. Therefore, I associate this type of love with an unconditional (regardless of what a person does, says, acts like, etc.) "feeling" (for lack of a better word) toward and commitment to another person, as God has toward us. I may not always like (or even know how) a person is acting, but I can always feel a loving companionship toward him/her, and a connection that inspires me to act virtuously toward him/her.
"When we do love, however, the other virtues follow spontaneously, as though naturally, so much so that they can cease to be specific virtues or specifically moral virtues" (C-S 266). As we have been talking about and waiting for all along, Comte-Sponville makes his point: if you truly love, all other virtues will follow. Love is the culmination of all other virtues, and all virtues lead to love. C-S uses the example of a mother's love for her child. She loves her child more than her own self; this is an unconditional love and she would give her life to save the child's. C-S says that such unconditional love is difficult to find, yet it is sometimes present, especially when it comes to parents' love for their children.
He goes on to discuss that self-love comes first, and we love our friends, children, family, etc. for the reason that they are OURS. We escape egoism only through self-love, which C-S says we can never escape. "By this account, love would be the virtue that is noblest in its effects but also poorest, narrowest, and most restrictive in its possible objects" (268). I found this to be a very interesting statement, but I think it makes sense. This possibly goes against one of our ongoing debates in class, though. Is it possible to love everything? I think that according to C-S' point here, it is not. We only love what is ours, due to self-love which is ever present. However, I think on the flip side there are some people capable of rising above self-love and loving all people, i.e. Jesus, Mother Theresa, etc. Those are lofty examples, but I think that just shows that such a thing is possible.
This is where agape love enters the equation. "Agape is divine love, if God exists, and perhaps is even more divine if God does not exist" (270). He goes on to compare this sort of love to that of Christ and the martyrs. And returning to the discussion of couples and love, he approaches the subject from the agape point of view. "You will be loved the day when you will be able to show your weakness without the person using it to assert his strength" (Pavese). According to C-S, this is the rarest and most miraculous form of love. He compares agape to charity. "[. . .] [C]harity is like love freed of the injustice of desire (eros) and friendship (philia), hence it is like a universal love, without preference or choice, a dilection without predilection, a love without limits and even devoid of egoistical or affective justifications" (284). Agape is truly perfect love.
I ended up writing my final paper on the concept of love, and especially how the three forms relate to one another. The following are my thoughts on Agape:
Eros and philia, while virtuous and certainly types of love, are insufficient in themselves, even when considered together. If they were all that existed, Comte-Sponville states that, “…love would be the virtue that is noblest in its effects but also poorest, narrowest, and most restrictive in its possible objects” (268). We cannot control what we desire, and it would be useless to try; we also cannot force ourselves into friendships. If humanity was only capable of experiencing eros and philia alone, love would be restricted to an incredibly narrow scope. But what of the old maxim “love thy neighbor?” And how is it possible that parents are capable of experiencing a sort of unconditional love for their children, despite the fact that the love is oftentimes free of any sort of desire or even joy? Agape explains both of these instances; as Comte-Sponville says, it is “This love that is neither want nor capacity, neither passion nor friendship, this universal and disinterested love that would have us love even our enemies…” (270). I feel, however, that we must be wary of the term “disinterested” as it applies to agape; while it has a connotation that implies “without care,” agape is disinterested only insofar as anything can be its object. Comte-Sponville emphasizes the point that agape is especially unique from eros and philia in the sense that its object can be anything, regardless of whether or not we perceive it to be good or to have value. Through agape, people and objects acquire value when they are loved; they are not loved because they are valued. “This capacity to generate value, Nietzsche says, is the power of desire to make treasures and jewels out of all esteemed things. It is the power of love as well, indeed it is love’s peculiar power” (281). Specifically, it is the power of agape.
How can we accomplish agape? Attempting to put into practice the love that we perceive God to have for His creations is certainly a daunting task, and can’t realistically be accomplished. Comte-Sponville presents the human fulfillment of agape as charity. “…charity is like love freed of the injustice of desire (eros) and friendship (philia), hence it is like a universal love, without preference or choice…” (284). The only way in which we can express love toward our neighbors (those in whom we are disinterested) and our enemies (those whom we hate) is through charity, which binds mankind together in a form of universal love. Comte-Sponville makes an interesting inference about charity when he discusses it alongside the two other traditional theological virtues, faith and hope (287). The object of both faith and hope is God Himself; if we follow traditional Christian thought, it can be said that there would be no more need for faith and hope in heaven. Charity, however, represents the purest form of love that we will experience in heaven; a love in which all beings accept one another and achieve ultimate fulfillment. “…and so it is said that charity alone “will endure”: in the kingdom of God there will be only love, without hope and without faith” (288). Agape is thus the summit of all virtue and, if perfect, is sufficient in itself.
Perfect agape is philia love that is limitless. If philia is mutually shared joy, then perfect agape would be joy that is experienced amongst and with all people. However, Sponville asks, "Of all the living beings we know, how many bring joy or bring us enough joy to overcome our own egoism?" (268). Indeed, an aspect of perfect philia is a decentering of the self. Since we have joy in another's existence, take the risk of loving another completely by opening ourselves up to another (for joy from philia love is "transparent" and requires that one understand, know, and adapt to what is real, rather than desired), we have given ourselves up. And yet, even this sacrifice comes back to the self. As Sponville says, "And why do we love our friends, if not because they love us and because we love ourselves?" (268). In other words, the friends that we have and choose to love have been chosen because they have something to do with us - they bring us joy and we love them in return. Even if that friend does nothing for us directly, if his or her existence brings us joy, that joy is something that we receive from them and urges us to maintain that friendship. This philia and friendship still allow us to decenter ourselves because although receiving joy gets us into a friendship, being immersed in the life of others takes the focus off of us. The joy we receive from that friendship is really a culmination of giving and receiving.
ReplyDeleteMost people make a distinction between their friends and everybody else. With agape, that distinction is gone. I like Sponville's conccept of agape as love that becomes "permanent and chronic" (285). In friendships, we see ourselves in them and receive joy. However, because of the constraints of fear, egoism, prejudice, or time, we fail to see ourselves in everybody. Indeed, we probably do not have time to look for ourselves in everybody. Sponville solves this problem by describing agape as the love that creates value and worth rather than making one look for it. This love is " 'spontaneous'" and "generates that value" (281). "We do not love something because it is lovable, it is lovable because we love it" (281). This is a very interesting concept and new way of thinking about love. Rather than making love something you see in somebody else, love is an excellence, a virtue, that enables one to see everyone as someone whom you love. Everyone has the capacity to bring joy, and one will take that risk of philia and love them. You derive joy from everyone else, and life itself is a joyful experience. Love is a state, a way of seeing people and the world. However, this love is more than a state, for philia love is "active." Agape love would be active philia love that is shared amongst every person, a process of giving and receiving joy from everyone. Sponville seems to support this with the following statements: "charity only begins with philia" and "charity, then, would be a very wide friendship" (280). Sponville states philia is only the start of charity, or agape. I would think this is because one must learn to love and share joy selflessly with friends before one can transfer that same love to everyone.
Sponville states that part of agape is taking "steps back…to give you more room, to avoid crowding you, invading you, or crushing you…the weaker he feels you are, the more freedom he gives you" (276). Sponville differentiates philia and agape, saying that philia is "a joyous and expansive capacity…a shared affirmation" whereas agape is "is withdrawal and gentleness, the thoughtfulness of existing less." (277). I would say that one becomes less and steps back to the extent that is needed for the other to realize he or she can be "real" and be a "friend" in that person's presence. In other words, you are inviting that person to come out and become who he or she really is, which is what ideal friends are in front of other friends. Agape is giving the world the opportunity for philia. However, I disagree with Simone Weil that this stepping back makes agape weak. Even love has to abide by truth - in other words, love has to maintain the essence of its own definition. Someone who is showing apage love may appear weak because he or she is not forcefully exerting him- or herself. However, they are not weak in the respect of being cowardly and feeble, for they will act in the defense of others.
ReplyDeleteLastly, Sponville stated in the beginning of the chapter that the person who loves is already just, courageous, and merciful. "Love commits us to morality and frees us from it" (290). I think he is saying that love contains all other virtues. When love is shown, all these other virtues are also being shown. I agree with Sponville that the virtues find their highest fulfillment in agape, and agape places each virtue within the context of other people, rather than the self. A person who loves with joy and selflessness will be courageous when he or she needs to defend another, and a person who loves others, even his or her enemies, will refuse to hate another and will forgive them. It is not humanly possible to love everyone and step back to everyone - we do not have the time nor the abilities. We need to try to love whenever and wherever we can, but we cannot reach everyone directly. Furthermore, the essence of love, joy, warns against us feeling resentment and self-guilt over this truth. We can only do so much, but whatever we can do, do it with the maximum amount of love. Additionally, one's love can be spread indirectly through the actions people see and the actions they remember well after we are dead. Likewise, we should not try to open ourselves up to everyone freely - if love includes prudence, then even love itself does not condone this. If we step back too much out of love for another, we may be allow him or her to injure us or someone else.
However, I believe that the state of experiencing joy through life and through all people is humanly possible. It is possible to smile at people, to talk to people, to treat all people as if they were a community of friends.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDelete"This love that is neither want nor capacity, neither passion nor friendship, this universal and disinterested love that would have us love even our enemies, is what the Greek of the Scriptures calls agape." (270) This is the love that I’ve been referring to all along—a universal love; a love for everyone, despite who they are or what they have done; a flawless love, for God is love. God is agape. We are called to be a reflection of this perfect love on a broken Earth.
ReplyDeleteJesus commands, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” As Comte-Sponville suggests, self-love always comes first. As humans, by default, we prize our own lives above those of others, however, in order to be a reflection of Christ, we must be self-sacrificial, loving others just as much as, if not more than, we love ourselves. Expressing agape, or perfect love, to everyone seems nearly impossible. It is something that we must work toward, but I definitely feel that it is obtainable. Though a deep agape love is not always necessary, especially for those that you will never encounter in your life, I feel that we can still express a certain level of agape love to everyone—a love with no selfish ambition, a pure love for humankind. Needless to say, however, we are not God, therefore, we are not perfect and will never spotlessly reflect his love.
"When we do love, however, the other virtues follow spontaneously, as though naturally, so much so that they can cease to be specific virtues or specifically moral virtues! (266) When we begin to grasp agape love for a child or a partner or a friend or a neighbor or a stranger, virtues no longer become a strict set of rules. As C-S suggests, the virtues will simply happen. On behalf of our love, we will act courageously. Toward our love, we will practice patience. The virtues are love, an expression of love. However, as mentioned above and as C-S states, "For Epicurus, too, "all friendship is desirable in itself," in other words, a virtue, from which all the others arise or would if we knew how to practice it fully." (266) As imperfect humans, we cannot always practice agape love. At times, it may be out of our grasp to express agape toward everyone, therefore we must, "Act as though [we] love." (266) Furthermore, even though we have agape love for someone or for everyone, we may sometimes lack the capacity to express this love fully and may falter in regards to our virtues. For humanity, agape is the goal, but agape is the exception. We must recognize that only God is agape. We must strive daily to reflect his perfect love, but must also love ourselves enough (and have the humility) to recognize that we aren’t agape as he.
Throughout this study of the virtues, I have reconfirmed my belief that love is the reigning virtue, hailing high above the rest. If we have love, we carry all of the virtues with us, though they slip out of our hands from time to time. As we strive to make good decisions, let agape be our goal. Let virtues be our fall back.
Agape, the last of our "types" of love, seems to be the strongest, most powerful kind to me. I agree with Michael in that even though others like Simon Weil might see agape as weak, I believe it is the opposite. By stepping back from our own boldness and selfishness and allowing others to be truly who they are in our presence, and to love them for all of encompassing features of who they truly are takes more strength than any of the other forms of love. By withdrawing and being gentle, as Comte-Sponville points out, we allow others to more freely and deeply express who they are. By "existing less" we allow them to exist more, and what could be more selfless and loving than that?-to allow another to fully express him or herself, while knowing he or she accepted and embraced for all the parts which make up his/her whole. The greatest example in my own life of this love is my relationship with Jesus Christ, because while I struggle and fail in many ways, I know that He loves me all the while and that love is eternal and immovable.
ReplyDeleteI also really enjoy the idea of this type of love as a sort of "freedom from morality." I feel that in my own experience, when I try to think about or practice any of the virtues individually, it's very thought-laborious and sometimes impersonal. I would be trying to practice the virtue for the sake of "being a better person" or simply practicing the virtue. Love is different. When you have a love for someone individually, or humanity on a whole, your actions involve multiple virtues without a thought given any specific one of them. Because I love my mom, I can be generous, polite, honest, and compassionate at the same time without thinking about why/how I am expressing those virtues. Love frees us from the chains of laboring over morality, but bonds us to the actions and fruits that come with morality.
Agape love is probably the type of love I have heard most about because of my time in Church and its appearance in the Bible. Therefore, I associate this type of love with an unconditional (regardless of what a person does, says, acts like, etc.) "feeling" (for lack of a better word) toward and commitment to another person, as God has toward us. I may not always like (or even know how) a person is acting, but I can always feel a loving companionship toward him/her, and a connection that inspires me to act virtuously toward him/her.
"When we do love, however, the other virtues follow spontaneously, as though naturally, so much so that they can cease to be specific virtues or specifically moral virtues" (C-S 266). As we have been talking about and waiting for all along, Comte-Sponville makes his point: if you truly love, all other virtues will follow. Love is the culmination of all other virtues, and all virtues lead to love. C-S uses the example of a mother's love for her child. She loves her child more than her own self; this is an unconditional love and she would give her life to save the child's. C-S says that such unconditional love is difficult to find, yet it is sometimes present, especially when it comes to parents' love for their children.
ReplyDeleteHe goes on to discuss that self-love comes first, and we love our friends, children, family, etc. for the reason that they are OURS. We escape egoism only through self-love, which C-S says we can never escape. "By this account, love would be the virtue that is noblest in its effects but also poorest, narrowest, and most restrictive in its possible objects" (268). I found this to be a very interesting statement, but I think it makes sense. This possibly goes against one of our ongoing debates in class, though. Is it possible to love everything? I think that according to C-S' point here, it is not. We only love what is ours, due to self-love which is ever present. However, I think on the flip side there are some people capable of rising above self-love and loving all people, i.e. Jesus, Mother Theresa, etc. Those are lofty examples, but I think that just shows that such a thing is possible.
This is where agape love enters the equation. "Agape is divine love, if God exists, and perhaps is even more divine if God does not exist" (270). He goes on to compare this sort of love to that of Christ and the martyrs. And returning to the discussion of couples and love, he approaches the subject from the agape point of view. "You will be loved the day when you will be able to show your weakness without the person using it to assert his strength" (Pavese). According to C-S, this is the rarest and most miraculous form of love. He compares agape to charity. "[. . .] [C]harity is like love freed of the injustice of desire (eros) and friendship (philia), hence it is like a universal love, without preference or choice, a dilection without predilection, a love without limits and even devoid of egoistical or affective justifications" (284). Agape is truly perfect love.
I ended up writing my final paper on the concept of love, and especially how the three forms relate to one another. The following are my thoughts on Agape:
ReplyDeleteEros and philia, while virtuous and certainly types of love, are insufficient in themselves, even when considered together. If they were all that existed, Comte-Sponville states that, “…love would be the virtue that is noblest in its effects but also poorest, narrowest, and most restrictive in its possible objects” (268). We cannot control what we desire, and it would be useless to try; we also cannot force ourselves into friendships. If humanity was only capable of experiencing eros and philia alone, love would be restricted to an incredibly narrow scope. But what of the old maxim “love thy neighbor?” And how is it possible that parents are capable of experiencing a sort of unconditional love for their children, despite the fact that the love is oftentimes free of any sort of desire or even joy? Agape explains both of these instances; as Comte-Sponville says, it is “This love that is neither want nor capacity, neither passion nor friendship, this universal and disinterested love that would have us love even our enemies…” (270). I feel, however, that we must be wary of the term “disinterested” as it applies to agape; while it has a connotation that implies “without care,” agape is disinterested only insofar as anything can be its object. Comte-Sponville emphasizes the point that agape is especially unique from eros and philia in the sense that its object can be anything, regardless of whether or not we perceive it to be good or to have value. Through agape, people and objects acquire value when they are loved; they are not loved because they are valued. “This capacity to generate value, Nietzsche says, is the power of desire to make treasures and jewels out of all esteemed things. It is the power of love as well, indeed it is love’s peculiar power” (281). Specifically, it is the power of agape.
How can we accomplish agape? Attempting to put into practice the love that we perceive God to have for His creations is certainly a daunting task, and can’t realistically be accomplished. Comte-Sponville presents the human fulfillment of agape as charity. “…charity is like love freed of the injustice of desire (eros) and friendship (philia), hence it is like a universal love, without preference or choice…” (284). The only way in which we can express love toward our neighbors (those in whom we are disinterested) and our enemies (those whom we hate) is through charity, which binds mankind together in a form of universal love. Comte-Sponville makes an interesting inference about charity when he discusses it alongside the two other traditional theological virtues, faith and hope (287). The object of both faith and hope is God Himself; if we follow traditional Christian thought, it can be said that there would be no more need for faith and hope in heaven. Charity, however, represents the purest form of love that we will experience in heaven; a love in which all beings accept one another and achieve ultimate fulfillment. “…and so it is said that charity alone “will endure”: in the kingdom of God there will be only love, without hope and without faith” (288). Agape is thus the summit of all virtue and, if perfect, is sufficient in itself.