What is love? Oh, baby, don't hurt me.

Love.

This essence has been written about, sung about, talked about, or experienced by every human being who has existed.  Such universality of usage should clearly preclude much consideration of it, yet it seems that most people simply avoid love, or alternately focus on one piece of it.

I intend to address it as fully as I can.  First, to ensure that my understanding of it is as complete as it can be; and second, to seek further insights from people with a different perspective than I.

Love, as I understand it, consists of three different definitions.... three aspects, perhaps.  The qualities that define each aspect from the other are experiential in nature primarily, but also could be considered in the manner of expression.  Oddly enough, the triune nature of love seems to reflect the triune nature of God as well.

I will describe the three facets of love as I had them described to me once, many years ago, using some of the Greek words for love.  The three types of love are, agápē (ah-gah-peh), philía (fil-eh-ah), and érōs (err-oce).  For anyone familiar with Ancient Greek, you will probably know where I am about to go.


Agápē

The first type of love is agápē, meaning "wide open" in a literal translational sense in the English language, but is most often contextualized in Ancient Greek writing with a love that is "divine, unconditional, self-sacrificing, active, volitional, and thoughtful." (1)  Agape-type love is often associated with Christian theology as well, since the word agápē was used frequently throughout the New Testament to describe love.  This is what I will refer to as "true love", for this is what I believe is the most pure form of love known to mankind.

What are the properties of true love though?  How does it act?  How does it influence people's thought and actions?

The description above lists divine, unconditional, self-sacrificing, active, volitional and thoughtful, as the primary attributes of love.

The divine aspect is most likely related to the mention of agápē in the Bible.  I think that this is an apt description of at least the divine nature of the Christian God, but perhaps not an appropriate descriptor of the gods of other religions.

The unconditional aspect implies that true love is without strings attached.  Unconditionality seems to be a rare trait in modern times.  Conditionality implies that there is an escape clause, or something that offers an individual or organization liberality from responsibility to an implied agreement.  Upon further contemplation, I cannot think of a single agreement in modern times that is truly and completely unconditional.  Even marriage, which is held to be sacred, in some circles, is supposed to be designed around an unconditional agreement; and yet even in the Bible, one finds an exception for this agreement.  So if unconditionality is indeed an inherent property of true love, than I believe most of humanity is disqualified from experiencing true love, as least on a lateral human level.

The unconditionality aspect may also refer to the application of free will in a loving relationship.  In order for love to exist, the lover must give complete, unconditional affection regardless of the actions of the loved.  One can, of course, choose to stop loving a person or entity, but the act of love requires an acquiescence of the actions of the loved regardless of the lover's own view on the actions.  An example would be a parent loving their child, disagreeing with their life choices, but are unable to affect it for loving them.

Self-sacrifice is another quality that is oft overlooked in modern Western society.  Self-sacrifice is considered forgoing rights, privileges, or resources to another human for the purpose of good-will.   It seems self-evident to me that self-sacrifice should be an inherent quality of true love.

"Active" is a curious word to use in describing love.  Active implies that the originator of the love is bound to act upon this decision.  Upon further thought, it does seem that all examples of what is commonly considered love is very active.  Perhaps the passive form of true love would be simply considered "good will."  As such, I believe that this is an important qualifier to distinguish.

"Volitional" is a word not often used, but it also is a very important distinction from the other facets of love.  Volitional means that love is an act of the will.  It is not a feeling or a "warm-fuzzy".  I think this is an often missed quality of true love in modern society.  Love is a decision.  By definition then, it is possible to love someone and hate them at the same time, assuming that hate is purely an emotion and not the lack of love.  Volitionality implies action as well, which further reinforces the active nature of love.

Thoughtfulness seems like an extraneous attribute to be using, if one has already included volitional in the description of love, but it really is a slightly different shade of meaning.  The word "volitional" implies that love is the actual deciding, while "thoughtful" implies active consideration of the actions involved in love.  I suppose a good way to interpret this would be "pre-meditated good will".


Philía

This love is a less fundamental and thus a less powerful form of love.  It is also a far more common form of love, perhaps because it requires much less intentional involvement.  Philía-type love is often referred to as "brotherly love" or describes the love between good friends.

I tend to think that some of the characteristics of this type of love are: active, volitional, thoughtful and intuitive.

The first three attributes are addressed above, but the intuitive one, is something that I think would be unique to brotherly love.

Intuition implies that you have a deep understanding of the other person in a loving friendship, such that the lover and feel the emotion of the loved without any verbal communication.  I have seen or experienced this type of interaction even devoid of the means of body linguistic communication.


Érōs

"Eros also called marital love, is passionate love, with sensual desire and longing." (2)

I think this type of love is fairly self-explanatory.  I haven't had much experience with this type of love and am not in as much of a position to comment intelligently on it.


General Conclusion


It seems like a beneficial act to consider what love is, and how it affects our daily lives.  It often appears in media and news that the erotic form of love is the only form of love that our modern society recognizes.

Maybe this is why so many marriages fall apart these days...  hard to say.

1 - Wikipedia - Agape - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agape
2 - Wikipedia - Eros - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eros_(concept)