What is Love?

[KingandPriest]

This topic is vitally important to those who accept and maintain a belief in Jesus Christ. As such, the topic of love must be understood before one can even attempt to understand or know God.

So in short, I ask:

I. Non-theistic definition of what is love?
or
Theistic definition of what is love?

II. What is the greatest expression of love one can have for another?

[1213]

Theistic definition of what is love?

Bible says:

He who doesn't love doesn't know God, for God is love.
1 John 4:8

We know and have believed the love which God has for us. God is love, and he who remains in love remains in God, and God remains in him.
1 John 4:16

Love doesn't harm a neighbor. Love therefore is the fulfillment of the law.
Romans 13:10

Love is patient and is kind; love doesn't envy. Love doesn't brag, is not proud, doesn't behave itself inappropriately, doesn't seek its own way, is not provoked, takes no account of evil; doesn't rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will be done away with. Where there are various languages, they will cease. Where there is knowledge, it will be done away with.
1 Cor. 13:4-8

And God is Spirit according to the Bible, and so love is spirit. And I think Spirit is like attitude that makes person do certain things. In case of love, it makes person do things that are caring.

God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.
John 4:24

Also this defines love somehow to be actions that show person cares without conditions:

By this we know love, because he laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers.
1 John 3:16 (interesting connection with John 3:16)

II. What is the greatest expression of love one can have for another?

I would say it is to offer own life for others so that they could live.

[KingandPriest]

A follow up question about love. Jesus described two commandments based on love:

Matthew 22:36-40 (NKJV)

36 Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?

37 Jesus said to him, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.[a] 38 This is the first and great commandment. 39 And the second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. 40 On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.

Additional questions for consideration:
1. Does love have additional moral obligations?
2. Can a person perform an action out of duty, and claim it was based on love?

[theophile]

[Replying to post 72 by KingandPriest]

I. Non-theistic definition of what is love?
or
Theistic definition of what is love?

It is to put others first. It is to act first and foremost out of non-self-interest. It is more agape than it is eros.

Put otherwise, it is to value above all else life itself (as Alyosha tells Ivan in the Brothers Karamazov: "love life, then find the meaning of it"). It is to work in the service of life of every kind so that it is supported and can flourish.

II. What is the greatest expression of love one can have for another?

While I would nearly concur with 1213 that it is: "to offer own life for others so that they could live," since this is the essence of love, I might suggest something else as the greatest expression because the hardest..

Harder (and therefore greater?) than giving oneself so that others can live is destroying others so that others can live.

Far harder, I think, for God to look upon the world and wipe out all but one (Noah) out of love so that life can go on than it is for God to give Godself up to the world.

Far easier for a parent to give themselves so that both children can live than it is for a parent to destroy a child who is beyond redemption, and is going to bring everything down through their action...

III. Does love have additional moral obligations?

I think it would be wrong to translate love into a set of obligations, as if what love demands of us could be so defined.

Love means discerning in the moment, every moment, what the needs of life are. In 7x70 instances it may be turning the other cheek. In another instance it may be destroying that which strikes us...

Turning the demands of love into obligations is the error, I think, that Israel made, wanting clear rules to follow that would guarantee the promise. That is not how it works, and would ultimately put us in the confines of a world that would limit life (and as such be against the interests of life, and therefore love, which is why Jesus pushes back so hard against the legalism of his day).

IV. Can a person perform an action out of duty, and claim it was based on love?

They can claim whatever they want. Doesn't make it so. That said, there is not a necessary conflict between duty and love. But "duty," followed strictly, will go against the interests of life at some point, just like following laws will (even laws derived from love).