Can Love Replace Law?
Antwerp
CAN LOVE REPLACE LAW?
Speech by
David Arthur Walters
Jocelyn Maerkian declined my invitation to attend the Antwerp conference, 'Can Love replace Law?', because of a previous engagement. I was disappointed that she could not attend. Her contributions as a fine person and a theologian would be of interest to those who are here this weekend. She did email a simple answer to the title of our conference, "Can Love Replace Law?"
"The law of the universe IS love so it is one and the same."
I asked her to elaborate.
"It is the law that governs the universe. With love he gave us his life that we may live again."
The many atheists here today might be tempted to dismiss Dr. Maerkian's expression of faith as incapable of proof and impertinent to the contingencies and exigencies of actual life. Nevertheless, if we meditate on her expression for awhile, we can find at least some mystical comfort in it. And, an analytical examination might reveal that it appertains to pragmatic existence.
I assume that the god whose law is love in this case is the one and only god. He is a person, namely, the first person. If there were a single original person in the beginning, then his will would be uncontested by other persons: he could do no right or wrong: he would be beyond good and evil. His love would be his will would be his life. That is to say, love, law, will, and life, are identical and have a single purpose: eternal existence.
Moreover, his love is the law of lawlessness in that it is unimpeded by resistance. In other words, his love is energy unlimited by matter.
Now I know many of you believe 'god' is a fictitious projection of man's will to power, or to overpower his fear and relative helplessness. If a man is made in the image of his projected almighty god, then he has a replicated portion of that god as his essential freedom, a portion of life willing to endure against all obstacles; and that will is, just as is god's will, his unity as an individual. Or, in other words, the individual is a first person akin to god, the capitalized First Person. Many astute observers noticed and mourned the waning of first-person usage in literature shortly after the capitalized First Person allegedly died. Said literature was the epitaph for the diminution of individuality to statistical dust, insignificant except as a minute speck of the huge mass, just another little binary switch to trip to Yes or No. As the importance of the object or mass grew, that of the subject diminished, lost in shadowy phenomena. Today, any one who dares to persistently assert the importance, integrity, and unity of the subjective individual is said to be narcissistic, egotistical, hysterical, selfish, subjective, and so on; of course, in our objectivist society, those terms are pejorative. To those add other oppressive terms such as paranoid, proud, vain, arrogant, et cetera. Most importantly, not only is subjectivism unscientific, it is just plain wrong.
As Dr. Peterson pointed out a few minutes ago, it is self-evident why anyone who relies on his god instead of reasoning as his ultimate answer to the basic existential questions appears to be radically arrogant towards "politically correct, equalized, liberalized, atomized people." In fact, the man of faith despite his profession of humility appears to have set himself up as god almighty, his own chief justice and supreme arbiter so to speak. Now I think we should keep in mind here that what is really at stake is for him a matter of life or death and not of sophisticated dialectics. He is being pushed into an existential corner. Therefore be careful of the dragon.
Now I for one can rejoice at the meaninglessness of life on Earth and I can worship Nothing - that term is not for everyone. I happen to be overjoyed by the grandeur of my insignificance. Yet, in the final analysis, we all will to live and we are all being pushed to an extremity, to disintegrative un-self-consciousness. Therefore be aware of the nature of love and its natural tendency to explode into hate when oppressed. People who speak much of love are often those who are not getting or giving any. The slightest innocuous remark can send them into a hateful spiral. And sometimes society behaves as a collective first person. Therefore, do be aware. Beware, for, as they say, "The the Last Day is nigh."
When Swedenborg was asked about love on Earth, "What is Love?" he gave the answer, "Love is your life." The law of life and love is to endure. That does not mean someone will not sacrifice their life for another, either because she would endure symbolically or because she draws no difference between herself and the one she would save - Morgan spoke of that yesterday, in regards to what he called species love. As for my own first person, when I recently suffered the tragic loss of my beloved, I remembered Swedenborg's statement, and ask myself, "Whom do I really love?" Of course I love myself; I am the one in pain. In the pain of my separate existence, I had in part merged with another and in that union lost my selfish identity, but that very will to unity was selfish, and when redemption from diremption (torn asunder) was refused, I suffered from self-love. Of course many of you will disagree with my self-analysis, and I leave you with your own grief with my heartfelt condolences.
Still, I do see in love a law, that love proceeds from self-love and is the law of life - that self is of course not individuated in the infant, and even in the adult it seldom reaches true identity. However that may be, it certainly is not difficult to understand the natural appeal of the saying, 'Love thy neighbor as thyself.' The saying asks for a gradual return to the real self one once knew. It is a wonder that it is not inscribed as one of the first five of the variously numbered commandments.
Yet the problem arises: there are many whose self-love takes the from of self-hate, and they would mistakenly do much to destroy their neighbor. They do not enjoy life without pain. A masochist, when asked to do unto others as he would have them do unto him, would love them sadistically! But excuse me, I digress to aberrations and pathology, and to that subject we love to hate, original sin.
Yes, indeed, Ladies and Gentlemen. Here on Earth, where particulars exist, there are disturbing relations and relative goods and evils according to the various general evaluations of social groups. Absent those evaluations internalized, or the social conscience introjected into the individual psyche, each individual is a god in his god's image. Ah, but gods can be devils, demons can be good or evil. Still, since there is no human law on Earth unless man makes it so, each individual is not originally sinful but is, as a god, innocent. When the individual's moral dignity and integrity of character are demolished; when he is stripped down to a mere cipher of consumption; when life becomes a knee-jerk opinion poll instead of a deliberative process; the fat lady is about to sing a song of doom. Now, then, after examining my Dr. Maerkian's dogmatic expression, it appears to me that we may indeed find our confidence in the supreme unconditional love, in god, or in another name for the socialist ideal. Nevertheless, we are still left, in order to survive, with the task of law-making on this Earth in order to preserve that love which is life. For love is your life and mine too, and our expressions of love might often conflict. It appears to me that however lawless love may be at its inception, it doubles back on itself to preserve its project. Of course, I have stated the foregoing not as law, but as a proposition that, when amply considered, will shed more light on our leading question, 'Can Love Replace Law?"
Sept, 2003
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