Philosophy
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Is Gift Love (aka Altruism or Charity) the

Greatest Moral Challenge for Human Nature?

I was taught when I was young that if people would only love one another, all would be well with the world. This seemed simple and very nice; but I found when I tried to put it in practice not only that other people were seldom lovable, but that I was not very lovable myself.... you will find yourself making friends with people whose opinions are the very opposite to your own, whilst you cannot bear the sight of others who share all your beliefs. You may love your dog and find your nearest relatives detestable. So don’t waste your time arguing whether you ought to love all you neighbours. You can’t help yourself; and neither can they.

George Bernard Shaw (from a broadcast to sixth forms in 1937)

It is obviously impossible to love all men in any strict and true sense. What is meant by loving all men, is to feel well disposed towards all men, to be ready to assist them, and to act towards those who come in our way as if we loved them.

J. H. Newman

[After reading this excerpt from Michael Guillen’s Five Equations that Changed the World, would you say that Newton truly loved his mother at the end?]

The villagers were delighted and intrigued to hear that Newton was on his way from Cambridge to be with his ailing mother. Over the years, they had kept well informed of the strained goings-on at the Newton-Smith manor; now the gossips wondered whether finally there would be a reconciliation.

Walking into his mother’s bedroom, Newton felt like the loneliest man alive: Already he had been rejected by his colleagues and the fabled Cupid, and now it appeared he was about to lose this enigmatic woman who all her life had professed, if not shown, an undying love for him.

As he approached the large bed, Newton saw that his mother looked ashen and was barely able to speak, though she did manage a faint smile of recognition. He was moved; he had hated her most of his life, but now, faced with her extreme vulnerability, her mortality, something in his heart softened, and he wept like a baby.

She had not been much of a mother, but she was the one person whom he had secretly wished most to impress. He had been defiant with her, even cruel, but that behaviour was behind him. Now, he pledged, his eyes awash in tears, his only desire was to show her how much he had loved her all along and had wished for her love in return.

Word of Newton’s dramatic repentance spread throughout Woolsthorpe, and the villagers watched in wonder. According to one witness, Newton: “sate up nights with her, gave her all her Physick himself, dressed all her blisters with his own hands & made use of that manual dexterity for which he was so remarkable to lessen the pain which always attends the dressing.”

Sustained by a lifetime’s accumulation of unexpressed love, Newton hardly ate or slept. He was unfailingly at his mother’s beck and call, one villager reported, “the torturing remedy usually applied . . . with as much readiness as he ever had employed it in the most delightful experiments.”

Within a few weeks, his mother died and was buried in the village cemetery. In the aftermath of it all, Newton cursed himself for not having had a change of heart sooner than this, but the young natural philosopher also rejoiced at finally having discovered the feeling of a son’s love for his mother.

Thoughts about Gift Love

Communication is at the heart of love.

If you wait until you’re moved by feeling before loving another, you will love but few...and certainly not your enemies.

Fr. Michel Quoist

You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven.

Jesus of Nazareth     NEW LINK (Mar 27/10)

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It is a great mistake to suppose that love unites and unifies men. Love diversifies them, because love is directed towards individuality. The thing that really unites men and makes them like to each other is hatred.

G. K. Chesterton

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Love can be deep without being strongly emotional.

Love conquers all; let us surrender to Love.

Virgil

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Love is an act of endless forgiveness.

Peter Ustinov

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Love is a matter of feeling, not of will or volition. Hence there is no such thing as a duty to love.

Immanuel Kant

Genuine love is volitional rather than emotional.

M. Scott Peck

Love seeks not to possess, but to be possessed.

R. H. Benson

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Love seeks to make happy rather than to be happy.

Ralph Connor

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Love, to be true, has to hurt.

Mother Teresa

Men have to be reminded that things must be loved first and improved afterwards.

G. K. Chesterton

Most people experience love, without noticing that there is anything remarkable about it.

Boris Pasternak

Since I don’t really know what other people mean by love, I avoid the word.

Gore Vidal

The first duty of love is to listen.

The heart is never successful. It does not wants power, honours, privileges or efficiency. It seeks a personal relationship with another, a communion of hearts which is the to and fro of love.

Jean Vanier

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The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference.

There are many people who know how to love and yet don’t know how to please.

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There is no greater folly than to seek to correct the natural infirmities of those we love.

Henry Fielding

There is something in each of us that cannot be naturally loved. It is no one’s fault if they do not so love it. Only the lovable can be naturally loved. You might as well ask people to like the taste of rotten bread or the sound of a mechanical drill.

C. S. Lewis

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To love is to suffer; to be loved is to cause suffering.

Comtesse Diane

What is mature love? It is union under the condition of preserving one’s integrity, one’s individuality... In love the paradox occurs that two beings become one and yet remain two.

Erich Fromm

When you love something you’re prepared to sacrifice for it.

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Whoever continues to love in spite of disillusionment succeeds at last in loving the object for itself.

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