I don’t think that true, unconditional love is possible, basically because love is a conditional thing! You don’t just love someone, you love someone for who they are (be it a girlfriend, a wife, or even a child; you love your kid because he/she IS your kid!). And who they are are a compilation of many such condtitions. You say that you would always love your child; to a degree, this is true, because to love your offspring is pretty well something you can’t help. But, if your kid tried to torture and kill you and the rest of your family, that condition would (pretty strongly) affect the love that you feel for him. There would still be that deep down care and sorrow for the kid, but you’d hate him for what he did. These conditions blend together to form your overall feeling of a person.
mattmanz_da_man brings up an interesting point.
In the Buddhist sense you can have unconditional love for all things, not for who or what they are, but that they are but different forms of you (god).
But, if unconditional love was mutable or subject to change, wouldn’t that mean it was no longer unconditional? I suppose it would depend on how you define unconditional. If you feel that unconditional means that it is constant, neverending, then it wouldn’t be unconditional, but, if you say it’s more something that doesn’t need to be renewed; something that won’t disappear unless something out of the ordinary happens to make it disappear.
The difference between the feeling of love and the commitment of love is crucial. Like all feelings, love is mutable and dependent on the chemical state of the brain. It is not entirely under conscious control. The commitment of love is a decision and entirely under conscious control.
I have an unconditional commitment of love to my children. There are times, certainly, that I have non-love feeling towards them (they are teenagers, after all), but my commitment is conscious and unwavering. No matter what they do, I will fulfill that commitment to them. Should one of them (god forbid!) do something despicablly evil, I would naturally demand that they accept the consequences of their actions, but I would visit them in prison as long as they were there, and do my best to guard their remaining rights from my position.
Being divorced, I know all too well the conditions on my commitment to marriage. There are definitely activities I find absolutely unacceptable, and which would certainly cause me to consider invalid any prior commitment to that person.
I beleave singledad is right. Being a father my self (7 month old son) i now forsee times when my commitment to love and take care of my son will be tested but i feel strong that it will not waver.
now the feeling of uncondishinal love is more dificalt to pin down. i feel that uncondishinal love can not be assined to a person or a place at all, but to a time or an event or a memery. When I was 20 I met a girl from Sweden who was in the US for a year. When I met her she had only 3 more months left before she left to go back home. I can’t explain it but it was love at first sight. We fit together so well it scared us. Those next three months were some of the most memberal and emothinal times of my short life. Every day I would wake up wanting to see her and every night I would curse fate for letting another day slip by to fast. I felt joy, I felt pain, I felt a way that just made me want to explode and run and jump and laff and sing. Three months later she went home. I never even kissed her. We tryed to keep intouch, but it didn’t work out. One day we just stoped writing. I think it was becouse we didn’t want to deel with the pain of knowing it would never be. To this day i know that if I had an extra three months with her, maybe even two, I would be married to her right now. That was 5 years ago.
Now if we met today, I know it wouldn’t be the same. I wouldn’t even feel a twinge of what i had felt when i first met her. I’m married to a girl I love greatly. She’s probubly married also for all I know. I’ve chosen my life and its a good one. Things change, but my memery of those three months that took place 5 years ago will always be the same. And I will love them unconditionaly.
oasis:
I wouldn’t define it that way. To me, unconditional love can change (in fact, love can and must change over time, as each person cannot help but change over time) and can be doubted or questioned. Questioning your love for a person doesn’t mean you don’t love him, especially if that questioning leads you to reaffirm your devotion. “Unconditional” simply means that no matter what the object of your affections does, you still love him/her.
I disagree. First of all, most people are not at all reasonable; especially where emotions are concerned, most people are unreasonable much of the time. People have the capacity for reason, but it’s rarely used.
I’m sure every one of us can think of dozens of examples in which people have acted selflessly on the behalf of another, whether the person in need was a close relative or a stranger. People do tend to take care of each other, though of course there are many examples of selfishness. Still, would you be more shocked to hear about a mother who drowned her two little boys so she could catch a boyfriend, or about a mother who struggled to provide her two little boys with food and a roof over their heads? Which one makes headlines?
I think the central problem in determining whether love is unconditional or not is that this can only be determined in hindsight, if ever. As an analogy, I imagine that if I ever had cancer, I would refuse chemotherapy. I’m quite strong in my belief that I would refuse it. However, at this time it’s impossible for me to predict my own actions if I later face that set of circumstances.
Similarly, I can imagine that there is nothing my child could ever do, no matter how heinous, that would make me stop loving him. In order to prove this, however, my child would have to actually do every heinous thing possible and if at that time I still loved him, I could claim with certainty that I love him unconditionally.
On the other hand, if my child never does anything horrible and my love is therefore not tested, I can’t know if my love for him is unconditional.
Stating my love is unconditional is making a prediction about the unforseeable future.
For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whososever believes in Him, should not perish but have everlasting life. John 3:16
Not quite unconditional love, though.
‘Course, then, the ol’ John 3:16 guy rose from the dead a scant 3 days later. I guess it just doesn’t sounds as impressive to say “Jesus temporarily died for your sins,” though.
Personally, I rejoice in the idea of unconditional love as a triumph of soul over reason. Sometimes I think some people are a bit too reasonable for their own good.
jenkinsfan, leave it to you to link this back to the bible. However, with the topic now raised, I would say that God’s (if he does exist) love is not unconditional. In fact, IMO, God has nothing to do with love, but judgement. If you’re willing to commit someone to eternal torment, then you just don’t love that person. “I love you unconditionally, but you masturbated when you were twelve. I’m afraid I’m going to have to send you to Hell. Say hi to Satan for me.” Unconditional love doesn’t come with judgement. Besides, the God you present above isn’t loving, but selfish. “Believe in me. Or suffer eternally.” This ain’t no jolly Santa we’re talking about here. That sounds more like Judge Dredd having a bad day. Secondly, God didn’t give his son to us, unless Christ was planning on going to hell for our sins as well.
I’d say that unconditional love doesn’t exist. Or, it’s only a concept, with no effects in the real world. For, if you say “I love my wife unconditionally, but if she turned out to be a murderer I’d have to cut myself off from her – but I’d still love her, although I’d have nothing to do with her” then I don’t really know what you mean by “love.” Doesn’t “love” require some sort of expression or action? It’s not enough to say that you love someone – unconditionally or not.
So: unconditional love without expression is meaningless.
Next, I’ll say that unconditional love with expression is extremely rare, and probably doesn’t exist either. It would be selected against, since people who love unconditionally are bound to be exploited. It’s game theory in action. There’s a definite advantage in knowing when to cut your losses, to know when you’ve given too much.
Of course, this is just my biases talking. I was initially touched by the story of “The Giving Tree,” which gave everything it had to the little boy it loved, but now I’ve come to feel that the tree gave too much, and got too little in return. I also felt that Forrest Gump was a fool for loving Jenny, since she only used him and turned to him when she was in need. But geez, you point that out in the office, and everybody thinks you’re some sort of monster. I also thought that in “Elmo in Grouchland” Elmo was right not to share his blanket with Zoey – I mean, it’s his blanket! Why does Zoey need it? Damn communist muppets.
Ow, my head. Must be time for my medication.
Keenan:
Meaningless to the object of your love, sure. But loving someone has a profound impact on the one who loves, even if the object of that love never realizes it. Example: I have a 93-year-old patient who confided in me about his first and only true love. She was a pianist who played the background music for the local theater’s silent movies. He regrets that he never told her how much he cared for her, but he can’t help but smile when he talks about her. She may very well be dead by now, but she lives in his heart and brightens his life.
So, say my son turned out to be a child molester. Though I could not condone or support his actions (I would, in fact, do whatever I could to be sure he was punished for his actions) I would still love him. (Again, I’m predicting how I would react- if this scenario came to be, I might react differently.)
In a way. But look what she gave him, without her ever realizing her impact on him. Without his love for Jenny, would Forrest have survived Vietnam? Or would he have given up hope? What about the son she left for him… what greater gift could she have given? Even if she never returned his affections, his love for her was the driving force of his life.
Loving someone doesn’t mean you necessarily approve of that person’s every action; it means you love that person no matter what he or she does. Forrest loved Jenny unconditionally; no matter what stupid thing she did, he was always there for her to fall back upon. And I do believe she loved him, too, but was incapable of loving him unconditionally. Who suffered most?
What Holly said. Except with one addendum: Love without expression isn’t meaningless. The expression just helps to remind.
Well, I admit I overstated my case – but it’s not much of a debate if I don’t press on.
Maybe I’m just questioning the usefulness of love that you feel but don’t express. Certainly the object of your love doesn’t feel it; your love is only good (or bad) for you.
I think what started me down this road wasn’t so much thinking about unconditional parent-child love, but remembering times as a child hearing (from other children) “I love you in God’s way – but I don’t like you.” And I’m not talking about romantic love; just kids squaring playground hate with a biblical order to love your neighbor. So, I just ended up questioning the usefulness of love that “exists” somewhere inside you but isn’t revealed by your actions.
That being said, I’d at least like to go on record as loving my two-year old son unconditionally. So I don’t know what the hell I’m talking about.
Man, I’m not going to last long in Great Debates if I keep admitting that I’m wrong.