ABSTRACT
Scientific and other secular disciplines struggle and often fail to account for love, or genuine other-regard, in a satisfying way. Scientific approaches to love tend to break down the selfless experience of love into various species of self-regard, and such explanations focus on the self rather than the other in their quest to understand love. In sharp contrast, religious perspectives – specifically Christianity – endeavour to understand love as genuinely other-regarding, based upon an effort to understand God and His character. My query, therefore, is whether it even makes sense for us to claim to believe in the possibility of love if we insist upon the non-existence of God. This paper will discuss the approach to love that we find in literature, poetry, and in four scientific disciplines – economics, psychology, evolutionary biology, and neuroscience. I will then note the striking similarities between how these scientific approaches understand God, and how they parallel their understanding of love. Finally, I will contrast how religious perspectives, specifically Christianity, explain the experience and purpose of love. My claim, tentative but confident, is that the very idea of love, as we commonly experience and understand it, may make no sense at all in the absence of God.
