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Love is the greatest of miracles. How could an evolved ape create the noble idea of self-giving love? Human love is the result of our being made to resemble God (Gen 1:26-27; James 3:9), who himself is love (1 Jn 4:8). If we are made in the image of King Kong rather than in the image of King God, where do the saints come from?

— Peter Kreeft

The Argument from love is an argument for the existence of God, as against materialism and reductionist forms of physicalism.

Outline logical structure

Its logical structure is essentially as follows:

1. Love is perceived to exist in a way which transcends its physical manifestations.
2. If materialism (or reductionist physicalism) is true, then nothing exists in a way which transcends its physical manifestations. Hence, the likelihood of us perceiving transcendental love is low.
3. If Classical Theism in general, and Christianity in particular is true, love is a quality of God and therefore exists in a way which transcends its physical manifestations. Hence, the likelihood of us perceiving love as transcendental is high.
4. Therefore, to the extent that the likelihood expressed in premise (2) is seen as low and the likelihood expressed in premise (3) is seen as high, this increases the probability of Theism by comparison with materialism (or reductionist physicalism).

Points 1, 3 and 4 are relatively un-controversial, and the argument is formally valid, so discussion focuses on the premise (2), as it might be possible for us to perceive love as transcending its physical manifestation, and yet it may be an epiphenomenon emerging from sufficiently complex neural activity.

Suggested reasons for accepting the premise

The principal arguments for the premise are:

1. We have a strong intuition, especially when contemplating someone we love, that love is real and transcends its physical manifestations. Although such intuitions are not always correct, they are stong enough prima facie evidence that very compelling arguments to the contrary would be needed to cancel them out.
2. Although one can make plausible evolutionary explanations for loving potential sexual partners, ancestors and children, the experience of love is wider than these categories and is more experienced as more intense and fundamental than sexual desire or a propagation of ones genes.
3. It is possible to conceive of love as the most fundamental principle, or one of the most fundamental principles, of the universe, and thinking about the universe in this way appears more coherent with human experience
4. It is very difficult to speak of love in a coherent way without assuming its objective existence, albeit mediated by highly subjective and cultural factors.
5. People act in practice as if love is real and transcends its physical manifestations, even if they claim to believe that it is a matter of neurons and chemistry.

Suggested reasons for disputing the premise

1. Our intuitions may be mistaken.
2. The evolutionary mechanisms favouring altruism - of which love is arguably a special case - are more pervasive and subtle than might be supposed.
3. This way of thinking about the universe may be wishful thinking
4. Ordinary language is not always a reliable guide to objective reality.
5. Scientific theories of love might explain the neurological basis of deep emotions in such a way as to make their reduction to physicalism more plausible.

Relation to Idealism

The argument as stated is for theism against materialism. It is possible to be an atheist without being a materialist. According to Midgley "Atheistic Idealism like Hume's is a perfectly possible option, and may be a more coherent one. At the end of the 19th century many serious sceptics thought it a clearer choice (Russell's liflelong ambivalence is quite interesting here)" The classic view of Christian Neo-Platonists was that God is the perfection of the Idea/Form of Love, and that if an Idealist was philosophically committed to the existence of the Form of Love it was reasonable for them to accept the existence of the perfection of that Form in God.

Relation to Physicalism

To the extent that physicalism entails the proposition that "nothing exists in a way which transcends its physical manifestations" the argument works against physicalism as well as materialism. However a physicalist need not be a reductionist in a metaphysical sense so some versions of physicalism appear to be compatible with the existence of love "in a way that transcends its physical manifestations": the argument would only work against reductionist physicalism.

Variants on the Argument

Comparitive rationality of belief in God and Love

A variant on the argument is a defence of the rationality of theism by comparing faith in God with love, and to suggest that if it isn't irrational to love someone then it shouldn't be seen as irrational to believe in God. The philosopher Roger Scruton suggests: "Rational argument can get us just so far...It can help us to understand the real difference between a faith that commands us to forgive our enemies, and one that commands us to slaughter them. But the leap of faith itself — this placing of your life at God's service — is a leap over reason's edge. This does not make it irrational, any more than falling in love is irrational."

(Suggested) Compelling Nature of God's Love

Another variant of the argument is that the evidence for God's love is sufficiently compelling that people can reasonably believe in it, and hence a fortiori believe in God. This approach is criticised by Richard Dawkins who suggests that it is an "Argument from Emotional Blackmail"

The argument from love in popular culture

A satirical formulation of the argument is as follows:

1. Have you ever fallen in love?
3. So what is the cause of love? Isn't it God? Am I right or not?
4. Therefore, God exists.

Notes & References

1. Peter Kreeft. Your Questions, God's Answers. pp. p. 105. ISBN 089870488X. {{cite book}}: |pages= has extra text (help)
2. There are many references to the love as a key quality of God in the Hebrew Bible, but the statement "God is Love" only occurs in the New Testament
3. Note that this argument only supports Theism as against Materialism or reductionist physicalism - other philosophical approaches like Idealism or Critical Realism would not find premise (1) difficult
4. e.g. Roger Scruton is his An Intelligent Person's guide to Philosophy (Duckworth, 1996 ISBN 0715627899) makes a central part of the chapter entitled "God" "the self which I try to capture in love.. and which always eludes me" (p89)
5. Tom Wright op. cit. regards love as one of the 4 fundamental pointers to belief in God, devoting the whole of Ch 3 "Made for each other" to it, describing love as "another signpost pointing a way into a mist, telling us that there is a road ahead which leads to "
6. eg Mary Midgley suggests that the assumption that "In general we can trust our faculties" is an essential pre-requisite to any rational thought" Consciousness and Human Identity p 169-170 OUP 1998 ISBN 0198503237
7. von Balthasar's short(!) book Love Alone: the way of Revelation (1969 ISBN 0722077289) explores this in depth, discussing at the whole book the "absolute love, which in revealing itself comes to meet man, berings him back, invites him in and raises him to an inconceivable intimacy" (p48) pointing out that "this essay contains nothing new. It seeks to be faithful to the theological tradition of the great saints: Augustine, Bernard, Anselm, Ignatius, John of the Cross, Francis de Sales, Theresa of Lisieux" (p10)
8. These mechanisms are discussed in depth by Martin Nowak see eg his Evolutionary Dynamics esp Chs 5-9.
9. Freud takes essentially this line, see eg The Future of an Illusion p30 - a 1961 translation of Die Zukunft einer Illusion (1927)
10. This is discussed (though not supported) by Thomas J Ord in "Love makes the cosmos go ’round", Science and Theology News (March 1, 2003), reviewing On the Moral Nature of the Universe: Theology, Cosmology, and Ethics by Nancey Murphy and George Ellis
11. Mary Midgley The Myths We Live By Routledge 2004 ISBN 0415340772 p40
12. see eg the special introduction by Prof Maurice Francis Egan of The Catholic University of America to the Dialogues of Plato published by the Colonial Press 1900 "God and the highest good are the same; the highest idea is good. believes in the living soul and in the Deity who prevades the universe" (p vii)
13. According to Daniel Stoljar in the SEP
14. This type of argument was made by Alvin Plantinga in God and Other Minds
15. Roger Scruton. Dawkins is wrong about God reproduced from The Spectator
16. see eg Michael Welker in The Work of Love p131 "in this love God's identity and power are made known" (italics in original). He cites eg John 17:26
17. The God Delusion p83
18. "Hundreds of Proofs of God's Existence". Atheists of Silicon Valley. Retrieved 2007-03-29.

Authors/Sources

Relevant authors and sources include:

• John Polkinghorne See eg his The work of Love and The faith of a Scientist
• Tom Wright who regards our experience of love as one of the four main pointers to belief in God - see esp. his Simply Christian SPCK 2006, Ch 3 "Made for each other"
• Richard Swinburne esp The Existence of God OUP 2nd Edition 2004 ISBN 0199271682

• Philosophy of religion
• Arguments for the existence of God