Eros and Agape

Part 3, Covenant and Christ

Let me summarize the main points from Parts 1 and 2.

First, I agree with the Catholic view that when pleasure becomes the goal and telos of eros, as it has with the advent and widespread use of artificial contraception, eros tends to become malformed and disordered. Pleasure-seeking rather than other-concern begins to dominate human sexuality.

By prohibiting the use of contraceptives, the Catholic argument continues, eros remains open to reproduction as its "natural end." This openness decenters sexual pleasure and directs eros toward other-concern, in this case the possibility of a future child. Sex thereby becomes more than just being about me.

As I've described it, in this view nature is being used to mortify eros. That is to say, the biological realities of reproduction work against a sexual economy that is wholly focused upon pleasure and gratification. To be sure, this isn't the whole of the Catholic argument against the use of contraceptives, but the mortification of eros in leaving sex open to reproduction is a part of the vision.

However, in the last post I shared my concern about using nature to mortify eros. Since the burdens of reproduction are asymmetrical for men and women, a truth both Biblical and biological, the use of nature to mortify eros leads to unbalanced outcomes. Specifically, increased female hardship and the perpetuation of patriarchal oppressions. These are hardships and oppressions that demand, in my estimation, grave moral consideration that cannot be dismissed by an appeal to nature. In light of these moral concerns, I believe a thoughtful use of artificial contraception within marriage can be an expression of agapic, other-concern in alleviating female hardship along with promoting egalitarian gender relations.

And yet, with this conclusion the concern over eros returns. If eros is decoupled from reproduction will it not become disordered?

Here are my thoughts about that.

As I read Scripture, the mortification of eros happens through covenantal fidelity. That is to say, binding sex to marriage creates the arena of spiritual formation. As anyone who has been married knows, lifelong fidelity mortifies selfishness, across the board, and promotes other-concern. Covenant forms eros into agape. Here's how Joseph Ratzinger, Benedict XVI, makes this point:

Love involves a real discovery of the other, moving beyond the selfish character that prevailed earlier [when we first fell in love] ... Love now becomes concern and care for the other. No longer is it self-seeking...instead it seeks the good of the beloved; it becomes renunciation and it is ready, and even willing, for sacrifice.

[Love is] a journey, an ongoing exodus out of the closed inward-looking self toward its liberation through self-giving...

[Love is] drawing near to the other, it is less and less concerned with itself, increasingly seeks the happiness of the other, is concerned more and more with the beloved, bestows itself and wants to 'be there for' the other. The element of agape thus enters into this love, for otherwise eros is impoverished and even loses its own nature.

In short, the Christian commitment to binding sex to marriage and martial fidelity is, in my estimation, sufficient for transforming eros into agape. I do not think using nature to supplement this mortification is necessary, for the reasons I've described. To be sure, any given couple may decide to keep the possibility of having children more or less open whenever they have sex, but limiting this openness by using artificial contraceptive isn't, in my view, "intrinsically evil." Of course, the use of artificial contraceptives could signal moral problems within a marriage. We can think of a couple who uses artificial contraception to avoid children in the selfish pursuit of success and hedonistic autonomy. There are Catholics who have written passionately and persuasively about how, in the modern world, we have privileged autonomy over dependency. We can use artificial contraceptives to extract ourselves from this web of dependency. So my point here isn't that the use of artificial contraceptives isn't a location for moral discernment. Using artificial contraceptives could signal a spiritual failure, but I don't think they represent an intrinsic failure. The moral discernment is going to be contextual. And that discernment, in my view, is best handled Christologically than through an appeal to nature. Christ is the telos of all our loves, and our desires for both sex and success must be properly ordered in light of that end. Nature may aid ordering our loves toward Christ, by not always or intrinsically so given that nature is, at present, in a cursed condition.

To conclude and summarize. My view is that nature is too morally ambiguous and human reproduction too asymmetrical in its impacts for nature serve as the means for ordering eros. My view is that, while nature can play a part in the ordering of eros, the covenant of marriage with Christ as our telos provides sufficient spiritual formation to transform eros into agape.