Religion & Law

I recently asked whether Anders Nygren's view of agape love is consistent with Catholic teaching.  As Fr. Araujo and Mike Moreland pointed out, it's not.  Josef Pieper, in his remarkable Faith, Hope, Love, takes on Nygren directly.  It is well worth reading.  Here is a snippet:

[Our love] never creates 'values' or makes anything or anyone lovable . . . . What comes first is the actual existence of lovability, independently presented to us.  Then this existence must enter into our experience . . . 'It's good that you exist' has justification solely in the actual goodness of the beloved, that this is its basis in reality; and that this order of things applies not only to our love for material goods and our fellowmen but likewise to our love for God and still applies in the eternal life. . . . The call for an utterly disinterested, unmotivated, sovereign agape love that wishes to receive nothing, that is purged of all selfish desire, simply rests upon a misunderstanding of man as he really is.

In other words, it's all self-love, properly understood as the "desire for fullness of being."