Abstract
This essay traces some of the main contours of Christian love and examines key issues pertaining to it. The first section explores the picture of love that arises from the New Testament. The second section considers Augustine’s and Aquinas’s accounts of the “order of love,” which address tensions inherent to the New Testament teachings on love, especially regarding (1) love for the Creator and created things and (2) universal and particular love. It is shown that Christian ethics is above all concerned with rightly ordered love. The third section examines the relationship between agape and eros, especially in light of Anders Nygren’s work, which criticizes the way of thinking about love that is exemplified in the work of Augustine and Aquinas. Against Nygren, it is argued that Christian agape-love should be regarded as involving appraisal love that is both conditional and unconditional, in different respects, and as connected to eros-love in meeting our desire for fulfillment.