91. JULIA T. MESZAROS — A
Posted online is a stimulating Trinity College, University of Oxford, Doctor of Philosophy thesis by Julia T. Meszaros. Her title, “Selfless Love and Human Flourishing: A Theological and A Secular Perspective in Dialogue,” got my attention. Her work is now available in a book with that title. This triptych includes selected gleanings from the thesis. There are many more words than usual in this triptych, and Meszaros’ work is a bit heavy. At the same time, there is something about her thesis that seems very relevant to me. Therefore, if you have the time and interest, I encourage you to find the worth in Meszaros’ words and thoughts.
Meszaros alludes to a modern tendency to create a dichotomy between selfless love and human flourishing. “In effect, significant thinkers have replaced the notion of selfless love with a call for self-assertion over against the other, as key to the individual person’s well-being. This has been matched by Christian dismissals of the individual’s pursuit of human flourishing.”
In her thesis, Meszaros explores whether selfless love and human flourishing can be re-connected. She draws on the work of theologian Paul Tillich (one of my teachers) as well as moral philosopher and novelist Iris Murdoch. On the basis of their thought, Meszaros argues selfless love and human flourishing can be understood as interdependent.
“Developments in psychology, philosophy, and socio-biology for instance led to a
heightened awareness of the extent to which the human being is governed by self-interested
instincts and desires for greater freedom, power, and individuality. … The argument goes that traditional moral norms like selflessness lead to a suppression of those vital life energies which enable the human being to develop her full potential, to thrive and to flourish. Instead, they foster weakness and irresponsibility.”
“Tillich’s consequent sense that the human self is a reality whose flourishing qua
individual depends on active participation in her transcendent ground constitutes the
foundation of his account of love. Tillich’s understanding of love, which is based on his understanding of the self, is selfless in a two-fold sense. It is based on a recognition that the human being has no self in the sense of a self-contained, objectifiable reality; and, it is selfless insofar as it consists in a turn towards the finite other in whom the transcendent source of the self’s reality is encountered.
“This selfless love is compatible with, and conducive to, human flourishing because it is a function of the very nature of the human self, and because it does not deny the needs and desires of the individual but can be effective only where it emerges out of, and incorporates, these.”
Meszaros finds Iris Murdoch to understand the self both distinct from and related to a transcendent Other, the Good, which is encountered in finite others. … Murdoch, too, ties human flourishing to a love which can be described as selfless in orientation and attachment to transcendent Good as encountered in the world.
Meszaros affirms mutuality in love — that is, on the reception as well as the gift of love, and on love’s culmination in reciprocity. She argues, “Selfless love can be considered conducive to human flourishing only if it is connected with an emphasis on the oneness of Good. Good, I argue, must be conceived of as a shared reality, which affects, connects, and unites lover and beloved. … That selfless love can most legitimately be understood as conducive to human flourishing where the transcendent reality both Tillich and Murdoch ground it in is — analogically
speaking — understood as personal, and, thus, as capable of entering into a reciprocal
love relation itself.”
Meszaros also argues that selfless love “gives an ontological foundation to the notion that individual distinctness and social relatedness can coincide, … which implies that the fullness of human being is a matter of communion as well as individuality.”
“I understand selfless love as a love that is unselfish in its motivation and centered not on the subject but on ‘the other’, whom I primarily understand as analogous to the Christian notion of the ‘neighbor’, but who can also be a non-human being or an object in the world. Selfless
love as I understand it is thus a notion close to the Christian tradition and its injunctions
to lay down one’s life, to pick up one’s cross and to love one’s neighbor.”
“Psychoanalytic thought, at least in its popularized form, with its propagation of notions such as self-forgiveness, self-realization, self-fulfillment, and, hence, of orientation to self, has
pervaded our social imaginary; Christian, feminist and other liberation thinkers in
particular continue to struggle with notions like selfless love as potential threats to the
needs and wellbeing of the human individual.”
“An army chaplain in the First World War, Paul Tillich began his career in an environment in which self-denial and self-sacrifice were politically demanded. In sermons on the battlefield, the young Tillich backed this theologically, commending soldiers to welcome the opportunity to imitate Christ’s love to the last. His growing awareness, however, of the extent to which human beings are plagued by doubt and despair arguably sensitized him to the need for understanding Christian love in terms more explicitly affirmative of the human being and his
flourishing.”
“Tillich and Murdoch have not, to my knowledge, been read in conjunction with
one another. … Tillich’s famously correlative method was geared precisely towards bringing into dialogue, and bridging the gap between, religious and what might be called secular thinking. In accordance with his own interest in non-Christian thought, his theology lends itself to, and calls for, dialogue with a secular writer.
“Murdoch is particularly suited to such a conversation insofar as she, unlike some non-Christian writers, is herself strongly interested in religious thinking, to the point of acknowledging that her thinking continually veers in a theological direction.”
It has been and will continue to be a challenge for me to glean from Meszaros’ more than 300-page thesis what I view to be a clue to what it means to live up to the potential for which we are ordained. This question seems relevant at this juncture.
Q: To what extent do you find yourself leaning toward self-love or selfless love as a way to “flourish” in your living?
