Agape

Miller’s ‘working definition of agape’ translates the traditional spirit of eclectic spirituality into a five-part operational definition in the language of modern psychology: Patience… Selflessness… Acceptance… Hope… Positive Regard.

Alexander presents Miller’s systematic operationalisation of agape as five clinical dispositions, arguing this translation from theological virtue to psychological technique represents a therapeutically recoverable technology of unprecedented efficacy.

Alexander, Bruce K., The Globalisation of Addiction: A Study in Poverty of the Spirit, 2008thesis

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the divine agape qua addressing itself to the sinner as such, here is the centre, the heart of the Lutheran position.

Lacan positions divine agape — God’s unconditional love for the sinner as sinner — as the structural pivot of the Lutheran reformation and the determining overbalancing of the Platonic eros tradition in Western religious history.

Lacan, Jacques, The Seminar of Jacques Lacan, Book VIII: Transference, 2015thesis

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One of the outstanding characteristics of ‘psychotherapeutic eros’ is the care for the other’s becoming. Rollo May suggests the Greek term agape or the Latin caritas — a love that is devoted to the welfare

Yalom, following May, identifies agape/caritas as the precise term for the therapeutic love that is constituted entirely by care for the patient’s becoming, distinguishing it from erotic or narcissistic forms of attachment.

Yalom, Irvin D., Existential Psychotherapy, 1980thesis

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Agapan means ‘to like or be fond of,’ although the noun agape, sometimes rendered ‘brotherly love,’ first occurs in the New Testament.

Konstan supplies the philological baseline, establishing agape’s New Testament provenance and distinguishing it from eros, storge, and philia within the classical Greek emotional lexicon.

David Konstan, The Emotions of the Ancient Greeks: Studies in Aristotle and Classical Literature, 2006supporting

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Jung, in his unpublished ‘Seminar Notes,’ speaks of fear (phobos) rather than power as the true opposite of eros. We are familiar with this idea from I John 4, where fear is related to love as its enemy.

Hillman’s reference to 1 John 4’s juxtaposition of fear and love implicitly engages the agape tradition, situating the New Testament’s unconditional love within depth-psychology’s theorisation of eros and its shadow.

Hillman, James, The Myth of Analysis: Three Essays in Archetypal Psychology, 1972supporting

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As important and wonderful as romantic love or ‘agape’ is, it is too unstable for child rearing.

Dayton conflates agape with romantic love in a usage that inverts its theological meaning, treating the term as a popular synonym for passionate attachment rather than unconditional regard — a notable lexical aberration in the corpus.

Dayton, Tian, Emotional Sobriety: From Relationship Trauma to Resilience and Lasting Fulfillment, 2007aside

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Love, 66-67, 143 see also Agape, Amor, Eros

Campbell’s index clusters agape with amor and eros under the rubric of love, situating it as one coordinate within a mythological typology of love without developing its distinctive character.

Campbell, Joseph, The Power of Myth, 1988aside

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Love, 66-67, 143 see also Agape, Amor, Eros

The index entry positions agape alongside amor and eros as part of a tripartite mythological taxonomy of love within Campbell-inflected religious studies discourse.

Noel, Daniel C., Paths to the Power of Myth: Joseph Campbell and the Study of Religion, 1990aside

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