LOVE AND THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN NATURE
LOVE AND THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN NATURE

Summary/Abstract: This is the love story of human nature, of human culture, and of human cult. This story may scarcely make sense to many who see man, as Nietzsche wrote, ‘a thing dark and veiled’ (in the first section of his third ‘untimely meditation’). Should they concede however to read on, they will know for themselves, and by themselves, whether the half-forgotten ‘know yourself ’ still carries any weight these days. In this most modest contribution to a dignified debate, I argue that the origin of human nature is truly in the love of God. To wit, God’s love of humans led to humans’ love of God, and we grew fully human as we fell in love with God. ‘We love because he first loved us’ (1 John 4:19). And, as the Holy Father Benedict XVI said half a century ago, ‘The clay became man at that moment in which a being for the first time was capable of forming, however dimly, the thought “God”’. Now, my working hypothesis is that, far back in time, in times far less sophisticated than our own, to think ‘God’ was to love God, and this sort of love, for God, love at the first sight, made us human. The origin of human love, to be specific, the origin of myriad human loves of fellow humans, is in the human love of God.

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