Abstract

MOLINA-PEREZ, SERGIO. Love as a Fundamental Way of Being. Cuest. teol. [online]. 2020, vol.47, n.108, pp.155-166.  Epub Apr 11, 2021. ISSN 0120-131X.  https://doi.org/10.18566/cueteo.v47n108.a09.

Human beings are always in a relationship, they cannot avoid it. Just their existence involves a relationship with God, with themselves, with the others and with the cosmos. Though Modernity invites to individualism, there is also the possibility to promote human beings that are more open to consciously interact with others, to recognize everything that is around them and see it as a good to themselves. The article addresses the concept of love as a fundamental way of being human based on several authors of the philosophical and theological traditions, and following a hermeneutic method framed within the conversation of classical philosophy, catholic theology and philosophical personalism, which are brought together by a Christian worldview in which love is a fundamental concept. As a starting point and as a form of introduction, the article presents a framework of the concept of love and a reason for love as fundamental way of being. It then presents several ideas of love throughout the history of thought and explains why reason is a key human faculty for the experience of love, contrary to some views of postmodernism. Afterwards, it suggests love as mode of the relationship of human beings with themselves within the frame of alterity, based particularly on personalism. Finally, it establishes love as a mode of the relationship with the cosmos, considering that loving and taking care of the world is one of the features of the human beings who live love as a fundamental way of being.

Keywords : Love; Human Beings; Relationship; God; Modernity; Being; Reason; Personalism; Cosmos.

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