Referent-Models of Loving: A Philosophical and Theological analysis of Love in Ethical Theory and Moral Practice

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Abstract
Love as a moral norm has a very prominent place within the discussions of contemporary Christian ethics. There are three definite trends especially evident in the most popular of these discussions of love. In the first instance, there is a tendency to make love serve as the sole norm in ethics. There is a second tendency to equate love with beneficence. This means, among other things, that love tends to be put into a utilitarian type of calculus and that specific norms such as the Ten Commandments are either played down or dropped entirely. Both of these views of love, by themselves or held in concert, collapse the traditional distinction between love and justice. There is yet a third ten-1 dency to drop any distinction between love for God and love for/the neighbor. Love for God is simply to be understood as love for the neighbor and, as such, it is not something to pursue or cultivate for its own sake. That all three of these tendencies are significantly related to one another should become evident from our further discussion of them.

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