We have been talking about love, and throughout this series I have tried to steer us away from thinking about love primarily as a romantic feeling. Instead, we focused on the actionable aspects of love—the kind of love expressed in service, forgiveness, and care for others. In other words, the kind of love the New Testament often emphasizes: Christian brotherly love. This seemed fitting. After all, it aligns closely with the teachings of Jesus and the life of the early church.
If anything, romantic love often seems like a dangerous distraction. It can be a slippery slope that leads people into all kinds of wild sins—sex outside of marriage being one of the most obvious examples. Romantic love focuses our attention intensely on another person. It can make us obsessed with someone. It can make us forget about God altogether. When we think of romantic love like this, it appears to be the farthest thing from the love for God and others. But is that really the whole truth?
It is unfortunate that this is one of those topics that you would rarely hear addressed in a church sermon. That is another reason that makes this class so valuable and special, because today we will discuss an interesting question: what does romantic love have to do with God?
I’m going to start the topic by reading to you a few love poems. I’m going to ask you where the poems are from, so listen carefully:
- Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth—
for your love is more delightful than wine.
(Song of Songs 1:2)- Upon my bed at night
I sought the one my soul loves.I sought him, but did not find him.
I will rise now and go about the city,
through the streets and the squares;
I will seek the one my soul loves.
(Song of Songs 3:1–2)
- Set me as a seal upon your heart,
as a seal upon your arm;
for love is strong as death.
(Song of Songs 8:6)- The voice of my beloved!
Behold, he comes,
leaping upon the mountains,
bounding over the hills.
(Song of Songs 2:8)
Does anyone want to take a guess where these texts are from? They are from the bible, from the Song of songs. This loving language is not restricted to the Jewish-Christian tradition. The Persian Muslim poet, Rumi, also speaks to God in such endearing terms:
- The minute I heard my first love story,
I started looking for you, not knowing
how blind that was.
Lovers don’t finally meet somewhere.
They’re in each other all along.- Last night I begged the wise men
to tell me the secret of love.
They said:
“Be silent. The secret cannot be spoken.”I said, “Then how shall I learn?”
They answered:
“Become the lover yourself.
The secret will reveal itself.”Love came to me and whispered,
“Leave yourself behind.”I said, “But I am afraid.”
Love said,
“There is nothing to fear.
When you lose yourself in love,
you find the life of the Beloved.”
What do we notice about these poems? They sound like the language of lovers. They speak of longing, searching, desire, and the joy of encounter. The language is intimate and personal. Yet these texts appear within religious traditions. In the case of the Song of Songs, they appear within the Bible itself. This raises an important question: why would sacred literature use the language of romantic love to speak about God?
To explore this question, we must first understand a concept that philosophers and theologians have examined for centuries: eros. The word eros comes from ancient Greek and refers to a form of love characterized by desire or longing for something that one does not yet possess. Eros is the kind of love that arises from attraction and draws us toward what we perceive as beautiful, good, or fulfilling. Unlike other forms of love identified in Greek thought—such as philia, the love present in friendship, or agape, the love expressed through generosity and self-giving—eros is defined by movement. It is a reaching outward, a striving toward union with what is loved.
Because eros begins in longing, it often contains both joy and pain. The beloved attracts us and draws us forward, yet the beloved is not fully ours. Our separateness reminds us that complete union always remains just beyond our reach. This tension is what keeps eros alive and desire burning. Desire exists in the space between attraction and fulfillment.
A modern writer who explored this structure of desire in depth is the classicist and poet Anne Carson in her book Eros the Bittersweet. Carson argues that eros arises from a particular relational structure: the presence of distance between the lover and the beloved. If the beloved were completely absent, desire would collapse into despair. But if the beloved were completely possessed, desire would disappear as well. Eros exists precisely in the space between the lover and the beloved. It is the force that continually reaches across the gap, always seeking to close it, yet never fully able to do so. Longing therefore depends upon a certain distance.
Carson describes this structure as a triangle: there is the lover, the beloved, and something that stands between them—an obstacle, a separation, or a distance: hint: think of the evil mother in law in many love stories. This intervening space generates longing, imagination, and movement. Much of the intensity of romantic love arises from this dynamic, as the lover continually reaches across the gap toward the beloved.
When we return to the poems we read earlier, we can begin to recognize this same pattern. The lovers in the Song of Songs search for one another, lose one another, and find one another again. Rumi’s poetry also speaks of longing, searching, and union with the Beloved. In both cases the relationship is not static. It is defined by movement, pursuit, and desire. The beloved is sometimes near and sometimes distant, and this rhythm intensifies the experience of love.
If we understand love—or eros—in this sense, then expressing romantic longing toward God begins to make more sense. God is the ultimate beloved. God is not something that can be fully possessed or grasped, yet God is not completely absent either. The spiritual life often includes moments of profound encounter interwoven with periods of distance, uncertainty, and searching. The result is a form of longing that closely resembles the dynamic structure of eros.
Another reason God fits naturally into the role of the beloved lies in the way eros is drawn toward what appears inexhaustible. In romantic love, the beloved often seems endlessly meaningful. Lovers feel that there is always more to discover in the person they love—more depth, more mystery, more significance. The beloved cannot be fully reduced to something that can be completely understood or possessed. This sense of inexhaustibility helps sustain desire over time. In many religious traditions, God represents the ultimate form of this depth and mystery. God is understood as infinite, transcending any complete human understanding. As a result, the longing directed toward God can take on the same dynamic structure as eros: an attraction toward something profoundly meaningful that can never be fully exhausted or possessed.
There is a second way in which romantic love can lead us toward God. The experience of romantic love itself can become a path that awakens deeper spiritual longing. Romantic love often awakens in us a powerful sense of beauty and meaning. The beloved appears radiant. When we are in love, the world itself may seem brighter and more significant, more beautiful. In moments like these, love reveals to us that human beings are capable of profound longing. We discover within ourselves a desire that seems larger than ordinary experience.
This dynamic was already recognized in ancient philosophy. The Greek philosopher Plato argued that eros begins with attraction to a particular person but does not end there. Instead, the beauty encountered in another person can awaken a deeper movement of the soul. The lover begins by admiring the beauty of the beloved, but gradually comes to recognize that the beauty he loves in that person is not limited to that person alone. It is a reflection of something more universal.
Plato describes this process as a kind of ascent —a ladder, if you will. Love begins with attraction to a single beautiful body, but the lover may then come to appreciate beauty wherever it appears—in other people, in character, in wisdom, and in truth. Ultimately, this movement of love leads beyond particular objects of desire toward beauty itself, understood as something enduring and transcendent.
In this way, eros becomes a movement of the soul toward what is ultimately good and meaningful. The beloved becomes the starting point of a journey that reaches beyond the beloved. Romantic love awakens our awareness of beauty and goodness, and that awareness can gradually expand into a search for the source of all beauty and goodness.
This is an important insight from a theological point of view. If God is understood as the ultimate source of goodness, beauty, and truth, then the movement described by Plato can be seen as pointing toward the divine. Romantic love may awaken a longing that no finite human relationship can fully satisfy. The beauty we encounter in another person hints at something greater than the person alone. It gestures toward a deeper reality.
When understood in this way, romantic love does not stand in opposition to spiritual life. Instead, it can become one of the experiences through which human beings first discover the depth of their own longing; the depth of their soul. Eros opens the soul toward what it perceives as beautiful and good, and that movement may ultimately lead the soul toward its source: God.
Taken together, these two insights allow us to see romantic love in a new light. On the one hand, the structure of eros helps us understand why the language of romantic longing appears so naturally in sacred literature. The dynamic of desire, distance, and pursuit mirrors the way human beings often experience our relationship with God. On the other hand, the experience of romantic love itself can awaken within us a deeper awareness of beauty and meaning that no single human relationship can fully contain. In this way, romantic love does not merely resemble spiritual longing; it can also become one of the experiences that first leads us to seek its ultimate source. What begins as attraction to another person may gradually expand into a search for the ultimate beauty, goodness, and truth that lie beyond any individual beloved. Seen in this light, eros is not simply a distraction from spiritual life, but one of the ways through which the human heart may first learn to desire God.
Set me as a seal upon your heart,
as a seal upon your arm;
for love is strong as death,its passion fierce as the grave.
(Song of Songs 8:6)
Perhaps this is why the language of lovers appears in sacred scripture. Because the deepest longing of the human heart is ultimately a longing for the source of all beauty, goodness, and truth—God.
These reflections raise several interesting questions for us to consider. When people fall deeply in love and suddenly experience the world as more beautiful, meaningful, and alive, what exactly is happening in that moment? Is romantic love simply a powerful emotional experience, or could it be revealing something deeper about the structure of human desire? Do you think Plato was right to suggest that the beauty we encounter in another person might awaken a search for beauty itself? Many religious traditions have used the language of lovers to describe the soul’s relationship with God—do you find that comparison illuminating, or does it feel forced or problematic? Finally, if romantic love can awaken desires that no human relationship can fully satisfy, what might that suggest about the deeper longing of the human heart and the possibility that it is ultimately oriented toward something greater than ourselves?
David: I think we’ve all noticed certain trends in society today—the move away from marriage and toward dating apps where men and women have brief flings. The long-term relationship of eros seems to be declining. You have the incel movement—these involuntary celibates, mostly men, who have stopped looking for women altogether.
Something is happening in society, isn’t it? Given everything you said about the relationship between eros and spirituality, what do these trends foretell? Should we be worried?
Michael: Well, they certainly seem to be in conflict with eros. It’s an interesting conversation. I’m not sure how religious or spiritual it is, but these modern dating systems tend to collapse the distance between people. As a result, you don’t see the same kind of falling in love that might have happened before. But is that affecting the spiritual life? I’m not sure.
C-J: I think people who work in relationship therapy are very aware that there is sadness when we aren’t connected. Human beings need connection. I don’t think this is an anomaly. We see similar patterns throughout history, especially during times of global political unrest. Today the world looks very different than it did in the time of Jesus. Cities were different, rules were different, currency was different—not just money in your pocket, but how commerce worked. All of those things affect whether people feel safe and whether they trust their circumstances.
People cannot marry if they cannot afford to support a partner and children. They cannot marry if their work requires constant travel—as Paul describes when he talks about being a tentmaker traveling around the Mediterranean to obtain goods at competitive prices.
And we call this “love,” but that’s actually a fairly recent concept. After World War II, people began to live according to new social scripts. Before that, the script you followed depended on many things: whether your parents arranged your marriage, whether you were rich or poor, whether you lived in the country or in the city, whether you were on a major road or in an isolated place. All of these factors shaped who your partner might be.
Marriage—or what we might call a contract of cohabitation—was largely about survival. The idea of marrying someone because you loved them, celebrating Valentine’s Day and so forth, is relatively modern. Love was something you learned to practice. You learned how to live with another person and hold them in sacred regard.
Often very young girls—not women, but girls—were given to men in their thirties. There could be a fifteen- or twenty-year age difference. Sometimes they had barely met before the wedding. These were legally binding contracts often tied to wealth—land, currency, or political alliances.
What we now describe in terms of brain chemistry—oxytocin and endorphins—developed over time. When you are treated well, you begin to trust. When you trust, you take risks. When you take risks, you hope for reward.
If you create a family together, you hope your partner survives war or dangerous work, and that your child survives childbirth and grows up healthy. Love wasn’t primarily a feeling; it was a commitment to being the best person you could be and hoping the other person would reflect that commitment.
But life doesn’t come with a recipe. It’s shaped by the unique ways people come together. Today we live in a very mobile society with easy access to many things. Studies even show that attraction sometimes relates to pheromones—subconscious signals. Often people are drawn to partners whose smell or appearance feels familiar, sometimes resembling their mother or father.
Socioeconomic class matters too—shared background, shared values, similar goals. Today we’re taught to marry within our class—or ideally marry upward—to increase our social, political, and economic standing. We’re told to pursue careers that earn money and to live in stable countries.
These expectations are common across cultures and communities. People in marginalized communities often say, “No matter what I do, I can’t get out of this place. I don’t understand the rules. I don’t have the right clothes.” You might still have a lover within that world, but socially you’re not stepping outside your environment.
And when we talk about the kind of love David mentioned—coupling, even our relationship with God—people who struggle to be socially accepted often struggle to believe that God accepts them. It isn’t always about following rules. It goes back to that karmic idea: “I must have done something wrong.” Even if we don’t openly believe that, we sometimes behave as though we do.
Kiran: Researchers have found that people who use dating apps tend to rank potential partners—from best to worst. What’s happening is that about 80 percent of the women on these apps choose the top 25 percent of men—men who are six feet tall, have six-pack abs, lots of money, and photos sitting in private jets. As a result, that top group of men ends up having multiple romantic partners, while the rest of the men often have none at all.
Another issue is rejection. It’s hard to reject someone face-to-face, but when interaction happens electronically—through a screen where there’s emotional distance—it becomes very easy to reject someone. So the number of rejections people experience has increased dramatically. Many men eventually conclude that trying isn’t worth it anymore.
At the same time, women are repeatedly dating the same small group of highly desirable men, which can create unrealistic expectations about what men should be like. Those expectations often lead to criticism of men who don’t meet that standard. So the problem isn’t just men or just women. It’s also the structure created by the technology.
Another factor is that boys mature later than girls both educationally and developmentally. Our school systems reward sitting still and focusing—things that girls often do better earlier in life. Boys tend to excel more in hands-on learning, but much of that kind of education—trade-school style learning—has disappeared.
Because of that, many young men start their careers with lower salaries. And financial success matters a great deal in dating. A woman’s income often doesn’t affect her attractiveness in the same way a man’s income does. Meanwhile, some very attractive women can now earn large incomes through social media or adult-content platforms. It creates a very distorted environment. Honestly, I feel sad for the boys.
David: But there’s another trend we haven’t discussed—AI girlfriends and boyfriends, along with the growth of robotics. There are already lifelike, full-size dolls used for sex. They will become robotic—there’s no doubt about that—and they will begin to react the way AI reacts now in speech.
So again we come back to eros and spirituality. Is it fundamentally different if your loved one is a robot rather than a human? Because that’s where this is going. You could have a partner you love who is totally non-judgmental, helpful, never complains, never nags, and so on. I’m not endorsing it. I’m simply saying that when I look at what is coming, this seems inevitable.
I must also comment that as a Daoist, this conversation is somewhat moot for me. We’re simply on the Way, and the Way will take care of things. But there are enormous implications for society, for individuals, and for religion. We can’t put our heads in the sand. We need to acknowledge what is happening, then ask what the downsides and upsides might be, then make preparations accordingly.
Kiran: Before marriage, eros is a big deal. After marriage it often becomes the last thing people think about. The focus shifts to building a life together and raising children. Even married people might want an android companion. It’s not really about whether someone is married; it’s about desire. Many married people have extramarital relationships anyway. Religion often tries to curb that desire and encourage people to remain faithful.
But most of married life is just work—cleaning, cooking, and everyday responsibilities. In many ways it becomes like living with a roommate. If people have good roommate relationships, they’ll probably have good marriages.
People have objectified one another for a long time. That’s the real problem in society. If robots replaced some of that exploitation, it might actually be an improvement. Instead of sex trafficking—kidnapping people and selling them to wealthy clients—it would at least be a manufactured product rather than a human being.
C-J: People become depressed or numb because we are spiritual beings. We crave intimacy—to be fully known and still held in sacred space. That’s why a story about love or survival can make us cry. It touches that deep need. When people begin to believe “Nobody loves me,” “I’m unlovable,” or “I don’t belong,” they begin to check out emotionally.
It’s within spiritual communities and in our relationship with God that we learn how to love properly. Love becomes service. It becomes a gift—choosing to give energy to another person because we value the relationship.
Reinhard: In the Song of Solomon we see God’s intention for love between men and women. It begins in youth with strong attraction and attachment, leading toward marriage and family. Solomon’s writings also show stages of life—romantic love in the Song of Solomon, wisdom in Proverbs, and reflection in Ecclesiastes.
The love between husband and wife is also used as a metaphor for the relationship between God and His people. Just as a married couple forms a lifelong bond, believers form a lifelong bond with God.
Don: If the love between a man and a woman is a metaphor for our relationship with God, is eros gender-specific or gender-neutral?
C-J: I think it’s inherently gender-neutral. Falling in love is sensual, but loving someone is relational. Real love involves trust and commitment, just like our relationship with God. When I betray that relationship with my choices, it leaves scars. When I honor it, the roots grow deeper and I feel loved and accepted. You can’t learn that kind of love from an app or a doll. It comes from first understanding God’s love.
Carolyn: The Bible talks about hungering and thirsting for righteousness. I’ve often wondered how we develop that hunger. I want to feel that kind of longing for God. Is there a name for that?
C-J: I think that’s grace.
David: I recently finished Of Human Bondage by Somerset Maugham. The “bondage” he describes is really the bondage of love. The story includes physical starvation as well as emotional suffering caused by love. That makes me wonder whether spiritual hunger might resemble starvation. Personally, I’d rather be with God than feel hunger for God.
C-J: It’s a different kind of hunger. When I hunger for God it’s usually because I’m broken. Most of the time my relationship with God brings peace and nourishment. It overflows so I can share it with others. God doesn’t deny us. God simply says, “Choose wisely.”
Reinhard: The language of hunger and thirst also describes the devotion lovers feel for each other. In the same way, believers seek to satisfy God’s will. That becomes the metaphor for our relationship with God.
David: Returning to Don’s question, eros can certainly exist between any two people regardless of gender. If eros has spiritual significance, then what matters is the eros itself. Do eros, philia, and agape operate together, or are they separate forms of love?
Michael: I’m still trying to figure that out. Love is a paradox and a mystery. It involves action and emotion, physical and spiritual dimensions. We put all of it into one word—love—but it’s difficult to define precisely.
C-J: As we age, our understanding of love changes.
Life brings unexpected turns—illness, loss, hardship. Those experiences reshape how we understand love and commitment. Sometimes what we long for isn’t youth but innocence—the feeling of being loved unconditionally and safe.
Carolyn: The central command is still to love God first. Hungering and thirsting for righteousness means longing for God above everything else.
Michael: Sometimes God feels present; sometimes absent. That searching is why the Song of Songs expresses so much longing.
Don: Perhaps learning to love ourselves—because God loves us—is the beginning.
C-J: “Seek first the kingdom of God, and all these things will be added to you.” God’s timing is perfect. What God begins, He will complete.
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