Love is a multifaceted concept that encompasses a wide range of positive emotions, from deep affection for family members to passionate desire for a romantic partner. The definition of love can vary greatly depending on cultural, psychological, and personal perspectives. In this article, we will explore the different types of love, the various ways love manifests, and the importance of love in our lives. Beyond that, love from a Biblical perspective will also be explored.
Love is a complex set of emotions featuring feelings of physical attraction, sexual desire, and intense longing. Therefore, love involves different brain regions, such as the ventral tegmental area and the caudate nucleus. These areas of the brain are activated during experiences of romantic love and sexual attraction. Love is not just a basic human emotion but an essential physiological drive that contributes to life satisfaction and mental health.
The Science Behind Love
Biological Foundations
The science behind romantic love reveals that hormones like dopamine, norepinephrine, vasopressin, and oxytocin play significant roles in creating and sustaining feelings of love. These chemical messengers influence our emotions and behaviors, leading to the formation of close relationships and long-term bonds.
Physical desire courses through our bodies via testosterone and estrogen. Attraction includes the “feel good” hormone dopamine, the rush of norepinephrine, and the mood-enhancer serotonin. Attachment occurs each time vasopressin increases and the “love hormone” oxytocin—associated with sex, childbirth, and breast-feeding—surges through our minds in connection with our beloved. Over the millennia of human development, we have responded to these biological realities by creating complex societal and cultural structures around marriage, family, and affinity groups. These bonded relationships profoundly affect individuals’ psychological health and the functioning of their social groups.
Attachment and Bonding
Researchers have studied infant-parent bonding to understand how individuals form attachments. Secure attachment with primary caregivers provides a foundation for developing healthy relationships later in life. This attachment theory highlights the importance of attuned, responsive, and predictable care in fostering a sense of security and love.
Building a secure attachment with a baby provides the groundwork for love to develop and mature. Strong, secure attachment provides infants and children with a sense of security and significance. Attuned, perceptive, responsive, and predictable care assures infants and children their world is safe, they matter to those around them, and they are loved.
Love in the Bible
The Bible offers profound insights into the nature of love. At the very beginning of the Christian Scriptures, God pronounces in Genesis 2 that it is not good for a human being to be alone. The writer of 1 John expounds on the transcendent aspects of love with the phrase, “God is love” (1 John 4:8). God has provided humankind with secure attachment, as the writer explains, “We ourselves love because he first loved us” (1 John 4:19).
Though the word “love” is never used in the creation account in Genesis, the description of God’s care for Adam in Genesis 2 and Eve’s creation to provide family and companionship for them harmonizes well with what science has discovered about the nature of love. Furthermore, when God creates Eve from Adam, the Scriptures state, “the two shall become one,” establishing a biblical theme of unity amid diversity. This highlights that biblical love entails distinct identities coming together as one in love.
Other stories of creation from the ancient Near East portray gods as creating humans to be their slaves and do the work needed to meet the gods’ needs. In contrast, the God of the Hebrews is described with imagery of a loving father or husband who loves, protects, and provides for the needs of his loved ones.
Hebrew and Greek Words for Love
Other biblical authors address the love between God and humanity, as well as people with each other. Like English, the Hebrew language of the Old Testament has a common word for love: ahava. However, the authors characterize God’s love with the word hesed (Exodus 34:6-7), for which there is no English equivalent. Often, we will see hesed translated as “lovingkindness.” The Hebrew word evokes love and kindness but also encompasses goodness, faithfulness, mercy, devotion, favor, and loyalty.
The Greek language of the New Testament had eight words to describe love:
Agape: Unconditional Love
Agape is the selfless, unconditional love that emanates from a genuine feeling of boundless kindness and compassion. It is the kind of love that God provides and is characterized by infinite generosity, mercy, and grace. This love is defined by God’s nature and being, as seen in the Gospel of John, which explains that it is by the inspiration of this love, agape, that God the Father sent God the Son into the world to restore the world (John 3:16-17).
Eros: Romantic and Sexual Love
Eros is the passionate, romantic love that often involves physical attraction and sexual desire. This type of love is celebrated in literature, art, and culture as the driving force behind many love stories and fairy tales. The Bible’s Song of Songs is an ode, at one level, to the joys of this kind of love.
Ludus: Playful Love
Ludus represents playful and flirtatious love, often seen in the early stages of a romantic relationship. A lighthearted, joyful interaction between partners characterizes it. This word might also describe the flirtation in the Song of Songs.
Mania: Obsessive Love
Mania is an intense, obsessive love that can lead to unhealthy behaviors such as jealousy, codependency, and even violence. It reflects an overwhelming desire to possess and control the object of love. It is what the procurator Festus accused the apostle Paul of in Acts 26:24, that his love for Jesus and his passion for the gospel was mania.
Philautia: Self-Love
Philautia is the love of oneself, which is essential for maintaining a healthy relationship with others. It involves self-care and self-respect, providing a foundation for loving others effectively. We might consider this kind of love embedded in the second greatest commandment, to love others as we love ourselves (Matthew 22:36-40).
Philia: Friendship Love
Philia is the affectionate love between friends. It is based on mutual respect, shared values, and deep levels of trust, creating strong bonds of friendship. This is the deep affection of friendship, the bond between equals, as the Judeans used to describe Jesus’ love for Lazarus (John 11), and Peter used in his love for Jesus (John 21).
Pragma: Enduring Love
Pragma is the mature, enduring love that develops over a long time in committed relationships. It involves mutual respect, understanding, and a greater degree of patience and compromise. This is a love that has come to maturity, that has learned to make compromises and sacrifices, to be patient, tolerant, and accepting. It is what Jesus intended to be understood in Matthew 18:19, that whatever was asked in this way, and in His character, would be done.
Storge: Familial Love
Storge is the empathetic, protective love often seen between parents and children. This type of love is fundamental in creating strong family bonds and ensuring the well-being of family members. This is the bond of empathy with another person and is often used to describe the love parents have for their children. It is the lack of this form of love, “heartlessness,” that Paul described at the beginning of his letter to the Roman church (Romans 1:31) and of those who would live during the days shortly before God’s judgment (2 Timothy 3:3).
The Importance of Love in Relationships
Building Healthy Relationships
A healthy relationship is built on a foundation of mutual respect, deep trust, and a range of positive emotions. Different love languages, such as words of affirmation, physical touch, and spending time together, play crucial roles in expressing love and maintaining strong connections. Different people show love differently, but love is a central part of long-term platonic, familial, and romantic relationships. True love seeks the best interests of others, not our own.
Love in Christian Teachings
Jesus’ Teachings on Love
Expositors will often speak of heavenly love as agape. Perhaps the best-known New Testament passage on love is found in the thirteenth chapter of Paul’s first letter to the Corinthian church. In this chapter, Paul describes the nature of agape as patient, kind, humble, cooperative, even-tempered, and generous-hearted. Through these attributes, love is shown in a way that conveys trust and loyalty, even hope and longsuffering. Going further, Paul placed love as preeminent over all other virtues. His reasoning? Love will last into eternity when the virtues of faith and hope have been fulfilled.
On the night Jesus was arrested, he demonstrated his love for his disciples by taking the role of a slave. As a slave, Jesus washed his disciples’ feet. After cleaning their soles, Jesus explained to them that the greatest comfort they would have was each other’s love. Jesus showed the full extent of His love for them by being vulnerable with them. He showed His friends tender and humble care. The Savior spent time with them and ate with them. Jesus was also open with them, sharing His inner thoughts and feelings and praying with them.
Jesus’ demonstration of how to love becomes even more profound when he rises from the dead (Ephesians 1:20-21). Though Jesus was the ruler of all, He showed that love is sacrificial and serving. Chiefly proving his love by giving his life for the world. Thereby modeling that love is not about status or what you can get from someone else. Loving is giving. While Jesus ascends to heaven after His resurrection, He promises His love will continue in sending His Holy Spirit.
Love in the Early Church
In that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you.
John 14:20 (ASV)
Describing a being as an Eternal Community of three fully connected persons presents a unique challenge. Such a mystery is beyond what most of us can fathom. Yet, aligning with the biblical theme of oneness, we see that humans are designed to connect with God and others. We hear it in Jesus’ directive to “Love one another as I have loved you.”
God’s ultimate joy lies in the connection within the Triune God (cf. John 5:19-29, John 17). Created to share in this joy, we connect with God and each other as one body under Jesus’ headship (Ephesians 1:9-10; 22-23). This profound joy, the fulfillment of our heart’s purpose (cf. Genesis 1:26-27), involves being truly seen, accepted, fully known, and loved—the pinnacle of human existence, symbolized in Genesis by Adam and Eve’s naked and unashamed state (Genesis 2:25).
These two individuals represent diverse relationships—friends, family, and lovers—transparent yet deeply connected, experiencing perfect union with each other, creation, and God. However, the stark reality is that every person fears true visibility, dreading judgment and potential rejection (cf. Genesis 3:7-8). Despite the initial perfection, Genesis 3 brings the rupture—shame, guilt, separation, and rejection. From that moment onward, the human experience is marked by a longing for union but a simultaneous fear of it. The pursuit of love becomes entangled with shame, as we erroneously believe something is inherently wrong with us, leading us to suppress the desire for love and connection.
The Bottom Line on Love
Love is a fundamental aspect of human existence, encompassing a wide range of emotions and experiences. Whether it is the passionate love between romantic partners, the deep affection for family members, or the compassionate love for friends, love enriches our lives and connects us to others. Understanding the different types of love and their importance helps us build stronger, healthier relationships and leads to greater life satisfaction.
Love is not merely a set of emotions but an essential part of the human experience. It influences our mental health, shapes our social interactions, and fulfills our deepest desires for connection and belonging. Whether viewed through the lens of science or the teachings of the Bible, love remains a powerful force that drives us to seek out meaningful relationships and strive for a better understanding of ourselves and others.
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