The Difference Between Love And Emotion

Very often people confuse love and emotion. They are not the same, although there is a connection, because love is the highest expression of which we are capable, and it would be strange, therefore, if our emotions were not affected in some way. They may well be, although the effect on them can be felt as either positive or negative, and we have all had both kinds of these experiences.

Yet love essentially transcends the emotions and, in its essence, is fundamentally an act of will. (It should be noted in passing that, while in the world in which we live, "love" is frequently used as a synonym for "sex", love has no necessary connection in with sexual act). That act of will is quite independent of what we feel at the time we express love. Indeed, it could be argued that the expression of love is purer the lower is the involvement of our emotions. On the other hand, one could even more strongly argue that our expression of love is greater the greater the negative emotion we are feeling at the time we make the act of love (in the sense that what we are feeling is nothing like what we might imagine love for the other person to be).

The Example Of Jesus

When Jesus died on the cross he was certainly not having warm, gooey feeling. He was in dreadful pain: he had been scourged twice, had the crown of thorns thrust upon his head, made to carry his cross in a very weakened state, nailed through his feet and hands, and was then hanging in a position which constantly threatened to cause his suffocation. (They broke the legs of men crucified to prevent them raising themselves up in order to breath). His death was an act of love, the ultimate act of love, but it was also an act of will. We need only reflect on his inner struggle in the Garden of Gethsemane, in seeking only to comply with his Father’s will, to appreciate that.

At one level he was putting into practise his own teachings:

So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets. (Matthew 7:12, NIV ).

It sums up the Law and the prophets because it is God’s ultimate law. If we are ever in any doubt as to how we should act in order to love another, we need only ask ourselves how we would desire them to act, were we in the same situation. The answer has nothing to do with how we feel. Indeed, if the situation is one in which we consider we have been, or are being, injured, it is likely that our feelings will be telling us to do exactly the opposite!

As Christians, we have taken up an option. Above anything else, it is an option of Love and it is therefore an option to love. We have no choice in the matter — whatever the matter happens to be. If it happens that our emotions are tending to move us in the same direction as our will, that is merely an accidental benefit. We are certainly glad of it because it makes our actions easier.

But we are never called to be people who are controlled by their emotions: that is to be enslaved by a facility which should be at our service in making decisions, decisions which we are led to and which are determined by the Holy Spirit. Indeed, theologians explain to us the nature of the Holy Spirit as being the love which exists between the Father and the Son. Hence, when we are led by the Spirit we are led by love, and emotions do not enter into it.