Agape and Personhood. David L. Goicoechea

to go out affirming all differences.

      When the Son of God became flesh we received the gift:

      “That all flesh shall see the salvation of the Lord.” (Luke 3:6)

      The task of this gift is that we spend our lives promoting

      the highest and the best in all persons and even all flesh.

      Agape can affirm all other attempts at reconciliation

      and all other ways of love and models of subjectivity.

      The point of studying the history of love and personhood

      is to see how the model of agape goes out to all others

      and learns from them the worth of their different ways and

      in loving service of them promotes individualizing differences.

      Western culture with its own special religion, law, politics

      and economics has developed out of the theory and practice

      of agape and personhood which today is being everywhere considered.

      Even if Chinese, Indian, Islamic and Eastern Orthodox cultures

      do not embrace the agape of the West with its view that all persons

      are equal under the law and even if they do not embrace

      the implied democracy from the election of the Pope on down

      they all want to get in on the technological and economic success.

      Once they begin pursuing the economic fruit they do slowly

      come to see the implied political blossoms and then the

      legal branches and then the trunk of personhood and then finally

      the roots of agape or the three persons in the one true God.

      In this first set of meditations we shall examine the history

      of the notion of personhood in the West as it grew out of

      the new reality and concept of agape which Jesus introduced.

      We shall not yet focus on the legal theory and practice

      that developed with it but we might notice two systems

      of the theory and practice of law which developed in the West.

      There was the code law of the Continent with Justinian

      and with Canon Law which gave rise to rational science

      and there was the Case Law of England and its empirical method.

      Already with Jesus and with Paul the new universal agape

      for all persons was bringing forth a new approach to the law.

      Of course, the Ten Commandments were still of utmost importance

      but the practice of Jesus towards foreigners and sinners

      and his Sermon on the Mount and many of his parables

      extended the love of Jesus to all with the Good Samaritan.

      Paul saw immediately that in Christ Jesus there is

      no longer Greek nor Jew, master nor slave, male nor

      female for they are now all persons equal under the law.

      In these meditations we shall ponder together how agape

      and person developed during their first two thousand years.

      Each loving creature’s four noble truths

      I Each person and each loving creature suffers and will die

      II and will weep and wonder why for that is a mystery

      which none of us can understand unless we believe

      III in that Divine love that so loves us that it became flesh

      and died and rose again from the dead that there

      can be hope for all loving creatures who belong

      to the Mystical Body of Jesus.

      IV And the Holy Spirit of the Risen Lord Jesus has

      revealed to us a nine-fold path toward the salvation

      for all flesh, both for persons and loving creatures

      (1) for hunter-gatherer shamans across the face of the earth

      knew of persons and creatures in relation in spirit form

      (2) for the five Greek and Roman schools debated the plight

      of all souls and spirit: vegetative, animal, human, Divine

      (3) for Hebrew Hesed which became Christian Agape promised

      an everlasting Kingdom, for love is stronger than death

      (4) for God is the love between the three Divine persons

      which was revealed for all persons in the incarnation

      (5) for Jesus is one person equal to the other two

      and unique in his Divine and human nature

      (6) for in accord with the idea of Divine persons humans

      were seen as individual substances of a rational nature

      (7) for from Augustine to Aquinas the Caritas Synthesis

      embraced and learned from all persons of eros, affection, friendship

      (8) for with the Franciscans all loving creatures, and

      all do love, were the brothers an sister of Francis

      (9) for from Luther and Descartes to Kant and Hegel

      the human rights of all persons became law.

      By meditating on this nine stage history of personhood

      we will bring ourselves up to the brink of postmodernity

      and be ready to appreciate Kierkegaard’s love and personhood.

      notes:

      1. Stanley Krippner, “The Epistemology and Technologies of Shamanic Sates of Consciousness,” Journal of Consciousness Studies 7 (2000) 93.

      Part One

      Joyful Beginnings

      I. Mother

      I.1 With Her Anglican mother

      I.1.1 Identification in Mother-Daughter Bonding

      Mother was born on September 6, 1917, at that time

      of late summer when the sheep are brought down from

      Rocky Mountain Highlands to greener lowland pastures

      and when ewes are grouped with best bucks for breeding.

      Mother was born into the passion of her mother,

      Leona Hart-Abbott, and of her father, Levaur Paul Coates.

      Gramma Coates had lost her mother when she was but eight

      and Grandpa Coates lost his mother when he was only five.

      They both grew up in the constant presence of their lost mothers.

      When they met and told their stories to each other and ate

      a meal together they knew that they were meant for each other.

      And it was as if Levaur sensed his lost mother in Leona.

      And in Levaur’s lost mother in him, Leona seemed to find her own.

      With her many strong Anglican relatives Leona Mae went

      through the mourning process in a very successful way.

      The