Agapé and the spiritual development of humanity

 In one of last summer’s postings here, I reflected on what had been slowly formulating for me from inspirations I’d been receiving for 30 years about the purpose of human life. I spelled out my conclusion in this simplest statement possible: THE PURPOSE OF HUMAN LIFE IS SPIRITUAL DEVELOPMENT. 

Now when I look back on that, those words seem too simple and almost too vague. Now I see that a 2nd purpose statement needs to be added: The purpose of spiritual development is to work with divine energy and guidance to build enlightened communities to become the self-awareness of evolution. And that’s where my understanding about agapé fits in: the primary of many purposes of agapé is the power to produce collective spiritual development.

So that gives us the organizing principle for humanity’s next stage in evolution. The main inspiration I’ve received over the years had to do with the crucial role of agapé in humanity’s growth. So I can summarize into 2 functions the spiritual power of agapé within every human: 

1. to bring humans into relation with divine Presence for guidance, and 
2. to facilitate creative relations with All that Is.    

During the last 40 years, I’ve concentrated my intellectual research about agapé on many studies of 1 Corinthians 13, and I’ve come to several conclusions about what was going on in those extremely important verses. The first conclusion came because of the King James Version translation: those verses were about agapé not about love, which was evidenced by the translation of ‘agape’ as ‘charity.’ Obviously, simple human love didn’t need to be explained, but spiritually powerful agapé did need to be explained.

Here is a summary of the strangeness of agapé as given in the 3-verse introduction: agapé is absolutely necessary for any spiritual meaning; for without living by the power of agapé, any attempt at spiritual understanding amounts to nothing — not spiritual experience, not ecstatic revelation, and not supernatural phenomena. Everything is meant to depend on agapé. It is simply that powerful. And so I add this interpretation: any attempt to weaken the power of agapé leads to nothing.

My research into the meaning of the Greek words used to describe agapé has led me to see the creative power of agapé as a way to overcome the negative fear-based process of trying to develop an ego-identity. Trying to build a defensive, fear-based personal identity leads to nothing.

But unfortunately, humanity’s spiritual development has been held back for thousands of years by societies built upon ego-identifying instead of agapé-identifying. Such societies have caused vast numbers of people to ignore their agapé power when building an identity. So the melancholy of human existence comes from not realizing agapé power as the basis of each person’s identity, but instead trying to build an identity from an ego.

Agapé is crucial for creatively and spiritually connecting each person with all of the human race. That importance comes from realizing that we are all in this together, and so we can help each other’s spiritual development; in fact, we need each other for spiritual development. That’s why I claim that the way agapé works, it not only draws each person into direct connection with spiritual Reality, but also develops throughout the human race the capacity to expand the awareness of Divine Presence.

And that’s why agapé is the key. It is the spiritual power that is creative in the process of spiritual development. It is the spiritual power that draws people together to help in all that needs helping. It is the motivational power that creates the ‘loving’ in loving community. It is the inspirational power that creates in people the awareness that we need loving, sustaining, supportive community. So such is not only the basis of the most profound, creative relationships while also the basis of individual spiritual growth and the spiritual development of the human race. 

Agapé power is a mystery for most people

In looking back over the 9 years of this blog’s development, I ask: why did I name it “The Mystery of Agapé Power”; and then, what have I uncovered about agapé being a mystery to too many in the modern world?

Even before I started this blog I spent many years trying to come to terms with the mystery of why agapé had been so important to the first Christians, and yet almost unknown today. What caused modern Christians to think that agapé had diminished in importance? Finally, to get beyond mere intellectualizing, I took my exploration of agapé into my morning meditation. 

For a couple of years, I started morning prayer time by focusing on my developing awareness of the spiritual meaning of Romans 5:5 (using my own translation -- “God’s agapé has been poured into the center of our being through the Holy Spirit.”) I opened myself up to receive a sense of the spiritual flowing of the agapé of God. In that way I grew to realize agapé as spiritual power, and I became convinced that it was in every person’s heart-center (and not confined to people of any particular religion).

Then one winter morning while meditating out in a park, during such a practice with the power of agapé, I had an intense Spirit-filled experience. Although it’s a little difficult putting into words, the best I can do is say that I “sensed” agapé as “access.” For 2 days after that original experience, I explored in deep meditation what it meant to have “agapé as access.” On that 2nd day I “sensed” that agapé had brought me access to spiritual “manifestation” of God’s Presence. The word “manifest” actually appeared in my awareness.

Then the next day, I sensed that I was being led to my book shelf, to a book that I hadn’t read in 4 years. That book was Love, Power, and Justice by the existentialist theologian Paul Tillich; I opened the book and on pg. 33 found this: 

“… agapé enters from another dimension into the whole of life and into all qualities of love. One could call agapé the depth of love or love in relation to the ground of life. One could say that in agapé ultimate reality manifests itself and transforms life and love.”

Reading the word “manifests” had a powerful impact on me! When I saw the way he connected agape and divine manifestation -- used in the same way that it had come to me in prayer -- I was convinced that a breakthrough had come to me. In the weeks that followed, I became increasingly aware of the importance of this — not only to my morning prayers but to the relationships of my life. Finally as Jan. began, I decided to start this blog dedicated to exploring agapé as a spiritual power that God has given to all people as our access to the manifested divine Presence.

That last sentence has become for me a verbal ‘touchstone.’ Because I believe that the Divine Reality is so far beyond the awareness of humans (no matter how much of a spiritual genius a particular human could be), we need a way of access that can only come divinely. That is, unless divine manifestation develops in some way to us, we have no spiritual awareness. But even at that, we still have to become open to that awareness in order to receive that experience. So then we need some way to access that spiritual manifestation. That’s how I came to understand how Paul’s message to the Romans had meaning for my life. I came to the awareness that agapé is God’s action. 

But then this thought came to me: what if …

... Agapé is God’s primary action for each person’s life?

What could that mean? What would the implications then be for all those other theories about God’s action?

That question sent my memory to 1 John 4:6-8 -- “This is how we recognize the Spirit of truth and the spirit of error. Dear friends, let’s agapao each other, because agapé is from God, and everyone who shares in agapé is born from God and knows God. The person who doesn’t agapao does not know God, because God is agapé.”

And people have been struggling ever since that amazing revelation — to come to terms with what that means for our very survival. I think it means everything! The very survival of the human race depends on coming to terms with agapé as God’s primary action in persons’ lives.