Is it Possible to Love the Neighbour?

There are very few who could deny the blatant truth that Christian love seems to be in constant tension with the ultimate commandment: “you shall love your neighbour as yourselves”. For it is immediately apparent at every moment that everyone has a preferred “love”, a reserved love for a particular person that they feel a close bond with. But I find it absolutely astonishing that we do not often address this ultimate flaw that seems to nullify the absolute reality of God which is the entire existence of Christianity: absolute, impartial, universal Love.

But firstly, what is wrong with preferential love? What is it about it that opposes Christian preaching?

To answer this^[1], we must first identify that we have an inclination towards those that we easily identify with; friends, family, wives, husbands all represent to us familiarity and comfort, support and peace. We find it easier to love these people because there is an immediate bounce of love back from them; however, this is definitely not to say that the love is not genuine. The love between a husband and wife is perfect in itself and indeed if the commandment were simply “love, with all your might, one whom you may choose” – they would fulfil the commandment absolutely.

Now, the problem with preferential love lies in deciphering the second part of the commandment, where it commands us to love ourselves. This must be examined with great detail because it is here where we can understand the imperativeness of the entire commandment. That is, the command is to love ourselves, to love ourselves in the right way. But we can see here that preferential love stops at this part of the commandment, for self-love alone would merely result in inequality of love. In loving myself exclusively, I am inclined to grow closer to certain ones and cut off the rest for they do not assist in aiding my self-love. If love then is directed exclusively to a select few, and if the love is not the same for everyone, then we have only fulfilled half the commandment.

The commandment expressly states first and foremost to love our neighbour as we love ourselves, meaning that there is a need to deny our inclination to love ourselves. The imperative “you shall” brings a whole level of new significance to the commandment; that first, we love ourselves correctly, then love our neighbour with this love.

Who then, is the neighbour? It is absolutely everybody, including the ones we preferentially love. The commandment requires that this love be equal and impartial to the neighbour, therefore, it must be equal and impartial to everybody, for the neighbour is everybody.

But how is this possible considering that we all have preferred loved ones, considering also that Jesus had twelve disciples who formed His closed circle?

The answer is absolutely beautiful and immediately resolves the once gaping hole that we thought we had seen in the Christian mission: and this nothing but faith^[2]. It is that double movement wherein we give up all inclination towards preferential love to God, while at the same time remaining with our earthly desires. Imperatively, this implies that if we were to lose our preferred loves, we will remain the same in our love for the neighbour, for the movement required that we give up the earthly but at the same time remaining within the earthly. This is what Kierkegaard explains to be the “paradox of faith”. In this, neighbourly and preferential love is the same in essence but manifested differently.

Thus, with regard to Jesus and his twelve disciples, He did not exclusively love them, but indeed Loved all, equally, while at the same time having a closed circle of preferred loves. This Love was not feigned, for indeed His sacrificing Himself on the cross was the ultimate expression of neighbourly love. The need to love equally is only reinforced by the New commandment which says, “you shall love one another as I have loved you^[3]".

This movement of having both preferential loves and neighbourly love, in which the love in both is the same, is the very experience of faith which cannot be described: it is purely phenomenological.

Please Read Kierkegaard's 'Works of Love' for further insight into this topic.
Krishek, S. (2008). Two Forms of Love: The Problem of Preferential Love in Kierkegaard’s “Works of Love.” The Journal of Religious Ethics, 36(4), 595–617. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40378024
John 13:34