Apophasis, Energeia, and Agape

When we try to define love we will always fail. It cannot be defined in its essence; rather it can only be known, just as anything worth knowing in this world, by its activities. Love is what love does. This is why St John tells us “God is Love” – not so that we would comprehend the infinite, ineffable essence of the Divine, but so that we would participate, in mundane ways, in the activities of God: love for neighbors, love for enemies, love for the true, the good, and the beautiful. To read the Law as a set of rules meant to bring guilt is to read it “according to the flesh.” The Law is the ground rules of Love: what does it mean to love your neighbor? At the base, it means to not cheat, or defraud, or betray him, to do no meanness to him, to respect his property and his family. But, you might say, this is all negative. Indeed, for the Law is the apophasis of Love: it tells us what Love is not, what activities are the opposite of Love, what activities preclude the germination and harvest of Love. Again here we are in the realm of the Divine: we cannot know what God is in His essence, but we can know what He is not. The real difficulty is not the Law, but Death: we cannot participate in Love while clinging to the corruption of Adam. We must die to that mode of existence, which leads to Death, especially as it has us turned in on ourselves as being the highest good. It is only when we see the highest good in God, and therefore the higher good in His Image, that we can die to self and rise to Love. The Law does put us to death, and hallelujah!, for in this death Death dies: we can now exist as the bearers of Love, finding true self in Him.