Is the principle of love sufficient to live a good life?
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This 37/40 (A* grade) A-Level essay on Christian Moral Principles in Developments in Christian Thought, Religious Studies provides a great revision and learning tool for A-Level students. This can help with essay techniques as well as covering all key content and wider knowledge around this topic. ...
Is the principle of love sufficient to live a good life? [40 marks]
The agape is a powerful ethical principle, and it is hard to imagine a ‘good life’ without love
as it seems to underpin a plethora of ideas in Christian ethics and in the moral life in
general. Some ethicists may argue that agape is sufficient to live a good life on the grounds
of Jesus’ ministries focusing on it, how love underpins many aspects within the Bible and its
inclusive nature. This is supported by many ethicists including St Paul, Niebuhr and Fletcher.
On the other hand, it seems the concept of love seems very subjective and may need to be
paired with the Bible, other religious texts or the Church in order for people to live ‘good’
lives and this is supported by St Augustine and Vardy. This steers me towards the idea that,
as humans are imperfect and susceptible to sin, there is need for clearer structure to live a
good life such as using the Bible.
The idea that love alone is sufficient in living a good life is supported through Jesus
appearing to ignore all other sources of authority during the time of his teaching and
ministries. Jesus’ most important teaching is arguably the Sermon on the Mount in which he
says the Golden Rule of “love thy neighbour as thyself” which clearly focuses on agape.
Jesus’ clear stress on love in his teachings and his attention to developing and overruling
past laws and strict rules Jews had to abide by implies that love is the primary and singular
focus to living a good life. Jesus also had dinner with “many tax collectors and sinners”
(Matthew 9:10). The fact that he dined with sinners and people of little respect in society
implies that he held societal standards, laws and rules of little concern and focused on
spreading God’s love to people. Through this, we can observe that Jesus taught and lived
following agape and this only. He taught on love as one of his most important teachings and
acted in love to every member of society. This strengthens the view that the principle is
sufficient to live a good life to Christians as they should follow the teachings and lifestyle of
Jesus to become as similar to him as they can, thus consequently living a ‘good life’.
However, this view can be countered through the point of Jesus not using the principle of
love alone and the fact that Jesus is God incarnate. Jesus said, “Thy word is truth”, which
implies that he respects the scripture and does not adopt such a revolutionary view as the
previous point implies. He also established the first Church and had twelve disciples, further
justifying the view that Jesus held the Church in high regard. This implies that perhaps a
combination of agape and the Church’s teachings are necessary to live a ‘good’ life. The fact
that Jesus set up the foundations of the ‘early Church’ and supported the scriptures
highlights the importance of these factors along with the principle of agape. Perhaps agape
can be used to live a good life, but this needs to be combined with reading God’s word and
going to Church, otherwise the principle of love is simply a secular mantra that Jesus
happened to adopt. This point shows weaknesses in the idea that agape is sufficient as it
indicates that Jesus did not use love alone to live a good life, and perhaps this type of living
is only sufficient when Christians are surrounding themselves with fellow Christians in a
community (similarly to Jesus and his disciples) and reading the scripture to learn about
God’s plan for them, otherwise the principle of love cannot lead one to living a ‘good life’.
In addition to this, one may argue that humans are intrinsically flawed and can’t fulfil agape
alone. This can be seen through Augustine’s theodicy in which we can infer that humans
have original sin which separates us from God and that we are inherently sinners. Vardy also
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