Paul Tillich's idea of love in the history of ideas: With special reference to Nygrenian docrine of love

Anders Nygren's Agape and Eros is a classical work in the history of Christian ideas of love. It has inspired the academic debate on the relationship between Agape and Eros, while the former is a core concept in Christian theology and ethics, the latter represents the ancient Greek humanistic ethos. Nygren points out that agape and eros encounter and mingle with each other at the theoretical level. However, he suggests that in the Christian idea of love and theology, the erotic ingredient, which invades in and weakens the pure original meaning of agape, should be eliminated. In achieving this, he attempts to deny the role of eros, which manifests the existential characteristics of human being, in the Christian ethical life. Thus Nygren not only makes agape and eros distinctive in their respective meanings, but also separates them in human existential situation.;Paul Tillich handles the relationship of agape-eros in his systematic theology in a way radically different from the Nygrenian way. In dealing with the relationship between agape and eros, Tillich proposes a "quadric interactive structure of love" in which the four qualities of love namely libido, eros, philia and agape united and synergized in one love. In this structure, agape uplifts eros (including libido, eros and philia qualities) as divine-human power from the ambiguities of life into the unambiguous transcendent unity of life; while eros substantiates the abstract agape by clothing it in substantial appearance common to human existential feature.;In the history of Christian theology, we can find "Tradition of Separating" which tends to separate agape from eros like Nygren does. Meanwhile, there is "Tradition of Uniting" claiming to unite the two kinds of love and Tillich's idea of love is a typical example. Therefore, an investigation of Tillich's idea of love, especially its elaboration on the agape-eros relationship, is helpful and constructive not merely to a deeper understanding of Tillich's systematic theology, but also a comprehensive and balanced understanding of the two trends mentioned above in the history of Christian theology.;In this thesis, we examine Tillich's idea of love within the context of history of ideas and trace its historical roots, so that the tradition of uniting agape-eros in the history of ideas, mainly in that of Christian theology can be demonstrated. On the one hand, we try to retrieve the Courtly Love tradition in Medieval-Renaissance ages and Marcilio Ficino's Neo-Platonist understanding of eros in Renaissance as the historical sources to the particular meaning of Tillich's eros. On the other hand, our discussion makes particular reference to Gregory of Nyssa and John of the Cross, two representatives of the Christian spiritual theologians, whose spiritual writings on love will be considered as the historical roots of Tillich's agape-eros union within the Christian tradition. At last, the present study attempts to show that the modern application of Tillich's uniting agape with eros in Christian theology and ethics, along with related secular philosophy, revitalize this "Tradition of Uniting".