Danner vs. Bass: What is Love?

Greg Danner:
Since the dawn of man kind, men and women have been struggling to understand the strange compulsions to touch and hold each other, having unbearably strong attractions for one another. These feelings have been called “love”, and have been blamed on everything from “the soul” or “god”. Love is the fault of not these, but a set of chemicals in the brain that have resulted from the evolutionary need to procreate.
Love is the feeling of close connection that individuals experience in regards to other individuals. Primarily, love’s purpose is to facilitate sexual reproduction. Chemicals are released in the brain to drive a person towards another person. This came about in evolution for several reasons. Species that reproduce are more likely to pass on their genetic material- that is, they are able to pass on their gentic material- so naturally, traits that encourage reproduction are more likely to be passed on. Furthermore, couples who love each other want to be with each other and spend their lives together. This facilitates the raising of offspring which is necessary for the passing of genes. Species that take care of their young are more likely to pass on their genetic material because the young need to grow into adults so they can mate and further carry on the process.
In order to encourage interest between the sexes, the brain releases powerful chemicals. The two chemicals that the brain releases are phenythamine and oxytocin. Phenylethamine causes an increase in the transfer of information between cells and acts as an agent for releasing dopamine, which causes bliss, and amphetamine, which acts similarly to adrenaline. This chemical can be released at very subtle cues given to the brain. Even a simple handshake with a member of the opposite sex (or the same sex, depending on your orientation) can release this powerful drug. “Love at first sight” may just be an overwhelming amount of chemicals. The effects of this chemical and the chemicals it stimulates can make a person feel strong, heady, emotions, have a racing pulse, and have heavy breathing. Oxytocin, which can also be released at something as simple as the touch of a lover, causes a physical need to be touched.
These intense chemical feelings, the giddiness, and everything associated with puppy love will fade within 6 months to 3 years, the length of time the brain can sustain the intense feelings of love. After these feelings fade, the psychological attachment to the person releases endorphins for the mature love of an aged couple, which is similar to the love between friends. These endorphins are addictive; the longer people are together, the longer they generally want to be together, which facilitates further fecundation.
Love isn’t anything magical or special. Each time a person feels like “no one has ever felt this way before”, they are dead wrong. Love is just the means for humans to get around to having sex. People who make poetry and love songs and get all sappy about love may as well sing about any other set of chemical reactions. They ought to make songs about photosynthesis and cry over cellular respiration. Love is nothing but the natural desire to procreate and carry on the human race. Human beings expirience these feelings of chemical desire so they can manage to tolerate each other long enough to get around to having sexual intercourse.




Charles Bass:

Love is the greatest outpouring of the human soul. It blooms like a flower and scatters its seeds to the wind. It tames the wild beasts and quiets the angry mob. It is the force which keeps our community together and protects us from the evils of the world. In the absence of the beautiful outpouring of poetic goodness that is love, man would be an empty and uncaring husk, devoid of its humanity, like a vicious animal. Through its grace there is no obstacle which cannot be overcome, it is the ultimate force, the deus ex amor. Though many deign to lump all kinds of love together, it is necessary to distinguish them for clarity of argument. It is through the separation and delineation of love that it may be demonstrated that love is a more mysterious thing than neuronal firings.
Familial love is the love someone feels for their family members and very close friends. It develops from the close bond created from close contact with one’s family members from the moment of birth, including the immediate bond created with one’s mother. It is an unbreakable bastion of affection and loyalty. Will anyone claim that their devotion to their mother or their father could be eliminated by injection? That some magical chemical is the root of that and not their soul?
Universal love is the love for all people, things, of God, or to God. This is the love of the great theologians, that indomitable will known as Christian Charity. It is the bond among each individual and every other living being, that connection which nearly defines humanity and allows for the essential goodness of people. This is the love which inspires piety, charity, and compassion. Can any good Christian declare their God and values obsolete and the product of a chemistry experiment?
Romantic love is seldom differentiated from sexual attraction, because they almost always occur together, however, they are very much separate concepts. Romantic love can be the strongest of all loves. Romantic love is the overpowering impulse to be near and have contact with one other person. It is romantic love that has fueled the arts for centuries by providing those blessed with a muse beyond all others. Those of you who are in love, those of you who are married, can you put that in a beaker? Can that be separated in a centrifuge?
Paul gives us another interpretation in his letters to the Corinthians: “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres” (Corinthians 13:4-7).
Notice that Paul gives no mention of “oxytocins” or “neurons”, instead, he credits love as an extension of our human spirit as given to us by God. Paul, the very cornerstone of our Christian faith, believed in the metaphysical dimension of love.
All types of love, despite their strengths and weaknesses, are still beautiful expressions of mankind’s nature and are separate from any banal chemical process. It is a spit in the face of all art and majesty to suppose that love is a chemical soup. It is love that preserves humanity and to deny its existence as a separate metaphysical anomaly is to deny religion, art, and goodness.