Eros and Caritas

3 Credits · Level: Undergraduate

This course explores the Catholic understanding of love from an inter-disciplinary perspective. It examines the tension in the Catholic tradition between exclusive love (romantic and sexual love) and universal love (the love of God for humanity and the Christian mandate to love all human beings). It seeks to understand whether these two kinds of love stand in opposition, or whether Catholicism has succeeded in bringing them into harmony. The readings are drawn from the Bible(Gospel of John, Song of Songs), classic texts(Augustine, Aquinas, Bernard of Clairveaux), literature (Shakespeare, Andre Dubus), contemporary philosophy (Jean-Luc Marion, Dietrich von Hildebrand), and the Church's magisterial teaching ("Humane Vitae," "Deus Caritas Est").