The Evangelical Universalist Forum

Passionate Wanting (Desiring Union With God)

From the Orthodox Church in America:

Holy eros is a passionately wanting God. It came to refer to physical sex and can be found there but it’s not limited there. It’s also found in hope and compassion. From the Greek Orthodox Church:

Moreover falling in love has a sense of fate and destiny. This is more so with God who satisfies the longing of our souls. We were meant to be together. We see this in Romans:

God fore loves the bride of Christ that is predestined. The word “know” when applied to relationships in the Bible is a deep intimate “knowing” of loving. Here’s an example from Genesis:

I explained this to Randy in his thread but it deserves repeating here. Kath meditation centers on the belly or breathing in the belly. It’s the grounding center which is related to the energies of the life force or Divine Eros. When the belly centers become more developed as you also become more present to the moment you become more in touch with the raw energies of your life force. You connect the paradox of the divine with the eros (or passionate desires of wanting) maintaining and egoless or selfless love. Wanting, passion, or desire is mixed together with love to develop the Divine Eros. You can explore the paradox and bring them together by going through your life and seeing how you have experienced selfless giving of love and the experience of passionate wanting. Selfishness seeks it’s own private pleasures at the expense of others. Love is different in that it seeks joy in doing good. Love rejoices in the truth and in doing good. When I do good for someone and they say “Thank you” it’s not selfish for me to respond by saying, “It’s my pleasure”. We love doing good. That is, we should want to do good with a passion for God. Our joy is found in God. From the Orthodox church in America:

I asked, "Where do you find “Holy Eros” in the New Testament?
The Orthodox Church in America is not the New Testament.

They listed scriptures from the Old and New Testament. And I gave one from Romans.

None of the listed scriptures contain the words “Holy Erōs” or even a single instance of the word “erōs”—simply because the word doesn’t occur in the New Testament.

They’re interpreting the images of the love between God and His people. Go back and read the article. The Orthodox interpretation of those verses is the correct interpretation. It agrees with the Christian philosopher Alvin Plantinga in "Warranted Christian belief also. I go along with him and the early church.

The whole point and climax of the Bible ends with an everlasting wedding day at the Great Wedding Banquet. It’s a deep intimacy with God like between close friends. You can be in love with someone and not have sex. It’s an intimate union. I will pray that you experience this deep passion so that you will want God more that anything.

Here you go Paidion. Here’s the Christian artist KB singing a song to his baby daughter about falling in love with her. He doesn’t have sex with her though and never has had sex with her. It’s strange that you’ve never been aware of being in love or having a deep and close intimate relationship with someone without any sexual lust.

Here’s holy eros in a Christian song. The word eros isn’t used but the elements are there (panting after God, longing after God and the heart’s desire for God culminating in worship and loving and wanting God more than anything). This song is taken from the scriptures

As the deer panteth for the water
So my soul longs after You
You alone are my hearts desire
And I long to worship You.

You alone are my strength, my shield
To You alone may my spirit yield
You alone are my hearts desire
And I long to worship You.

I want you more than gold or silver
Only You can satisfy
You alone are the real joy giver
And the apple of my eye.

You alone are my strength, my shield
To You alone may my spirit yield
You alone are my hearts desire
And I long to worship You.

You’re my friend and You’re my brother
Even though you are a King
I love You more than any other
So much more than anything.

You alone are my strength, my shield
To You alone may my spirit yield
You alone are my hearts desire
And I long to worship You.

It’s a deep intimacy with Christ the Bridegroom

This is what I mean by Holy Eros. It’s a yearning or longing for God. A passionate desire. Hope, compassion, love. That is to say, we want God. We want to be united to God. It’s a joy, a pleasure. An intimate union. This is found all through the Bible especially the Psalms:

Psalm 84:2

My soul yearns, even faints, for the courts of the LORD; my heart and my flesh cry out for the living God.

Psalm 63:1

You, God, are my God, earnestly I seek you; I thirst for you, my whole being longs for you, in a dry and parched land where there is no water.

Psalm 27:4

One thing I ask from the LORD, this only do I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze on the beauty of the LORD and to seek him in his temple.

Psalm 42:1-2

As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, my God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God?

Psalm 119:131

I open my mouth and pant, longing for your commands.

From a Christian perspective, then, here (as often) Freud has things just backwards. It isn’t that religious eros, love for God, is really sexual eros gone astray or rechanneled, and it isn’t sexual eros (important as it is) that is basic or fundamental, with religious eros somehow derivative from it. The fact is things are just the other way around. It is sexual desire and longing that is a sign of something deeper: it is a sign of this longing, yearning for God that we human beings achieve when we are graciously enabled to reach a certain level of the Christian life. It is love for God that is fundamental or basic, and sexual eros that is the sign or symbol or pointer to something else and something deeper. (Of course I don’t mean to say that the importance and worth of sexual eros is exhausted in its being a sign of love of God.) ~~ Alvin Plantinga “Warranted Christian Belief”

St. Michael, there is no evidence at all that the Greek noun “ερως” (erōs) is used in ANY of the examples of love or passion for God which you gave from the Bible, poetry, or any other source. Nor have you shown that the word is EVER used in any way other than sexual love or sexual passion. The word does not occur EVEN ONCE in the New Testament.

On the other hand, the Greek noun for the highest form of LOVE, namely “αγαπη” (agapā) is found 56 times in the New Testament, 19 of those times with regards to the LOVE of God or of Jesus, and the others concerning our LOVE for God or for each other.

The Greek noun “ερως” (erōs) is found only ONCE in the Old Testament Greek Septuagint, and the word is a reference is to sexual love:

It is great that you are on fire with love and passion for God, but I don’t think it right or proper to refer to this love as erotic love, that is, “erōs.”

That’s what eros is. It’s a passionate wanting. I explained this as the meaning in the OP. You’re going along with a popular misconception about eros that it’s always sexual. It’s not. You know nothing about Divine Eros. The scriptures I gave teach it. Just because the word isn’t used doesn’t mean it’s not taught in the Bible. We see this in Romans:

it’s a deep intimate relationship with God. You contradict and go against the early church (orthodox) and are outside Christianity. The word Trinity isn’t in the Bible either. But it’s still used by theologians. Just as the words omnipotence, omnipresence, and Omni benevolence are used by theologians but they’re not in the Bible either. Maybe you should write the Christian theologians and the Orthodox church a letter telling them not to use the word eros. As long as they use it I will use it. From the holy Saint and mystic St. Teresa of Avilla

The Grail

They are like shy, young school kids - time and space
before the woman and the man who are intimate with God
The realized soul can play with this universe the way a child can a ball
A chalice - the Grail - my body became, for it held the Christ
and He drank from me
Sanctified are our limbs, for every heart has touched God,
though most with closed eyes.
A holy relic is each creature, and beauty may worry
about it’s comeliness waning
We fear dying till we know the truth of ourselves
The seams on my body are torn
I have stepped from the region of me that did not love all the time
There is a divine world of light with many suns in the sky
I slept with my Lord one night
now all that is luminous I know we conceived

Neither do you. It doesn’t exist.

No, they don’t. If they did, they would use the word.
Rather, the scriptures teach the Divine Agapā.

I just showed it does but you fail to interact with what I say. I pray you will experience this intimacy with God and others.

The definition from Wikipedia says it perfectly:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eros_(concept)

I captured this in my poem called Union:

Union

In union with you upon the cross
As love’s arrow pierces my heart
I die to myself and suffer loss
Then given a new life and start

Buried to my old self I then rise
Vision is now clear as I can see
New self reflects in Your eyes
The person I am and want to be

Looking deeper into Your face
Beauty becomes brighter inside
With no more wrath only grace
In union with You I now confide

God’s arrow pierces the heart deflating the ego and creating a passionate love for Him. God doesn’t force us against our will. No, we come to Christ because we want to. When the falling in love is fully developed we want Christ more than anything. This is the essence of true freedom.

Here’s an example again of how God has an intimate relationship with the predestined*** “Bride of Christ”*** in Romans 8:

God foreknew the Bride that’s predestined. This is an intimate knowing as in a sexual intimacy. The Bible uses the word know for intimate relations. Here’s an example from both old and new Testaments:

The word knew is used to denote sexual intimacy of the relationship. This is the intimate union Christ (the bridegroom) has with the Bride (the predestined Church)

Here’s a article from “Wiktionary” explaining this use of*** “know”***

For those who want to go deeper into the intimate union I recommend “Divine Intimacy” by the Carmelite priest, Father Gabriel of St. Mary of Magdalen, O.C.D. He has acquired a vast knowledge of the ways that lead to holiness and union with God. The ways that lead to union according to the teachings of the Spanish mystics are in the pages of the book. Father Gabriel was an expert on the mystical doctrine of St. Teresa of Avila and St. John of the Cross. Here’s a couple of snippets from the book:

The Power of Divine Eros explains the life force of eros and how it came to refer to sex but isn’t limited to sex. It’s a passion or energy of interaction with or without sex. It purifies and brings aliveness.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRDswaXGtbE

To learn more about Holy Eros here’s a good book on the subject called “Holy Eros: Pathways to a Passionate God”

Evelyn Eaton Whitehead is a developmental psychologist (Ph.D., University of Chicago) whose work focuses on spiritual development in adult life. James D. Whitehead is a theologian (Ph.D., Harvard University) who studies the interplay of religion and culture. In their shared career spanning forty-five years and fifteen books, the Whiteheads continue to explore the vital themes emerging in contemporary Christian spirituality.

A few quotes from the book:

Eros is most often associated with sexual arousal, but essayist Noelle Oxenhandler recognizes it’s presence in the midst of parenting. She describes the overwhelming delight of caring for her baby daughter. “I remember how palpably I experienced her too-muchness. It was a shudder in my body, an energy I had to soften, reign in, lest I squeeze her too hard, startle her with too exuberant a kiss.” She adds, “It is this feeling I want to call the eros of parenthood: an upswelling of tenderness, often with a tinge of amazement” ~~ Holy Eros, Pathways to a Passionate God, page 16 by Whitehead

From the chapter “Eros of Compassion”

Jesus told the story of a wayward son who returned to the father he had sorely wronged. The son’s homecoming took a surprising turn when his father did not respond in anger or withhold his welcome until after he had received an apology. He seemed uninterested in pointing out the error of his son’s ways or in ensuring that he had learned his lesson. Instead, the father rushed out to meet his son, overjoyed at his return. Sensing the boy’s humiliation and despair, his father treated him as an honored guest and planned a great celebration. Jesus tells us this is what God is like. God receives us not as judge but Abba, an extravagantly loving parent who wants our care for one another to show the same abundant concern. The lives of the godly will be marked not so much by the conspicuous good deeds of the righteous as by the humble compassion of those who to the world’s needs. Compassion is an experience of eros. Ordinarily we think of compassion as commiseration, as feeling the suffering of another person, but compassion has a more expansive meaning.

Alvin Plantinga recognizes this in Warranted Christian Belief. Eros can be found in sex but isn’t limited to sex. It’s a passionate longing. A desire for closeness and intimacy with God without sex.

It is a longing filled with desire and yearning…It is erotic, and one of the closest analogues would be with sexual eros. There is a powerful desire for union with God, the oneness Christ refers to in John 17. Another perhaps equally close analogue would be love between parent and small child; and this kind of love too is often employed in scripture as a figure for love of God - both God’s love for us and our love for Him. Here too there is longing, yearning, desire for closeness ~~ Alvin Plantinga

There’s nothing abnormal about being in love with ones little child. You can be in love and not have a sexual desire.

The pathways to Holy Eros as I have described it here are:

1). Eros of hope

2). Eros of suffering

3). Eros of anger

4). Eros of compassion