Eros is immensely powerful. Though often ignored or undermined in Christian practice and ethics, eros love is at the heart of the Bible. Countryman notes that "the Bible begins with sex, which is the one feature of human existence that both creation narratives specifically mention. (Genesis 1 speaks of it in terms of procreation, Genesis 2 in terms of companionship. But they agree that it is intrinsic to our divinely created humanity.) You might also notice that the Bible ends sexually, with the marriage supper of the Lamb (Rev 21)" (23).
The passionate love poetry of "The Song of Songs" was one of the first biblical books to receive a full commentary by Origen. Though often interpreted primarily as an allegory of divine love, "there is nothing in the text itself that limits us to allegory" (25). "This does not therefore make the allegorical reading wrong. But it reminds us that even our allegorical reading is dependent for its power on the ordinary human experience of eros. If we cannot let Song of Songs speak of literal human love, it will lose its power to speak to us of the love of God. Here the Song's real importance to the Holy Scriptures and to Christian faith begins to become apparent. From first to last, the Bible portrays God as passionate" (25).
The divine love is often expressed solely in agapic terms (agape is the love that seeks nothing in return, that wishes only to benefit the one loved). But God's love is not exclusively expressed in agape. God wants something from us - our love in return.
Furthermore, Christian love should not be reduced to agape. "Even if such a love is conceivable in God, it is not in human beings. We are finite, not infinite. We have to be fed if we are to feed others. We rightly long for our love to be returned because that is how human beings transcend our individual isolation and come into communion with one another. This does not mean that we never give simply and without thought of return. Nor does it mean that we grasp at the love of others; indeed, such grasping destroys the very possibility of genuine love. But it does mean that we are not made to live forever in the state of pure, unrequited giving" (52-53).
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