During the many years that I have been teaching philosophy, I have discovered a special blessing. I am not referring to the axiom that if you become a teacher by your students, you will be taught, though I have found that axiom to be profoundly true. I am referring to the opportunity that, in challenging students to read great books, I am blessed to have the opportunity to read or re-read some great books. One gem that I strongly recommend to all readers of this column is Viktor Frankl’s “Man’s Search for Meaning.”
That is probably one of the finest books I have ever read. Frankl’s book is divided into two sections. The first section is about his experiences as a prisoner in Nazi Concentration Camps during the Second World War. Whenever I read that section of the book, I almost cannot believe how the Nazis treated Jewish prisoners in those camps. Somehow Hitler must have convinced the Nazis that Jewish people were not human.
Therefore, they could be treated inhumanely. Whenever I re-read the first section of Frankl’s book, I experience the same shock reading about how human beings could treat other human beings the way the Nazis in the concentration camps treated Jewish prisoners.
I have my students read both sections of Frankl’s book, but it is the second section that I want the students to study because it contains really marvelous insights into the mystery of the human person. The following quotation expresses some of Frankl’s profound insights into love:
“Love is the only way to grasp another human being in the innermost core of his personality. No one can become fully aware of the very essence of another human being unless he loves him. By the spiritual act of love, he is enabled to see the essential traits and features of the beloved person; and even more, he sees that which is potential in him; which is not yet but ought to be actualized. Furthermore, by his love, the loving person enables the beloved person to actualize these potentialities. By making him aware of what he can be and what he should become, he makes these potentialities come true” (pp.113-114).
That is one of the most insightful comments about love I have ever read. It contains some of the most important truths about love. What Frankl is saying, and I agree completely with him, is that the lover, by his love, can create the beloved. The lover does not create the beloved from nothing. Only God can do that. But the lover’s self-gift of love has a unique power to influence the beloved, to liberate the beloved, to help the beloved grow as a person. Mystery of mysteries: the lover can help the beloved become more free. I have come to believe that love is the strongest force in the universe.
Hydrogen bombs can destroy people, but being loved can help a person grow as a person can help a person fulfill basic potentialities. The self-made man does not exist. Each of us is radically needy. To be a person is to be a call to other persons to be loved. This is how God made us. If anyone believes he does not need to be loved, that person is wrong. Every person has a radical need to be loved. Babies who are washed, fed, and clothed but not loved die.
An example may help us understand what Frankl and I are claiming about the power of love creating the beloved. Imagine that I decided to dedicate a month of my life to growing both intellectually and physically. Imagine that during 30 days, I read 10 great books, lift weights, and jog every day. At the end of the month will I have changed?
Of course, I am more knowledgeable because of the 10 books I read, and I am in great physical shape because of the exercise regimen I followed for a month. However, if my close friends love me during that month, I will have the opportunity to grow as a person that no book or exercise can accomplish. I will have the opportunity to grow as a person through the love my close friends offer me.
What being loved makes being do is become more free. I have also come to believe that you cannot teach anyone unless you love them. I came to discover this truth only recently after many years of teaching. This semester, I had the very fulfilling experience of observing students come to understand Frankl’s view of the human person and accept that vision as truth. My hope is that both the students and I will come to incorporate that vision into our day-to-day living.
Father Lauder is a philosophy professor at St. John’s University, Jamaica. His new book, “The Cosmic Love Story: God and Us,” is available on Amazon.com and at Barnes & Noble.
