Love's Eternal "Adieu"

The search for certitude is a search for truth, which is eternal. And so if I only find myself in love, as Augustine and Jean Luc Marion believe, there is an eternal dimension in that discovery. Jean Luc Marion believes that love is comprehensible only if it includes a promise that this moment is for all time. "Le Phenomene Erotique," Eoin Cassidy, in Givenness and God, at p. 211. My identity as a lover is in some way marked by this desire for eternity.

The proper living out of this desire is in fidelity. Marion notes that the "interior logic of erotic love presupposes 'a long and profound fidelity -- nothing less than eternity.'" Ibid. The final horizon of man's existence is thus not death, as Heidegger believed, but a covenant of eternal fidelity.

Marion asks, can this covenant be fulfilled? "By its very nature, Marion argues, erotic love is in constant need of re-creation" which seems to contradict the desire for a durable/visible relationship. Marion first suggests that this need for durability/visibility can be met only by a third person -- an infant who gives witness to this covenant. But even this witness can be lost. So Marion introduces the concept of anticipation: "I am able to fulfill myself as a lover, but only 'because I am able to love at each moment as if it is for eternity' (PE,322), in the light of eternity (sub specie aeternitatis)." Ibid.

Lovers truly love when they love with the eternal in mind, literally to "make this moment last forever." Marion says, "The lovers fulfill their covenant in the adieu - in the passage to God, whom they summon as their last witness, their first witness, the one who never leaves and never lies." God is the "eternally faithful witness to the covenant of love, [who] saves the pledge by rendering it durable and definitely visible." Ibid.

True love's bond, its covenant, is founded in God's eternal, faithful love. We celebrate that in our religious ceremonies of marriage, and try to live it in fidelity to our marriage partners -- each day trying to mirror God's faithfulness in our human dimension.

God's witness to love, his ground and faithfulness of love, also supports our love of friends and even enemies. According to Augustine, ordered love is not exclusive, but inclusive -- a love that generously includes a third. Ibid, 214. That "third" is first God, and then our neighbor:

Blessed are those who love you, O God, and love their friends in you and their enemies for your sake. They alone will never lose those who are dear to them for they love them in one who is never lost, in God.

It is God's love that supports our own, for our spouses, family, friends, and even enemies. This "eternal" faithfulness enables us to be faithful to our loved ones, who are all around us.

Listen to Journey, "Faithfully"

Listen to Glenn Medeiros, "Nothing's Gonna Change My Love For You"

Listen to Engelbert Humperdinck, "Eternally"

Listen to Petula Clark, "Eternally"

Listen to Engelbert Humperdinck, "From Here to Eternity"

Listen to Petula Clark, "I Will Wait For You"