What in another person do we love? His or her qualities, or something ineffable beyond all qualities? Only the latter supports the promise of faithfulness, which is loyalty through all possible changes of qualities. And so only the latter truly is love.The ineffable beyond all qualities is, in a certain sense, an infinite, but it is also unique. It is that infinite uniqueness in another person -- which constitutes that person -- that who we love, if we love. Such is the central content of love: the other person as person. Love recognizes that person. A person is a whole, encompassing and surpassing qualities, parts.
Robert Spaemann comments in his article on love: "Love gives the beloved the possibility to be a person, and to be a person in a unique, non-interchangeable way. It is the eyes of the lover that perceive the uniqueness of the beloved, a uniqueness that is more than the combination of empirical qualities. Nicolas Gomes Davila writes: 'To love someone means to understand the reason that God had to create this person.'
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